Hotel Moment

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer, Revinate sits down with Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate. Together, they analyze how hotel technology has shifted from basic CRM contact records to identity resolution inside a CDP, and now into real-time data activation. Dylan explains why relying on OTAs for repeat bookings cuts into property margins, while Karen outlines how Revinate Pathways and Revinate Chat combine PMS data, booking history, and AI messaging to deliver contextually relevant guest communication across every stage of the stay.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Mickey Stout, Director of Marketing at Claremont Resort & Club, to mark the podcast's 200th episode. Drawing on over 20 years of marketing and operations experience, Mickey explains how the historic property turned former taboo ghost stories into an annual commercial engine. She outlines how a single media familiarization trip generated a 200-person waitlist, how CRM profiles turn seasonal tour visitors into repeat guests across 276 rooms and four restaurants, and how veteran staff help surface authentic, bookable history.

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, sits down with Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of TripTease, to explore what data quality really means in an AI-driven hospitality landscape. With over twelve years building technology at the intersection of behavioral psychology and the direct booking channel, Charlie argues that clean, unified data is not just an advantage, it is the difference between outstanding decisions and consistently wrong ones. From guest persona strategy to vendor API lock-in, Charlie reveals why the hotels that invest in data infrastructure today will be the ones positioned to thrive as AI reshapes the booking journey.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, we bring you another AI-generated conversation examining what hotel leaders should consider before replacing reservation teams with voice AI. Using findings from Revinate’s 2026 Secret Shopped Call Report, the discussion looks at why overloaded front desks struggle to convert callers, where automation genuinely improves efficiency, and why hotels need better visibility into their voice channel before making major staffing decisions. It also explores a less obvious consequence of automation: as AI absorbs routine inquiries, the human reservation role may become significantly more complex.

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Sarah Stephens, Room Reservations Manager at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs — the world's largest and longest-running Forbes Five-Star hotel. With 14 years of managing a 13-15 person reservations team, Sarah shares how the voice channel creates unforgettable guest experiences through personal connections. From surprising guests with Doritos and handwritten notes to generating nearly $1 million in outbound call revenue over three months, Sarah reveals how luxury hospitality thrives on listening, training, and human-to-human connections that technology can enhance but never replace.

In this webinar episode of Hotel Moment, Brent Sanders, Sr. Customer Education Specialist at Revinate, sits down with Colton Bean, Director of Reservations at Suncadia Resort, to unpack Revinate's Secret Shopper Call Report, which analyzed 308 calls to 135 luxury properties. The findings are stark: 92% of unbooked calls collected zero contact details, and 56.6% skipped discovery questions entirely. Colton shares how Suncadia trains agents to ask the right questions, secure bookings before guests hang up, and use call recordings to coach a fully remote team. Their message: technology should support the conversation, never replace it.

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Sky Mitchell, Founder and CEO of Basecamp Resorts. From getting fired and using a car loan to buy her first piece of land to building a $600 million hospitality empire, Sky shares her remarkable journey of entrepreneurship. Listen as she discusses her approach to staffing, the development of her new Everwild Nordic spa concept, sustainability initiatives, and her candid advice for aspiring entrepreneurs to succeed in the modern hospitality landscape.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, we bring you a special AI-generated conversation dissecting the 2026 secret shopped call report. Based on 308 secret-shopper calls placed across 135 luxury and upscale properties, the discussion explores why 92.2% of calls fail to capture guest contact details and why staff ask zero discovery questions over half the time. It examines how lobby check-in chaos forces front desk teams into triage, why evening voicemail loops destroy paid ad spend, and how semantic AI call scoring restores accountability across hotel voice channels. Download the secret shopped call report here

