Historic Hotels Annual Conference

November 8 – November 12, 2021

 

Monday, November 8, 2021

2:00 – 3:30 p.m.         History Tour of The American Club Resort Hotel (built 1918)

 

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

 8:15 – 11:45 a.m.      Member Refresh, Update, and Briefing for owners and senior leadership as well as hoteliers new to their historic hotel or of hotels newly inducted into Historic Hotels of America. Learn about the latest digital marketing, website, PR, revenue, and strategic partnerships, initiatives and programs and how to maximize your many benefits from your historic hotel’s membership in Historic Hotels of America.

 1:00 – 7:00 p.m.        Historic Hotels Annual Conference Hospitality Desk

 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.        History Tour of The American Club Resort Hotel (built 1918)

 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.        Tour and Insights into the Kohler Archives, Angela Miller – Associate Manager – Archives   and Heritage, Kohler Co. (Note:  Advance Reservation Required due to ID requirements)

Location: Bay de Noc

 

2021 HISTORIC HOTELS ANNUAL CONFERENCE BEGINS

Welcome

  6:00 – 8:00 p.m.          Welcome Reception A Taste of Kohler; Hosted by The American Club

                                       Location: Kohler Design Center

Attire: Resort Casual

(Guests are welcome to walk the one block to the Design Center or looping shuttles available from the bell stand of The American Club)

 

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

7:00 – 8:05 a.m.          Breakfast & Tradeshow, Sponsored by Twinings Tea

Location: Great Lakes & Great Bays Foyer

  8:10 a.m.                       General Session, Sponsored by GCommerce

                                     Location: Great Lakes Ballroom

Welcome Larry Horwitz, Executive Vice President, Historic Hotels of America and Historic Hotels Worldwide 

Opening Remarks and Welcome Herbert V. Kohler, Jr. Executive Chairman, Kohler Co.

Board of Advisors Greeting Joseph J. Vezzoso, Chair, Board of Advisors; Vice President Resort Operations and Sales at French Lick Resort/ French Lick & West Baden Springs Hotels

Welcome – Lindsey Ueberroth, CEO, Preferred Hotel Group, Inc.

Welcome and Keynote Speaker The Future of Historic Preservation; Paul Edmondson, President & CEO, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

Paul Edmondson will discuss the current National Trust for Historic Preservation initiatives such as: Where Women Made History: Women’s History Campaign; African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund; and the development of the National Impact Agenda resulting from calls for change in historic preservation practices and policy. He will discuss the National Trust’s new vision for interpretation of historic sites of enslavement, steps toward achieving Racial Equity in Preservation and Equitable Stewardship of Historic Sites, and why Historic Hotels are important.  

Keynote Speaker Make a Difference Turn Satisfied Customers into Loyal Customers, John McHugh, Director of Corporate Communications, Leadership Development, and Training, Kwik Trip, Inc.

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

Celebrating over 50 years of excellent service, Kwik Trip is a family-owned business with more than 750 stores that adds about 40 stores per year and depends on 29,000 co-workers serving guests. Its mission is “To serve our customers and community more effectively than anyone else by treating our customers, co-workers, and suppliers as we, personally, would like to be treated and to make a difference in someone’s life.” John will discuss new ways to create a mission driven culture with compassion and trust that turns satisfied customers into loyal customers. He will discuss new ways to increase job satisfaction, reduce employee turnover, and use your current happy employees as part of a successful recruitment program for new employees and long-term customers.

Sponsors and Exhibitors Introductions Stephanie Calhoun, Director, Member Services & Support, Historic Hotels of America and Historic Hotels Worldwide

9:50 a.m.                   Networking Coffee Break & Tradeshow Sponsored by Corsicana Hospitality

Location: Great Lakes & Great Bays Foyer

10:15 a.m.                      General Session Sponsored by Jonas Chorum

                                    Location: Great Lakes Ballroom

Keynote Speaker Engaging Employees to “Own the Now,” Christine Loose, Vice President of Lodging & Wellness, Kohler Hospitality & Real Estate Group

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

Learn the secrets of how The American Club Resort Hotel has achieved and retained the longest record in the Midwest for earning the Forbes five-star and AAA five-diamond awards. Christine Loose will discuss her “Own the Now” style of management that has led Kohler’s hospitality business to record performance levels in all its three-star to five-star hotels. Christine personally trains associates on the “Own the Now” mission, which empowers her team to address guest needs in the moment, to recover from a complaint, then surprise and delight the guest. 

