“The TOP 20 EXTRAORDINARY MINDS IN SALES MARKETING & TECHNOLOGY across Europe” were appointed during a festive event in London Wednesday 10 February 2016 in which also Best in Class winners were named in several categories.
“The 2015 Top 20 laureates are judged for their recent work based on the following criteria: creativity and innovation cutting edge sales marketing revenue and technology campaigns achievement in challenging situations and sales efforts resulting in significant gains by a panel of senior executives. We are deeply impressed by and proud to presents this year’s winners” says Ingunn Hofseth President & CEO of HSMAI Region Europe.
Winners were named in fiveæcategories (please scroll down for the complete list of winners as well as the shortlisted entries).
The Radisson Blu Portman Hotelæserved as scene for HSMAI Region Europe’s 6th Annual Revenue Optimisation Conference as well as the awards ceremony taking place in the evening charecterised by entertainment and high spirits with world-class keynote speakers earlier on.
The attendants were treated to an exquisite mix of food drinks and entertainment.
“The TOP 20 EXTRAORDINARY MINDS IN SALES MARKETING & TECHNOLOGY across Europe”
Peter O’Connor
Dean of Academic Programs ESSEC Business School
Hedwig Wassing
Owner annacom
Nikhil Gupta
Director of Hotels and Car Hire Skyscanner
Stephen Williams
Director Group Sales & Marketing Windward M
Rufino Perez Ferníçndez
Chief Commercial Officer NH Hotels
Daniel Skjeldam
Group CEO Hurtigruten
Marco Nussbaum
Co-Founder & CEO prizeotel – THE Budget Design Hotels
Michael Simon
General Manager – Distribution EMEA & ASPAC Marriott
Margitte Verkruijsse
Vice President Business Development Snapshot GmbH
Michael Toedt
Managing Partner CEO Toedt Dr. Selk & Coll. GmbH
Hans Meyer
Co Founder & Managing Director Zoku
Christina Purnell
Director Global eCommerce & Digital Services – Europe Marriott
Anabelle Beets
Director of Revenue Management Kempinski Hotels
Edward St.Onge
President Global Sales and Marketing Flip.to
Carmen Duecker
Deputy Managing Director Best Western Central Europe GmbH
Christoph Hoffmann
CEO 25 hours Hotel
Etienne Faisandier
VP Revenue Management & Business Intelligence Mí_venpick Hotels & Resorts
Margaret Ady
Vice President Marketing TrustYou
Mark Lewsey
Director of Marketing ME London Hotel
Wietse Bijzeit
Commercial Director Corendon Hotels & Resorts
For more details with pictures please see our video presentation.
The Best in Class winners
The Digital Winner
Gold: Red Carnation Hotel Collection
Honourable mention: Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
Honourable mention: Ve Interactive / The Gresham
Honourable mention: Marriott
Honourable mention: Star Tour
The jury says:
In 2014 The Red Carnation Hotel Marketing Team took over the digital marketing strategy for Ashford Castle and faced the challenge of an underperforming website and an overall
immature digital strategy. To put it mildly. The objective was to implement a comprehensive multi channel digital strategy to increase reach engagement and conversion for Ashford Castle while repositioning Ashford as one of the leading resort hotels in
the world. Goals:
‘¢ Designbuild launch and optimise a fully responsive website
‘¢ Build a multi channel and multi media content strategy
‘¢ Redefine the search engine marketing strategy
‘¢ Drive a consistent PR message
The outcome has been astonishing. The addition of a fully responsiveæbooking engine to the website ensured a seamless customer journey throughout.
Social media played a huge role in telling ‘Öthe story’ of Ashford. Referrals to the website via Facebook for example grew by 82%. Overall traffic 2015 vs. 2014 grew byæ+39% and Mobile traffic increased 163%. Need we say more about the winner in this category?
Shortlisted in this category:
Marriott
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
Shopping Minds
Ve Interactive / The Gresham
Red Carnation Hotel Collection
Windward Management
TripAdvisor
UpMail
EmProDI
Voyat Inc
Star Tour
Social Media
Gold: SAIL Event Partners C.V.
Honourable mention: Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
The jury says:
Sail Amsterdam is one of the largest maritime manifestations in the world. In 2015 over 8000 ships participated in the event attracting 2.3 million visitors in 5 days. Goal foræ2015: to become the biggest Social Media Event in the Netherlands. Challenge: to overcome 5 years of technology/social media development with limited funds.