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Andrew Shepherd, General Manager of Resorts at The Malcolm Hotel. Drawing on more than 25 years leading luxury hotels, resorts, and casinos, Andrew shares how proactive service transforms initial arrival moments into lasting loyalty. He explains why digital channels shape first impressions long before check-in, how front desk agents read body language when exhausted families arrive, and why logging details like a guest's favorite dessert turns software into real human connection. Andrew also breaks down how building 154 employee housing units in Canmore sustains service standards during industry labor shortages.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens talks with Ami Alexander, Managing Partner at Barrel Aged Management. Drawing on two decades of experience with brands like Hakkasan Group, Sydell Group, and Virgin Hotels, Ami breaks down how guest expectations shifted from standard corporate consistency to local, intentional storytelling. She explains why developers must underwrite F&B concepts early to avoid forcing operations into poorly planned kitchens. Ami also outlines what allows concepts to scale without compromising design, and how tailored management support helps hotel teams deliver authentic experiences.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Lindsey Ueberroth, CEO of Preferred Travel Group, home to Preferred Hotels & Resorts, the world's largest independent hotel brand with over 625 hotels in 80 countries. Lindsey shares her unconventional path from change management consulting into hospitality, the key findings from Preferred's Luxury Travel Report on heritage travel and hyper-personalization, and why she believes "beigification," the sameness across branded hotels, is losing out to authentic, independent experiences. She also explains why AI visibility, not just adoption, is the single biggest opportunity independent hotels have this year.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director, EMEA, Revinate, sits down with Lily Wecker, CEO of Aethos, a next-generation hospitality brand built on experiential luxury and meaningful connection. With leadership experience at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Lily shares how a personal health scare reshaped her definition of luxury, from material ownership to internal validation, and why Aethos designs its properties for "high emotional density" instead of privacy. From the brand's emotion-first marketing philosophy to its new London restaurant Mitsu, Lily makes the case that the future of luxury hospitality is connection, not seclusion.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, we're bringing back one of our favorite conversations where Karen Stephens engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Bashar Wali, founder and CEO of Practice Hospitality and This Assembly. Bashar, with over three decades of experience in hospitality, shares his passion for creating memorable hotel experiences that transcend the ordinary. He discusses how hotels can balance technology and human connection, why points aren't true loyalty, and how the industry should look outside itself for innovation. With candid insights and practical examples, Bashar challenges hoteliers to focus on making emotional connections with guests rather than chasing trends.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Lydia Bates, Director of Sales and Marketing at Dream Inn Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz's only exclusive beachfront hotel. Lydia explains why independent lifestyle hotels win on storytelling rather than transaction, how Dream Inn's on-site reservations team begins curating the guest experience from the very first call, and how targeted email campaigns convert OTA visitors into loyal repeat guests. She also shares how Dream Inn fights seasonality with creative campaigns like "Ride Out the Storm" and leverages sister property partnerships through Ensemble Hospitality to build cross-property guest loyalty.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Chris Anderson, Professor at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, who has spent more than two decades studying how pricing, distribution, and revenue management shape global hospitality. Chris explains why pricing guests differently based on willingness to pay is heading for legal prohibition, why AI will shift customization from price to offer set, and why being in the AI consideration set is already harder to earn than a first-page Google ranking. His central argument: hotels that are still waiting for AI to settle before acting are already behind.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, host Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, sits down with Dina Niekamp, SVP of Brand and Marketing at Aparium Hotel Group, a lifestyle hospitality company known for building hotels that feel deeply rooted in the neighborhoods around them. Dina explains why emotional connection, not just amenities, has become the new standard for luxury travel, and why she believes AI will never replace the most important skill in hospitality: reading the room. Dina shares the story behind Aparium's "As Told By" campaign, which puts local collaborators and small business owners at the center of each property's marketing, and breaks down the philosophy of "translocal" spaces, where a business traveler and a neighborhood local can feel equally at home at the bar. She also introduces Aparium's "fifth meatball" mindset, a simple internal philosophy that empowers every team member to create small, unscripted moments of delight. With eight hotels currently operating across cities like Seattle, Fargo,…

