Hotel Moment

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 boutique properties delivering bespoke experiences that attract lookalike audiences.

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.