Keynote Speaker Is Your Hotel Ready With Critical Actions for Cyber or Ransomware Disruption, David Caswell Ph.D., Senior Director, Critical Infrastructure, Microsoft. Colonel    U. S. Air Force (retired) where he was Chair, Engineering Division, Permanent Professor and Head, Department of Computer and Cyber Sciences, United States Air Force Academy

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

Cyber-Readiness and Ransomware Risk Management, Preparation, and Critical Actions for Disruption in the lodging industry:  Learn about the cyber and ransomware threats relevant to your hotel or resort and how to be ready if your hotel is breached. Learn the latest insights about the importance of assessing risk from ransomware and cyber-attacks, how to be ready if your business is disrupted, and how cyber security readiness touches everyone.  

  • Trends in the cyber-security environment and how this impacts the commercial marketplace, particularly focusing on Ransomware
  • What is the broader definition of Cyber and Ransomware?
  • Learn about the importance of assessing risk at your hotel from ransomware and cyber-attacks, how to be ready if your business is disrupted, and how cyber – ransomware security readiness touches everyone and the steps to create your own hotel Cyber-Ransomware Readiness plan
  • Learn about best practices for securing your hotel and your customers, and get resources

Keynote Speaker The Historic Hotels of America STR forecast 2022-2024,
Ali Hoyt, Senior Director of Consulting, STR

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

  • Will RevPAR for historic hotels continue to grow at a compound average annual rate, which is greater than the rate of RevPAR annual growth forecast for the nation’s upper upscale hotels and luxury hotels?  
  • Will annual occupancy levels for hotels that are members of Historic Hotels of America continue above the national average occupancy level through 2021?
  • What other economic surprises should historic hotels consider in their long-term planning?

12:30 p.m.                      Welcome Lunch Sponsored by Coca-Cola®

                                    Location: Wisconsin Room

1:45 – 2:25 p.m.             Academies Select one from Academy #1, #2, #3 or #4  

Academy #1 Google Analytics 4: Your Way Forward in a Cookies-less World,

Chris Jackson, President & Managing Partner, GCommerce

Location: Thunder Bay

Description:

Google has announced the deprecation of the 3rd party cookies, which means digital marketing techniques like retargeting campaigns will soon be obsolete. We'll show you how to adapt to a cookies-less world by making your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) a foundational component of your overall digital marketing strategy. 

These changes take effect in 2022/23; in preparation, savvy properties are using GA4 to generate empirical data now. Join us to understand what's in store with GA4 and how it will benefit your property sooner than later.

Key takeaways:

        • How the digital marketing landscape will change in a cookies-less world
        • What to expect from GA4 versus GA3 / Google Universal?
        • How to leverage GA4 to understand your web visitors and the ROI of your digital marketing strategies
        • How to get started now so your property will be ahead of the curve and competition 

Academy #2 Marketing Reach New Audiences With Limited Marketing Budgets Challenges, Opportunities, Trends, Betsy Froelich – Director – Marketing, Kohler Hospitality & Real Estate

Location: Bay de Noc

Description:

Gain new insights into the challenges, opportunities, and trends ahead in Marketing.  What does the future of social media, digital marketing, and ecommerce look like?

Key Takeaways:

  • Learn affordable ways to reach new audiences and customers over the next two years
  • Learn about new methods that will work with small historic inns to large historic resorts
  • What to prioritize or shift within your marketing budget to reach new customers

Academy #3 Learn New Ways Within Your Own Historic Hotel to Attract “Foodies” that Spend More in Your Hotel and Are Looking to Travel,

Michael Pacovsky – Director of Food & Beverage

Location: Sturgeon Bay

Description:

Learn new ways to attract “foodies” looking to travel, as well as new ways to earn free media exposure. Listen to Michael and Chef Matt talk about culinary trends they are seeing as well as the growth of culinary tourism. Discuss new ways that your hotel, whether small or large, can add additional guest experiences, revenue, and competitive advantages by highlighting your culinary offerings.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to create and promote your own culinary heritage that adds to the guest experience
  • How to use culinary experiences to fill low occupancy periods
  • How are menus and selections adapting to staffing challenges in F&B?
  • The future of buffets in the culinary world