Staggering Results: #1 and biggest social media event ever(!) in the Netherlands. Trending topicæin Netherlands during the whole event. Worldwide(!) the most tweeted subject on twitter (80.000 tweets) resulting in 210 million impressions and 16.000 followers on Twitter
(in 5 days) More than 34.000 photo’s wereæposted on Instagram by the public and on Facebook the event received 38.852 likes reaching about 5.8 million people.
Public Relations
Gold: Magdas Hotel
The jury says:
When refugees are granted asylum they are legally allowed to work however due to different reasons they often still have difficulties to find a job. At the same time there is a lack of qualified personnel in the tourism industry. In order to tackle both issues magdas developed a concept for a social business hotel run by refugees and experienced staff.
How? By turning disadvantages into advantages! For example:
– They had an old house and little budget. So they upcycled many things and made new design furniture out of it.
– They had no marketing budget so they made people talk about them and started a crowdfunding campaign.
– They had no money for furniture so the asked people to help build it and donate it.
Did it work? You bet! Worldwide media coverage (including CNN BBC Die Zeit Radio Tokyo) with over hundred articles TV and radio features online blogs etc. etc. Over 21.000 guests that at Magdas since the opening in Feb.2015 and over 1.000 people visited their hotel to informed themselves about the project.
Best in Class Technology – Revenue Management
Gold: Accor Hotels Germany
The jury says:
In order to strengthen the bookings via their own AccorHotels.com and brand websites Accor created the ‘ìOnly On’ A web direct offer defined on a customer perspective: concise succinct and to-the-point.
According to the motto ‘ìthe best trip starts with the best price’ due to ‘ìOnly On’ Accors clients can save up to 10% extra discount exclusively on its websites. The campaign is turning out very succesful as despite some additional discount on the whole existing pricing the ‘ìOnly On’ strategy has resulted in a net positive revenue outcome with among others:
‘¢ A volume growth on Accorhotels.com of +18 pts in September 2015 whereas OTAS were slowing down
‘¢ An Optimized Rate Mix: 55% standard offers (e.g. Rack Rate)
‘¢ A Volume effect of : +12pts
‘¢ A Price effect of: +6pts
while during the first two waves (lasting about 6 weeks) Accor Germany generated more than 130 Million ad impressions via the display campaign in Germany and Austria.
Best in Class Technology – Innovation Award
Gold: CheckMate
Honourable Mention: Shopping Minds
The Jury says:
Many hotels have tried their own apps to enable messaging but the difficulty of finding downloading and remembering to use an app means that few guests use these tools. Meanwhile aggregator apps like Kayak and TripAdvisor are commonplace while hotels’ apps suffer from limited usage.
Checkmate’s goal: To create a tool for hotels and their guests that enables them to communicate more effectively among eachother! By addressessing every stage of the guest’s journey (from pre-arrival to post check-out) Checkmate provides the opportunity for
– Mobile Check In even before they leave home if they want
– Two-way messaging making it it easy for guests and hotels to communicate to eachother. For example: Guests no longer need to wait on hold to request room service or ask for towels. Instead they can fire off an SMS to make these requests.
– Real-time Feedback Loops – Rather than waiting for a post-stay survey or TripAdvisor review to discover an issue
Does it work?
‘¢ 71.2% of guests opt in to SMS communication during mobile check in.
‘¢ Over 40000 guests texted with their hotel at some point during the customer journey.
‘¢ More than 1.2M messages have been exchanged.
‘¢ 16.7% of guests use real time feedback tools to alert staff to their experience.
‘¢ 84457 guests have completed Checkmate’s in-stay feedback survey providing unprecedented real-time transparency into guest satisfaction.
So yes it works! as it helps the hotel to create a more personalized & very effective service that guests will remember.
Shortlisted in this category:
Shopping Minds
CheckMate
UpMail
Booking.com
NH Hotel Group
Meetingsbooker
Voyat Inc
Photo: An handful of ‘ÖThe Top 20 Extraordinary Minds In Sales Marketing & Technology across Europe’ laureates on stage at London’s Radisson Blu Portman Hotel Wednesday 10 February 2016. Photographer: Thor Hí«kon Ulstad