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Jeff Michael, Area Director of Revenue Management at Sage Hospitality Group, who brings more than 25 years of hospitality experience spanning operations and commercial leadership. Jeff explains why the explosion of hotel data has created a new kind of paralysis, why "commercial alignment" so often fails when departments chase different incentives, and how AI is finally turning guest lifetime value into a metric hotels can actually use. His core message: stop drowning your team in reports, tie every department back to one profitability goal, and let AI take on the analyst work so revenue managers can think like strategists again.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, CMO at Revinate sits down with Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, to unpack the most consequential shift in hotel distribution in years: the rise of AI-powered booking discovery. With insights from leaders at Starwood Hotels, Highgate, and Twilio woven in, Karen and Dylan trace the arc from Google's Universal Commerce Protocol announcement to the not-so-distant future of agent-to-agent vacation planning. Their message is direct: properties that invest in clean data, direct booking infrastructure, and first-party data strategy now will be positioned to compete before everyone else starts scrambling.

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Wilhelm Luxem, head of quality commission at Swiss Deluxe Hotels and former GM of the iconic Baur Au Lac hotel. With 50 years in luxury hospitality, Wilhelm shares his philosophy on technology adoption in five-star hotels, emphasizing that tech should always complement service DNA while staying in the background. From his experience with a seven-generation family-owned hotel to his insights on evolving guest expectations, Wilhelm offers valuable perspectives on maintaining luxury standards while embracing innovation.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate, sits down with Jarrett Tomback, Vice President of Digital Strategy and CRM at Starwood Hotels, for a conversation that moves from rethinking loyalty to the most urgent distribution question in hospitality: how do hotels win direct bookings in a world where AI search models give guests three to five recommendations instead of pages of links? Across 1 Hotels, Baccarat Hotels and Resorts, and Treehouse Hotels, Jarrett has built guest engagement strategies grounded in purpose, clean data, and a human-first AI approach that keeps the brand at the center of every interaction.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, sits down with Robert-Jan Woltering, Managing Director of De L'Europe Amsterdam, to make a case the luxury hotel industry needs to hear more often: cutting costs is easy, but it is the wrong strategy. With more than 30 years across five continents and a 130-year-old Amsterdam landmark celebrating three Michelin keys under his leadership, Robert-Jan shares why top-line revenue maximization, authentic guest experience, and entrepreneurial ownership thinking are the only levers that actually build a luxury hotel's long-term position.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens welcomes back Aaron Miller, Senior Vice President of Digital Marketing and CRM at Highgate, for a grounded conversation on AI's real role in hospitality. Drawing on more than 20 years across brands like The Venetian Resort Las Vegas, Trump Hotels, and Turning Stone Enterprises, Aaron explains why the direct booking renaissance depends on hotel-owned content, why guests still want a curated website over a chat window, and how Highgate is pivoting its FIFA World Cup demand strategy from inbound international travel to local markets, staycations, and packaged offers.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate, and Bailey Yeats, Marketing Manager at Revinate, recap NAVIGATE 2026, the annual Revinate customer conference held this year at the Wigwam in Phoenix. Featuring clips from CEO Bryson Koehler, Suncadia's Colton Bean, Pyramid Global's Abby Waski, Cote Hospitality's Angelo Fernandes, and Noble House's Jennifer Barnhart, the episode moves from the opening question that set the tone: 75% of the room had used ChatGPT to book travel in the last six months, through the AI strategies, product roadmap reveals, and customer perspectives that defined a conference where hoteliers arrived anxious about artificial intelligence and left with a plan.

