HSMAI Awards 2016 – HSMAI Norway

Europe’s Top 20 Extraordinary Contributors to the Industry in Sales, Marketing and Revenue Management were named during HSMAI Region Europe’s awards ceremony in Amsterdam on Wednesday 29 March 2017, in which Best in Class winners were also named in several categories.

«The hospitality and travel industry requires creative thinkers and innovators. The HSMAI Region Europe Top 20 honours these top achievers in sales, marketing, and revenue optimisation of hospitality, travel and tourism organisations for their accomplishments. The people nominated for this list have also made incredible contributions to the industry as a whole, not just the companies they are representing,» says HSMAI Region Europe President and CEO Ingunn Hofseth.

The RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre served as scene for HSMAI Region Europe’s 7th Annual Revenue Optimisation Conference, as well as the Digital and Distribution Optimisation Conference and the awards ceremony, taking place in the evening, characterised by entertainment and high spirits, with world-class keynote speakers presenting earlier during the day.

Please see photo gallery at bottom of page.

HSMAI Top 20 2016

Thomas Adler, VP Global Revenue Strategy, Melia Hotels International
Richard Biggs, Sr. Vice President – Rev Ops & Distribution, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
Dirk Bremer, President, Travel Industry Club
Adriaan Coppens, CEO and Founder, OTA Insight
Steven Dow, VP Revenue Management Europe, Diamond Resorts International
Helena Egan, Global Director of Industry Relations, TripAdvisor
Martin Gahn, CEO and Founder, Top Gain Quality Coaching
Erik-Jan Ginjaar, Managing Director, Postillion Hotels
Chevy Kelly, Managing Director, Deckchair
Paul van Meerendonk, Director Global Advisory Services, IDeaS
Jon Murphy, Director of Revenue, Kaleidoscope Collection
Nina Nieminen, Director of Revenue Management, SOK Ltd
Perra Petterson, Owner, Benchmarking Alliance
Hans Poortvliet, Managing Director, HSMAI Nederland
Stan van Roij, VP Hospitality Solutions, Infor
Joanna Schröder, VP Revenue Management, Deutsche Hospitality
Terri Scriven, Industry Head, Hospitality, Google UK
Rich Tuckwell, Global VP of Sales and Marketing, Avvio
Rajesh Vohra, Director, Sarova Hotels/Hedna
Carl Weldon, COO Europe, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP)

All presented in this video clip:

The Best in Class Winners

Best Brand Experience in Year 2016: Social Media

Gold: Jaz Hotel GmbH

The jury says:

The winner of this award has a clear focus on social media and it shows! Their Social Wall on their website not only indicates the social media activity of the brand itself, but also that of the users and guests in their hotels. Their equaliser on the website for example shows the users what’s happening in their properties at that very moment by combining factors such as occupancy, users on property page of the website, social activity etc.
The way the video of the grand opening of their Amsterdam property was integrated into a branded player, placed on travel, music and lifestyle blogs, and published on all of their Social channels and promoted on Facebook (with a dedicated budget) resulted that this video by itself has now been viewed over 125,000 times on YouTube and other channels.
It’s obvious that the winner of this year’s Best Brand Experience in Year 2016: Social Media – GOLD Award is on a very succesfull Social Media journey reaching an impressive and fast growing brand awareness. Therefore the winner is Jaz Hotel GmbH.

Exceptional Product/Service Launch of Year 2016

Gold: Diamond Resorts International
Honourable mention: Steigenberger Hotels AG

The jury says:

Introducing new travel products to the general public, as well as showcasing their own properties, had been a strong focus for the last 5 years for this company. To achieve that dream, this year’s winners needed to find a new

thinking strategy

technology focus

and supplier feeds

And they did! Working to a tight deadline, they built the website look and feel, including all content and copy to reflect their ethos within 6 months. And not just that! The 3 platforms they created completed over 500 orders with £ 350,000,- in revenue in just a couple of months.

And the future looks bright, too! In January 2017, this year’s winner officially went live to the world both online and mobile compatible. In the first 24 hours the website received over 5000 hits. And to date: With 0 marketing, and 0 spending behind this project so far, they have generated just under another £350,000.

It’s because of this that the Exceptional Product/Service Launch of Year 2016 GOLD award goes to Diamond Resorts International.

Best Social Responsibility Initiative of Year 2016

Gold: Stichting Hotel California
Honourable mention: Stayokay

The jury says:

The winner of this award aims to establish an innovative, holistic sustainable hospitality concept that makes it easier for migrants (often refugees) to organise a self-supported, independent life in the Netherlands.
They have two goals:

To create a place for migrants within an existing community where they can work, stay and create with people that share similar values. In other words: an environment where ‘Newcomers’ and the existing society are there to help eachother.
To prove that social causes and economically sustainable business concepts can go together.