Academy #4 The Elephant in the Hotel: Too Many Open Positions. Moderated by Bill Hendrix, General Manager of Hotel Hershey. Panelists include Krystal King, Human Resources Business Partner at Hershey Resorts

Location: Sister/Ellison Bay

Description:

The biggest challenge continues to be recruitment and filling open positions. Many hotels have curtailed hours, if not days, of on-site restaurants, modified other food and beverage options, and streamlined, if not cut completely, in-room dining. Hotels have an urgent need to fill positions vacated by employees that changed industries during COVID. Management, leadership, and in many cases, owners, are working to help fill in these gaps. When will hotels return to "full" service? Due to safety protocols and the recent variant, hotel employees are still wearing masks, and in many cases, may not be entering guest rooms to provide daily housekeeping service and/or nightly turndown service. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Learn new tactics for filling the many open positions and leave with new ideas for:  tactics developed or refined over the past two years for finding and recruiting employees and retaining current employees
  • Gain additional insights for training new employees, retaining existing employees for leadership roles at your hotel, and recruiting and retaining staff
  • Learn about the future of service-focused orientation and training: new hire initial orientation, reinforcement of training, coaching, and focus on what makes an employee associate succeed in delivering a 4 to 5-star guest experience
  • Learn tips for helping employees to avoid burnout
  • Learn new strategies to enhance recruitment and retention: wage compression, benefits, seasonal/international workforce, and retraining
  • Learn how historic resorts are adapting:  For example, when a hotel resort fee is charged, if a guest is inquiring or demanding, can the guest opt-out of daily housekeeping and receive a resort credit?
  • Learn creative solutions for supplemental staffing programs.

  2:25 – 2:30 p.m.            Switch Academies Transition from Session 1 to Session 2

2:30 – 3:15 p.m.            Academies Select one from Academy #5, #6, #7 or #8

Academy #5 Numbers into Names: Capturing and Humanizing Data for a Seamless Guest Experience – Kris Anderson, (she) Client Sales Consultant, NAVIS Direct Booking Platform

Location: Thunder Bay

Description:

From the moment the guest enters your website to the time the guest departs your historic hotel, collecting and leveraging that guest data properly can make or break the entire guest experience, as well as impact the likelihood of the guest returning to your hotel again or recommending your hotel to others. With so many choices on places to stay, is your historic hotel or resort properly utilizing data to capture, convert, and retain loyal guests?

Key Takeaways:

  • Strategies for capturing actionable guest data
  • Insights on how to turn data in to personalized touchpoints
  • Examples of how to leverage guest data to boost conversion and guest experience

Academy #6 Wellness Trends in Hospitality and Insights into Creating Your Own Wellness Program – Moderator – Kya Diehl – Wellness Sales Executive, Kohler Hospitality & Real Estate

Nikki Miller, Director, Kohler Waters Spa and Ashley Kohler, Associate Director – Wellness for Destination Kohler

Location: Sturgeon Bay

Description

Wellness experiences continue to be a primary area of guest interest and allocation of their leisure dollars. Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen increased desire in experiences that foster human touch and connection – both lacking in our now everyday worlds. Learn from Director of Kohler Waters Spa, Nikki Miller and Associate Wellness Director, Ashley Kohler, as they discuss ways you can infuse wellness in every day guest stays and the importance of wellness elements to our travelers.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to foster a sense of community within wellness
  • Learn about the continued rise in popularity of holistic offerings
  • How to add wellness value adds at a luxury level
  • Learn the latest trends in the spa and wellness industry

Academy #7 Data Security:  It’s Not Just Credit Cards.  PCI to PII – Nathan Bradley, Information Security Manager – French Lick Resort 

Description:  We will look at some of the notable and less notable data breaches in the past few years. How can these events help guide your company in securing not only payment card data but your guest data that you collect, store, and transmit?  PCI Compliance: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards designed to ensure that ALL companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.  PII Definition: Personal Identifiable Information – PII is defined as any representation of information that permits the identity of an individual to whom the information applies to be reasonably inferred by either direct or indirect means. Further, PII is any information: (i) that directly identifies an individual (e.g., name, address, social security number or other identifying number or code, telephone number, email address, etc.) or (ii) by which a hotel intends to identify specific individuals in conjunction with other data elements, i.e., permitting the physical or online contacting of a specific individual. This information can be maintained in either paper, electronic or other media platforms.