In this webinar episode of Hotel Moment, Bailey Yeats, Marketing Manager at Revinate, sits down with Amanda Wasco Brown, Director of Revenue at Old Edwards Hospitality Group, for the final session of the 2026 Benchmark Report Leadership Series, focused entirely on the voice channel. Amanda has spent eight of her 14 years at Old Edwards embedded in reservations, managing a team of seven agents who handle rooms, dining, spa, and golf across four hotels and three golf courses. Together, she and Bailey translate the benchmark data into a practical voice channel playbook: inbound call volume for staffing, conversion rates as a coaching diagnostic, non-booked lead spikes as a revenue intelligence tool, and outbound calls generating $1,164 in incremental revenue per room annually.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, host Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, welcomes back Adam Mogelonsky, Partner at Hotel Mogel Consulting Ltd, to discuss preparing for FIFA World Cup 2026, which will bring 72% ADR premiums to 16 host cities. Adam shares how pandemic-era refundable policies created lead time volatility making labor forecasting difficult despite increased service expectations at premium rates. He explains the science of balancing non-refundable versus refundable rates through data harmonization that associates guest sentiment with rate plans. The conversation covers packaging strategies that balance operational delivery against OTA channel friction while leveraging fenced offers for direct bookings. Adam reveals how the voice channel is the most data-rich but least harmonized, with call recording and speech-to-text building FAQ content for AI search while capturing non-booker leads for callbacks. He introduces the story-driven guest concept, which transcends luxury definitions to encompass…

In this webinar episode of Hotel Moment, Bailey Yeats, Marketing Manager at Revinate, sits down with Gitti Hernández, Digital Marketing Manager at Casa de Campo, one of the Caribbean's most iconic luxury resorts to unpack what the 2026 Revinate Hospitality Benchmark Report reveals about database health, and what Casa de Campo's decade of data work looks like in practice. From a pre-arrival itinerary program that lifted guest satisfaction scores by 40%, to merged guest profiles that made a targeted Ultra VIP anniversary segment possible, Gitti demonstrates that the real value of a clean database is not storage, it is what you can finally do once the data is reliable.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, sits down with Tomas Bäcklund, Chief Marketing Officer at Elite Hotels of Sweden, for a wide-ranging conversation on the most overlooked revenue strategy in hospitality: brand. Tomas arrived in the hotel industry from a creative agency background and has spent five years making the case that as costs rise and margins compress, the hotels that can charge more — without guests feeling overcharged — are the ones that have invested in brand strength. Under his leadership, Elite Hotels has grown its direct website booking share by nearly ten percent. His framework is simple and backed by data: strengthen brand, fix your website, and think beyond the five percent of guests who are ready to book today.

In this webinar episode of Hotel Moment, Bailey Yeats, Marketing Manager at Revinate, sits down with Christine Malfair, Fractional CMO for Independent Hotels at Malfair Marketing, to translate the 2026 Revinate Hospitality Benchmark Report's email findings into actionable strategy. With 2.8 billion emails analyzed globally in 2025, the data is unambiguous: cart abandonment campaigns hit 63% open rates and 6.8% conversion, targeted segments under 5,000 recipients convert at ten times the rate of mass blasts, and confirmation emails are generating $93 per booking in upsell revenue. Christine's fifteen years working with independent hotels, including a decade as a hotel GM, give every benchmark number a practical context that marketing teams can act on immediately.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, sits down with Diego Calvo, CEO and Co-Founder of Concept Hotel Group, to explore what it really takes to build a hotel brand with genuine cultural soul. Diego has spent 25 years in hospitality and founded a group of nine distinctive brands on the island of Ibiza, where he grew up — achieving 35 to 43% direct bookings not through marketing spend but through brand identity so compelling that guests search properties by name. From a conceptual briefing process that begins with music playlists and lobby photography before a single architect is involved, to a loyalty programme that values room nights over revenue, Diego shares the philosophy and the detail-obsessed discipline behind one of Europe's most distinctive independent hotel groups.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate, welcomes back Evan Crawford, Vice President of Marketing at Pyramid Global Hospitality, for a wide-ranging conversation on guest data strategy, AI adoption, and the marketing habits that actually move revenue. Evan makes the case that mass outreach without segmentation is a shrinking asset. From connecting OpenTable reviews to hotel CRM profiles, to his grounded take that Revinate emails still outperform ChatGPT as a last-click revenue source, Evan brings the operational credibility of someone managing data at scale across a major hospitality portfolio.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate, sits down with Chris Koehler, Chief Marketing Officer at Twilio, for a candid conversation on what personalization in hospitality actually requires — and what is still getting in the way. With over 25 years across marketing, customer success, and product leadership, Chris arrives not just as a technology executive but as a frequent luxury traveler with high expectations and very specific preferences. From Twilio's State of Customer Engagement data showing only 45% of consumers agree brands deliver good engagement, to a hotel still asking a ten-time guest if he has ever stayed before, Chris reveals why the personalization gap is a data activation problem — and how AI is about to change every part of the equation.

