By Sylvia Kolk, Project Manager, HSMAI Region Europe

By Frank Fiskers

He will share his thoughts about leadership and Winning your customers with your culture! Frank Fiskers has held leadership roles in the hotel industry for 25 years across multiple countries throughout Europe and Africa, and has held a number of top executive positions in reputable hotel corporations such as Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group and Hilton Hotels Worldwide. For more than seven years he was the President and CEO of Scandic Hotels and led Scandic to world-wide recognition and multiple awards for its outstanding work within sustainability. Scandic Hotels almost doubled from 130 to 280 hotels under his leadership. Frank left Scandic Hotels 1 July 2017 and he is now on the Scandic’s Board of Directors.

Including Q & A

Can empathy survive technology? 

By Eric O’Halleran, Executive coach, HSMAI Region Europe.

In an era where conferences are often run via satellite, when travel agencies are closing at an alarming rate and whole categories of front line staff are being replaced by computers, the value of human contact has grown with it’s rarity. This makes your service culture more important than ever before. AI does not yet do empathy or kindness or care; only your people can deliver that. What is your strategy to ensure that your people will have the greatest impact?

This session will look at stories of surprising successes and epic failures in the pursuit of marrying technology and service to deliver world-class customer service. Social media strategy, contact points, CRM and service recovery will live or die by the way your team deliver them. Our customers expect us to use technology, but we only exceed their expectations when we match technology with very human qualities; kindness, teamwork, humour and empathy.

Eric O’Halleran has over 30 years of experience in the travel industry. He believes that business success requires the best technology used by people who are the heart of their companies. He has worked with British Airways and other organisations to develop company cultures where people are motivated by a common purpose and a shared understanding, feel engaged and collaborate effectively to win for their customers.

By Amanda Elder – Chief Commercial Officer, Kempinski Hotels

Amanda has a long and successful history in hospitality sales and marketing around the globe at leading companies such as Starwood, Marriott, and FHRI. At Kempinski she is responsible for all commercial areas for this noted global luxury hotel company, including marketing, branding, revenue, sales, PR, digital, distribution, and loyalty. In her short tenure at Kempinski, she has been recognized as a key part of the executive team and is the first woman to join the Kempinski Hotels management board.

Earlier this year Amanda was recognised by HSMAI Region Europe for being one of the ‘Top 20 Extraordinary minds and contributors of the industry’s Commercial & Revenue Optimization Leaders’.

Learn more about how London is promoting the city for events and corporate buyers

By Tracy Halliwell – Director of Tourism, Conventions & Major events, London & Partners

The changing skills and competences of future commercial leaders

By David Sparrow, Managing Director, DS Sales Solutions and member of HSMAI Region Europe Sales Advisory Board

The HSMAI Day UK will continue the debate from the HSMAI Region Europe Leadership Day about how both the customers and sales channels are changing and that it requires different competence of future executives and employees. It also requires a completely different interaction across disciplines and that we work less in “silos” within key areas that HSMAI has its focus:

• Revenue Management
• Marketing
• Sales
• Distribution
• Culture & People
• Innovation

After the presentation there will be a discussion and you will meet the following:

1. Building a revenue management culture – or managing a revenue building culture?

For a hotel to deliver a revenue management strategy requires coordinated activity across a number of departments and roles. Common wisdom supports the need to build a revenue management culture in the organisation, but delivery of the strategy is often undermined by the differing departmental expectations and conflicts.

Is this a bad thing? How can the lack of status quo be turned to your advantage?

Michael Talbot, Sales Director Infor Hospitality UKI

2. How to fine-tune Revenue Management Strategy to impact reputation, repeat business & results

In today’s typical hotel IT eco-system, a seemingly endless quantity of accessible demand and market intelligence data is now available to help commercial hotel teams deploy more informed and effective strategies. It’s also helping foster an environment of clarity for hoteliers, bridging the gap between marketing ROI and sales retention efforts, ideally leading to more coherent business strategy.

How can revenue management take a lead in harnessing all this data, to not just assemble and coordinate it all amongst cross-functional departments, but to fully optimise it in the decision-making process?

Neil Corr, Head of Advisory services EMEA, IDeaS

(one session)

3. Company culture + Guest experience = Winners of tomorrow

To make a difference to the value of your brand: 50% of consumer product investments are being redirected towards customer experience innovations.

Could our ‘touch points’ work harder to create more ‘above and beyond’ experiences?

How ready are we to make AND deliver service pledges to our guests?

This is what HSMAI’s Region Europe’s Service Pledge initiative is about- join the session on how to engage teams in strengthening the value of your brand.

Mia Touzin Leffler Education Adviser, HSMAI Region Europe

We will end this productive day by handing out the HSMAI & Customer Alliance Guest Experience Award in co-operation with the German company Customer Alliance. The award is based on customer satisfaction data and reviews from different portals, such as TripAdvisor, booking.com, Hotels.com, Google, Facebook and more.