Key Takeaways:

  • Understanding the data that you collect, transmit and store
  • How people, processes, and technology help achieve security
  • Data security is a business process

Academy #8 Tour and Insights into the Kohler Archives, Angela Miller – Associate Manager – Archives and Heritage, Kohler Co (Note:  Advance Reservation Required due to ID requirements)

Location: Bay de Noc

  3:15 – 4:15 p.m.         Networking Coffee Break & Tradeshow

Location: Great Lakes & Great Bays Foyer

  5:45 p.m.                      Shuttles begin for offsite dinner

                                    Location: Bell Stand at The American Club

  6:00 – 9:00 p.m.           Off-Site Dinner

Location: Blackwolf Run Clubhouse

Attire: Resort Casual

 8:30 – 9:00 p.m.            Shuttle transfers back to The American Club

 

Thursday, November 11

  7:00 – 8:15 a.m.           Breakfast & Tradeshow, Sponsor – Beacon Design

Location: Great Lakes & Great Bays Foyer

  8:15 a.m.                      General Session, Sponsor – Enseo

Location: Great Lakes Ballroom

Welcome Larry Horwitz, Executive Vice President, Historic Hotels of America and Historic Hotels Worldwide 

Keynote SpeakerBelieving in Better Laura Kohler, Senior Vice President – Human Resources, Stewardship and Sustainability, Kohler Co.

                                       Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

Learn more about Kohler’s Believing in Better philosophy and how their team of 35,000+ associates deliver impact through their focus on Better Planet, Better Communities, and Better Lives

Keynote Speaker Create Your Own Historic Hotel Blueprint for Beating the Competition, Horst Schulze, Co-founder and former President and COO, The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company. Named the Recipient of the 2021 Historic Hotels of America Legacy of Innovation and Inspiration Award

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

Learn from the author of Excellence Wins how to create your own historic hotel blueprint for outperforming everyone around you. Learn about industry changing and disruptive principles of excellence you can implement now, often with little or no cost, such as the fine art of handling customer complaints (whether made online, in-person, or via social media), and low and no-cost approaches to beating the competition, which may be in someone’s home nearby.  A legend and leader in the hotel world, Horst Schulze's teachings and vision have reshaped the concepts of service and hospitality across industries. It was under his leadership that The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company became the first service-based company to be awarded the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award — twice.

Keynote Speaker Urgency for the AHLA to Win More Federal, State, and Local Tax Support for Hotels, Chip Rogers, President and CEO, American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA)

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

  • Which priorities have become more urgent for the AHLA in winning more federal, state, and local tax support for hotels?
  • What you can do to be more effective locally with your elected representatives
  • Why it is urgent to speak up in your local community and to your elected representatives
  • Learn what you can do to convince elected representatives that have never made a payroll to support legislation that helps the Hospitality and Tourism industries

10:10 – 10:35 a.m.         Networking Coffee Break & Tradeshow, Sponsor – Guest Services Worldwide                                           

Location: Great Lakes & Great Bays Foyer

10:35 a.m.                      General Session

Keynote Speaker, Reimagining Your Hotel in the Post-Pandemic Future,

Vik Krishnan, Partner, aviation, travel, hospitality, and aerospace sector, McKinsey & Company

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

  • How the hotel sector, owners, operators, brands, and others, has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic
  • What might the customer experience of the future look like?
  • How should owners respond to future priorities and trends?
  • How the new shifts in service and service levels will continue to evolve
  • Increasing challenges to recruitment, retention, and training
  • The challenge to maintain your hotel’s long developed service culture and reputation
  • McKinsey & Company’s forecast for permanent changes in travel, evolving changes in guest expectations, the impact of rapidly changing guest technology (from reservations to payments), what hotels must do now as what the customer wanted two years ago may not be what the customer wants now

Keynote Speaker, Reimagine and Leverage Your Hotel’s History in the Digital AgeBrigadier General Ty Seidule (U.S. Army Retired), Chamberlain Fellow and Visiting Professor of History, Hamilton College in Clinton, New York; Professor Emeritus of History and former head of the Department of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Named the Recipient of the 2021 Historic Hotels of America Historian of the Year Award

Keynote Talk Key Takeaways:

  • How to reimagine and leverage your hotel’s history in the digital age 
  • Why leaders of historic hotels must reexamine what the hotel commemorates or celebrates within the hotel and within its marketing versus what should be remembered 
  • Identify the correlation and potential conflicts between commemoration and personal values of your guests and how your guests may not perceive positively a photo on the wall or a menu from the past if it confronts the guests’ personal values 
  • Why your wall of historic photos, display of historic memorabilia, or names on suites and meeting rooms must be reviewed to minimize confronting the personal values of the guests you want to please and return again and again
  • Why historians and communities must reexamine our nation’s past and question what has been considered factual history previously

12:20 p.m.                     Historic Milestones & Celebrations Lunch, Sponsored by Standard Textile

                                   Location: Wisconsin Room

1:30 p.m.                       General Session

Location: Great Lakes Ballroom

General Managers Panel What We Are Doing Differently for the Foreseeable Future, How We Are Recruiting Employees, and Another Continued Two Years of Pivoting,

Moderator – Justin Gephart – Director of Sales, Kohler Hospitality & Real Estate

Panelists:

Bart van Deventer – General Manager, Riverbend

Shawn Dortman – General Manager, Lodge Kohler

Dee Patel – Managing Director, The Hermitage Hotel

Joe Vezzoso – Vice President Resort Operations and Sales at French Lick Resort

Justin Genzlinger – CEO/Owner, Settlers Hospitality

Ruben Cambero Sedano – General Manager, The American Club & Inn on Woodlake

David Tamulevich – General Manager, Portland Regency Hotel & Spa

Description:

What we have needed to do the past two years we never learned in hotel school.  The business we are in today has changed, and, potentially, these changes will be around for a few years. Here is your chance to ask your peers for insights and advice on what they are doing in their three-, four-, and five-star hotels and what they expect to continue or change in 2022.

2:25 p.m.                        Academies Select one from Academy #9, #10, or #11

Academy #9 Preparing for Digital Marketing Success in the Future Privacy Focused Internet, Jack Catton, Digital Marketing Solutions Consultant, Sabre Hospitality Solutions

 Location: Bay de Noc

Description:

Data privacy is the hot trend on the internet in 2021. Top tech entities, including Facebook, Apple, and Google, are all making major updates to their data privacy policies. This has already had a significant impact on direct channel digital marketing effectiveness, and we anticipate even greater impacts in the next two years. Attendees will gain a better understanding on what the data privacy changes mean, how they are impactful to a digital marketing strategy, and what a hotel should consider ensuring success in the future.

Key Takeaways:

  • Facebook and Apple 2021 data privacy changes
  • Google’s scheduled 2023 data privacy changes
  • The future importance of first party data and private label booking engines
  • Facebook/ Instagram conversion optimization impacts
  • The added importance of controlling your brand keywords on Google

Academy #10 Tell Your Story. Engage Your Guests. Preserve Your Legacy,

Dan Rael, Co-Founder, CatalogIt

 Location: Thunder Bay

                                                      Description: 

Your hotel holds a wealth of rich history, historic objects, artifacts, and the stories of where, when, how, and by whom each object was made; what it was used for; and how it came to be where it is today. These stories engage your guests and showcase your uniqueness. Capture the intricate web of detail that surrounds and relates the objects in your collection; document the full scope of data associated with your items, from their materials, dates, and provenance to their historic and ethnographic contexts; publish it to the web, and share it with your guests and others to enjoy.  Proper documentation is the foundation of capturing your story, preserving your history, publishing, and sharing via the web, as well as protecting and insuring in case of theft, loss, or natural disaster. In this session, we’ll introduce you to CatalogIt which was built just for this.

                                                      Key Takeaways:

  • Utilizing your collection of memorabilia and historic items to engage visitors
  • Enhancing your insurance documentation for use in case of loss or damage
  • Showcasing the stories that make your hotel and its collections unique and special
  • Empowering your team to access and manage your collections collaboratively 
  • Making your collections easily discoverable and searchable via the web so your guests increase their emotional connection to your hotel before arrival

Academy #11 Data Security:  It’s Not Just Credit Cards.  PCI to PII,

Nathan Bradley, Information Security Manager, French Lick Resort 

Description:  We will look at some of the notable and less notable data breaches in the past few years. How can these events help guide your company in securing not only payment card data but your guest data that you collect, store, and transmit?  PCI Compliance: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards designed to ensure that ALL companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.  PII Definition: Personal Identifiable Information – PII is defined as any representation of information that permits the identity of an individual to whom the information applies to be reasonably inferred by either direct or indirect means. Further, PII is any information: (i) that directly identifies an individual (e.g., name, address, social security number or other identifying number or code, telephone number, email address, etc.) or (ii) by which a hotel intends to identify specific individuals in conjunction with other data elements, i.e., permitting the physical or online contacting of a specific individual. This information can be maintained in either paper, electronic or other media platforms.