The 2026 Revinate Hospitality Benchmark Report is live, and this episode brings the headline numbers to life. Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, and Bailey Yeats, Marketing Manager at Revinate, walk through channel-level findings drawn from 2.8 billion emails, 4.3 million phone calls, 22 million text messages, and 28 million guest reviews analyzed globally in 2025. From cold lead emails converting at 6.5% to outbound voice generating $1,164 per room annually, the data makes one thing clear: the hotels winning in 2026 are the ones communicating with intent and building the database health to back it up.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, sits down with Charlie Osmond, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of TripTease, to explore what data quality really means in an AI-driven hospitality landscape. With over twelve years building technology at the intersection of behavioral psychology and the direct booking channel, Charlie argues that clean, unified data is not just an advantage, it is the difference between outstanding decisions and consistently wrong ones. From guest persona strategy to vendor API lock-in, Charlie reveals why the hotels that invest in data infrastructure today will be the ones positioned to thrive as AI reshapes the booking journey.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, host Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, welcomes back Agnelo Fernandes, CEO of Cote Hospitality, to discuss Revinate's 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report findings for the voice channel. With only 16-34% of inbound calls being actual reservations, Agnelo shares how Cote treats voice as premium inventory requiring protection through CDP connection and call triaging into revenue versus service categories. He describes two-layer staffing separating highly trained revenue closers from service support staff, unified guest data's paramount importance transforming calls from negotiations into booking experiences, only 56% of profiles containing phone numbers representing missed opportunity, and AI's structural fix role by filtering service calls to give sales protected capacity with CDP data preventing information fishing while handling FAQs for booking confirmations and housekeeping requests. Read Revinate’s 2026 Benchmark Report here: Revinate.com/hospitality-benchmark-report/

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, we’re revisiting Bryson Koehler, CEO of Revinate, conversation with Matthijs Welle, CEO of Mews, to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of hotel data security. Matthijs shares insights on how cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their tactics, and why education is the hotel industry's strongest defense against data breaches. From phishing attempts to AdWord exploitation, they explore practical strategies for protecting guest data and the importance of building a security-focused culture within hotel operations. This conversation offers valuable guidance for hoteliers looking to strengthen their security practices while maximizing the benefits of their technology stack.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, host Karen Stephens welcomes Rachel Humphrey, Co-founder of the Women in Hospitality Leadership Alliance and co-host of the award-winning Personal Stories podcast. Rachel's unconventional journey from 20-year trial lawyer to hospitality executive at AAHOA reveals how fear, curiosity, and imposter syndrome became unexpected career accelerators. Discover why no two paths to hospitality leadership look the same, how the Personal Stories podcast creates access to industry leaders, and why the Women in Hospitality speaker directory with nearly 2,000 women is transforming representation on conference stages.

In this latest episode of Hotel Moment, Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate announces Revinate's 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report — 11 years of industry-leading data from over 12,500 properties. Discover why hotels lost $488 in incremental revenue per room despite 34% database growth, how APAC outperformed with 24% email revenue increases, and why 84% of messaging goes invisible. This comprehensive analysis of 2 billion emails, 28 million reviews, and 22 million messages reveals how database health and strategic execution separate hotel superheroes from those with underutilized technology.