The concepts they designed together with various partners (including The Hotel school of the Hague) are centred around the vision that ‘One’s hospitality reflects one’s culture’ These concepts have the active support of the Dutch Prime Minister.
It’s because of this that the Gold Award for Best Social Responsibility Initiative of Year 2016 goes to Stichting Hotel California.

Outstanding Achievement in Year 2016 in Revenue Management

Gold: AccorHotels Germany GmbH

The jury says:

The winner in this category realised that most us by now have easily access to all rooms related data, have meaningful analysis and KPI’s to analyse our room performance, are experts in RM for rooms, BUT what about MICE?

And thus decided to go forward and decided to THINK TOTAL!

So they built an impressive and innovative Mice Tracker that provides access to all relevant function space data and creates significant KPI’s and dashboards for analysing their function space performance.

In addition to this they developed a user-friendly tool with automatic daily data transfer of their function space performance and trained their Revenue Managers extensively in order to successfully analyse and optimise their function space revenues. Altogether a textbook example to the jury of how to create and implement a well-designed innovative product. And that is why the Outstanding Achievement 2016 in Revenue Management GOLD Award goes to AccorHotels Germany GmbH.

Nominees-Technology Innovator of the Year 2016

Acomodeo
Deckchair
Emerald Forest Hotel
Hotelchamp
IDeaS – An SAS Company
Shopping Minds

Gold: IDeaS – An SAS Company

The jury says:

Revenue managers and marketers at hotels have struggled to develop cohesive strategies that align both marketing efforts and revenue management strategies to help hotels drive the most profitable business. These departments have often worked in silos and are unable to measure or attribute success of their efforts since one is responsible for driving business and the other for yielding it.

The winning product this year collects and aggregates online shopping data from over 5,000 websites globally that equates to 85 million “looks and books” each day. Totaling in over 40 billion consumer data points enabling hoteliers to access this forward-looking data within the same interface as their revenue management system, i.e. Hotels now have the insight to offer

more personalized promotions to their actual guests

as well as their potential guests(!) that may be shopping their competition

as well as direct their advertising spend on dates, markets and/or consumers that are most likely to book their hotel.

This solution helps hotel marketers to become aware of the greatest revenue opportunity at their hotels as well as where their ROI on advertising spend will deliver the best ROI.

It’s because of this that the Technology Innovator of the Year 2016 GOLD AWARD goes to IDeaS – An SAS Company.

The Service Award 2016 Powered by HSMAI Region Europe

Gold: Prize Holding GmbH

The jury says:

The winner in this category became the first hotel chain in Germany to introduce mobile check-ins using the prizeotel app for iOS and Android, thereby offering guests an all-in-one solution. Thanks to its integrated concept, the app is unrivalled by similar products on the market. What makes it unique is it’s 2-way interface between the app and the hotel system, door locking system and payment processor.

In other words: the guests use their smartphone to open their room and call the lift via a simple Bluetooth connection. All this of course conform the latest safety standards (including transmition by encrypted data), but still able to provide information, such as credit card details and door lock activation.

By 2016, more than 6000 downloads had been confirmed and the average number of monthly bookings made using the app is more than 500 for all three hotels.

It’s because of this that the Gold Customer Service Award goes to Prize Holding GmbH.

Company Culture

Gold: Nordic Choice Hotels

The jury says:

The owner, CEO and several of the top management in this hotel chain travel in their area for one month, in an effort to meet as many employees as possible.

While – and by doing so – they create a meeting place where both management and staff can listen, learn, inspire and be inspired at the same time. And this includes all(!) staff, as they realise that, due to the growth of their company, the distance between the decision makers and the hotels getx bigger. Therefore they make it a priority to personally meet the people who greet their guests every day – such as housekeeping, reception, breakfast staff, janitors and so forth – and tell them how important their efforts are.

In addition to this they make sure that they meet witht heir local suppliers and have press meetings in every destination.

Because of all this and the combination of Staff, Suppliers & Press in one laser focused event (making it not only efficient, but also very effective)the jury recognises the Nordic Choice Hotels with the Gold Award for Company culture.

The jury finds the NCT concept of Nordic Choice Hotels so strong and all-encompassing that it also awarded the Nordic Choice Hotels with the 2016 Gold Award for Communication.

Best Digital Marketing Campaign in Year 2016 in the Travel and Hotel Industry

Honourable mention: Postillion Hotels

The Service Pledge Award 2016

There’s also a main prize, awarded to the organisation demonstrating a particular advancement within several of the above-mentioned criteria over a couple of years, pertaining to how integration of efforts within several fields of operation have contributed to the improvement of the customers’ user experience and the credibility of the Service Pledge.

Gold: Aria Hotel Budapest by Library Hotel Collection

This award will handed out in April.