Key Takeaways:

  • Understanding the data that you collect, transmit and store
  • How people, processes, and technology help achieve security
  • Data security is a business process

  3:05 p.m.            Switch Academies Transition from Session 1 to Session 2

  3:15 p.m.            Academies Select one from Academy # 12 #13, #14, or #15

Academy #12 The Elephant in the Hotel: Too Many Open Positions. Moderated by Bill Hendrix, General Manager of Hotel Hershey. Panelists include Krystal King, Human Resources Business Partner at Hershey Resorts

Location: Sturgeon Bay

Description:

The biggest challenge continues to be recruitment and filling open positions. Many hotels have curtailed hours, if not days, of on-site restaurants, modified other food and beverage options, and streamlined, if not cut completely, in-room dining. Hotels have an urgent need to fill positions vacated by employees that changed industries during COVID. Management, leadership, and in many cases, owners, are working to help fill in these gaps. When will hotels return to "full" service? Due to safety protocols and the recent variant, hotel employees are still wearing masks, and in many cases, may not be entering guest rooms to provide daily housekeeping service and/or nightly turndown service. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Learn new tactics for filling the many open positions and leave with new ideas for:  tactics developed or refined over the past two years for finding and recruiting employees and retaining current employees 
  • Gain additional insights for training new employees, retaining existing employees for leadership roles at your hotel, recruiting and retaining staff
  • Learn about the future of service-focused orientation and training: new hire initial orientation, reinforcement of training, coaching, and focus on what makes an employee associate succeed in delivering a 4 to 5-star guest experience
  • Learn tips for helping employees to avoid burnout
  • Learn new strategies to enhance recruitment and retention: wage compression, benefits, seasonal/international workforce, and retraining
  • Learn how historic resorts are adapting: For example, when a hotel resort fee is charged, if a guest is inquiring or demanding, can the guest opt-out of daily housekeeping and receive a resort credit?
  • Learn creative solutions for supplemental staffing programs

Academy #13 New Resources and Programs from Historic Hotels of America and Historic Hotels Worldwide, Matt Coletti, Katie Orr, Tara Lano, Will Steele

Location: Sister/Ellison Bay

Description:

Is your 2022 marketing budget stretched? Historic Hotels of America and Historic Hotels      Worldwide offer many opt-in marketing campaigns and media programs that will gain extra exposure for your hotel throughout the year, often at no additional cost. This overview will introduce you to the resources and opportunities available to you through the year from your historic hotel’s membership including historic hotels website and digital marketing, email campaigns, promotions with partner organizations, revenue enhancement, content published for media use, special savings from alliance partners, and full connectivity solutions.

Key Takeaways:

  • Best Practices for achieving stellar media exposure from your Milestone Celebrations
  • Reach the media through the Top 25 Lists published by Historic Hotels of America
  • Expand the reach of your social media
  • Document your culinary recipes and traditions

Academy #14 Reservation Makers: Keeping Your Brand Voice Alive in the Reservations Process, Kris Anderson, (she) Client Sales Consultant, NAVIS Direct Booking Platform

Location: Sturgeon Bay

Description:

Looking to leverage the advantages of your historic hotel against the competition and transform order-takers into reservation-markers while keeping your brand voice and history at the forefront? In this session, we’ll dive into the reservation sales strategies that work to turn lookers into bookers and cover coaching strategies that’ll help your agents maintain your brand voice and perform.

Key Takeaways:

  • Reservation sales strategies to transform your team to reservation-makers
  • Coaching tactics that boost agent performance and conversion
  • How to bring your brand history into the conversation

Academy #15 Tour and Insights into the Kohler Archives, Angela Miller – Associate Manager – Archives and Heritage, Kohler Co. (Note:  Advance Reservation Required due to ID requirements)

Location: Bay de Noc

  6:00 p.m.                     Closing Reception

Location: Great Lakes Foyer

  7:00 p.m.                     2021 Historic Hotels Annual Awards of Excellence Ceremony and Gala Dinner, Sponsored by Hershey Foodservice and Molton Brown

Location: Great Lakes Ballroom

Attire: Festive Cocktail

Friday, November 12

Departures at Leisure