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Aradhana Khowala, CEO of Aptamind Partners, a visionary leader in regenerative tourism development. With over two decades of experience across five continents, Aradhana challenges traditional tourism models and explores how the industry can evolve beyond sustainability to become regenerative. From her insights on AI-driven travel innovation to navigating geopolitical challenges, Aradhana offers a bold perspective on the future of hospitality and the urgent need for systemic change in how the industry operates.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, teams up with Nick Ellis, Country Director Oceania & Indonesia and Enterprise Director SE Asia, Revinate, to translate the five major 2026 trends into what actually works for Australia's unique hospitality market. Because Australia isn't a copy-paste market with global best practices, it's one of the world's most aspirational destinations with some of the planet's highest labor costs and unusual hotel mix. The conversation covers how Australia's commercially savvy hoteliers use personalization not for fancy subject lines but for driving direct bookings and on-property spending.. Nick shares his GM experience where every guest handed staff tiny jigsaw puzzle pieces of preferences, but no one had the complete picture — emphasizing the sweet spot of using data before arrival and during stay to create memorable moments. Dylan and Nick discuss Customer Data Platforms as practical Aussie solutions — providing one clean guest profile…

In this strategic episode, Dylan Cole, Managing Director EMEA at Revinate, debuts as co-host, and applies regional context to the five major 2026 hospitality trends. While hyperpersonalization, unified tech stacks, real-time decisioning, cybersecurity and privacy, and guest engagement platforms matter globally, Dylan demonstrates how UK and Ireland hoteliers use personalization to defend margins against OTA dominance, DACH guests demand clear consent without creepiness, Northern Europe expects zero tolerance for generic communication, and Southern Europe leverages personalization for in-stay revenue. He reveals that operations teams drive tech unification over IT departments, real-time data priorities vary from survival to precision to value capture, and privacy functions as a brand promise rather than compliance checkbox across European regions.

In this recast episode, Hotel Moment co-hosts Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer at Revinate, and Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, preview the five critical trends that will shape hospitality in 2026. Drawing from guest conversations throughout 2025, they explore how hyper-personalization is evolving from data collection to activation, why unified tech stacks with CDPs as anchors are replacing legacy system patchworks, and how real-time decisioning enables dynamic responses to weather, events, and occupancy patterns. They also address escalating cybersecurity concerns and the evolution of guest communication platforms into orchestration hubs that create seamless experiences across the entire guest journey.

In this special New Year's Eve episode, Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, celebrates Hotel Moment reaching over 500,000 listeners by revisiting the year's most memorable conversations. She highlights Jeff Wielgopolan from Meadowood Napa Valley defining luxury as "the ability to not have to think," Sky McLean from Basecamp Resorts describing her unconventional path from two Airbnbs to a $600 million empire, Ben Campbell from Hospitality America sharing crisis management during Hurricane Helene when hotels operated without water for three weeks, and Agnelo Fernandes from Cote Hospitality explaining why culture came before revenue in his strategic priorities. The compilation demonstrates that hospitality excellence comes from bold leadership decisions centered on people.

In this special holiday episode, Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, revisits the most memorable moments from Hotel Moment's episodes in 2025. She highlights both entertaining and insightful clips, from Bashar Wali's bold take that "points are bribery, not loyalty" to Sky McLean's wild origin story of financing her first hotel with a BMW loan. On the technology side, she features Matthijs Welle on cybersecurity threats, Dimple Jethani on master data management, Dana Cariss on transaction-level personalization, and Georgine Muntz on using PMS technology to combat human trafficking. The episode demonstrates how great hospitality balances human connection with intelligent technology.

