Advertise on podcast: Hotel Moment

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 connected through APIs, and emphasizing real-time data's critical importance, privacy as front-page news, and unified guest engagement platforms replacing stitched-together systems.

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.