In this latest episode of Hotel Moment, Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, unifies six direct booking strategies into one connected holiday playbook. She synthesizes insights from Hotel Moment guests including Renee Murrieta from Show.Tell. on duplication and inclusion for personalized campaigns where 70% of travelers expect tailored communication, Ellis Connolly from Laasie explaining how transactional and emotional loyalty blend together, and Jason Wells from Revinate describing French Lick Resorts' approach where reservation agents capture guest interests early for precision follow-up. The six strategies work as one system: loyalty, segmentation, OTA win back, cart abandonment, lead nurture, and upsells, demonstrating how Brittain Resorts and Hotels generated $63 million in direct revenue using these unified elements.

In this forward-looking episode, Hotel Moment co-hosts Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer at Revinate, and Brenna Turpin, Marketing Coordinator at Revinate, preview the five critical trends that will shape hospitality in 2026. Drawing from guest conversations throughout 2025, they explore how hyper-personalization is evolving from data collection to activation, why unified tech stacks with CDPs as anchors are replacing legacy system patchworks, and how real-time decisioning enables dynamic responses to weather, events, and occupancy patterns. They also address escalating cybersecurity concerns and the evolution of guest communication platforms into orchestration hubs that create seamless experiences across the entire guest journey.

In this latest episode of Hotel Moment, Brenna Turpin reveals your most expensive guest: the one who keeps booking through OTAs. With winback campaigns averaging 41% open rates and $5-6 revenue per email, discover how to redirect OTA bookers to your most profitable channel. Learn from industry leaders about investing in direct booking strategies, explore Voco Belfast's storytelling approach, and get holiday-specific tactics for capturing Christmas and New Year bookings before guests default to OTAs again.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Jordi Solé, president of UMusic Hospitality and Lifestyle, a revolutionary hotel brand backed by Universal Music Group. Since opening in Madrid in September 2023, their first property has hosted over 900 musical events and welcomed 200,000 superfans. Jordi shares how they're redefining hospitality by integrating live music, personalized vinyl experiences, and community partnerships with local artists and music schools. From their "digital twin" technology that curates personalized music selections to their theater hosting Universal Music artists, Jordi reveals how music becomes a storytelling platform that transforms the entire guest experience.

In this special webinar episode, Anisha Yadav, Vice President of Customer & Product Marketing at Revinate, and Melissa McMullin, Product Marketing Manager at Revinate, are joined by Angela Berkley, Senior Director of Reservation Sales and CRM at CoralTree Hospitality, to share proven tactics for maximizing holiday season revenue. Angela reveals how CoralTree segments high-value guests for exclusive early access to cyber sales, implements creative incentive programs that motivate reservation teams, and recently generated six figures through a three-phase postcard campaign targeting loyal repeat guests. The conversation covers industry trends, including the experiential travel shift, food and beverage revenue growth, and practical frameworks for attribute-based upselling and package creation.

In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Geoffrey Toffetti, CEO of Frontline Performance Group, a company serving nearly 3,000 hotels across major brands worldwide. Starting his career as a hotel valet and working through front desk and night audit, Geoffrey brings frontline experience to technology innovation. His platform combines learning management, analytics, and AI-driven coaching to help front desk agents increase upsells while improving service scores. From agents earning $100,000 annually to transforming skeptical veterans into top sellers, Geoffrey proves that investing in frontline performance creates wins for guests, employees, hotels, and owners alike.

What if lead nurturing was about building genuine relationships instead of just sending more emails? In this latest episode of Hotel Moment, Brenna Turpin explores why lead nurturing is more than automated follow-ups, it's the bridge between guest curiosity and direct bookings. With hotels seeing up to 50% higher conversion rates through nurture workflows, discover how human connection, storytelling, and strategic timing convert warm leads. Learn from JC Thompson's insights on emotional connection over scripted sales, The Ranch at Rock Creek's storytelling success, and how Evermore Resort generated 36% of monthly revenue through outbound call nurturing.