Education Sessions

The education during Commercial Strategy Week will prepare attendees to fuel their company’s rebound, elevate their leadership and business acumen (and that of their teams), anticipate and respond to headwinds, and drive profit throughout the customer journey.

You’ll leave with actionable insights and thought-provoking ideas to guide your strategies – all aimed at fueling your company’s recovery.

Attendees receive credit for 8 hours of continuing education for CRME and CHDM certification and re-certification. Additional hours can be earned by participating in certification review courses and Partner Insight Workshops.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Details coming soon!

The Lightning Round: Insights Worth Sharing

It’s an HSMAI tradition: Marketing executives will share their interesting ideas and case studies for driving revenue and profit.

In 6 minutes & 40 seconds, each will share best practices with practical takeaways that you can use to sharpen every-day skills and boost property performance, or strategic insights that broaden your perspective and help you better understand key issues and concepts that impact the strategic and leadership aspects of the marketing discipline.

We’ll get “Lightning Bolts” from:

  • TBA

Awards Celebration
The awards celebration will shine the spotlight on the incredible talent and accomplishments of marketing leaders.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

12 breakout sessions over the course of the day will address the most important issues facing marketing leaders.

Generative AI IRL
Generative AI is all the rage — but how can hospitality industry marketers leverage this powerful capability to generate business results? AI expert Rebecca Clyde brings over 5 years of experience tackling this very issue and will deliver:

  1. An overview of Generative AI and its various applications in marketing
  2. Practical use cases employed by modern hospitality marketers to produce higher conversion, drive membership retention, and reduce the burden on property/location staff
  3. Recommendations for how to avoid pitfalls and keep “bumper rails” on these systems in order to enrich brand experiences, not detract from them.

Commercial Strategy: Titles or Tactics? The 3 Secrets to Defining it for Your Organization
Everyone’s talking about commercial strategy, but what is it really…and how can it improve your results across marketing, sales, and revenue optimization in hotels? Learn from Chief Commercial Officer Lori Kiel — co-chair of HSMAI’s Commercial Excellence Workgroup — on how hotel marketing leaders can impact, and will be impacted by, the industry’s shift toward a “commercial first” approach. You’ll leave understanding:

  • How to successfully develop and lead marketing inside of a commercial strategy team while maintaining lanes and avoiding collisions
  • The opportunities for marketing, sales, and revenue optimization to collaboratively amplify their efforts within the traditional marketing funnel
  • How to align strategic goals across all three disciplines to maximize demand generation activities

COLLABORATE: Strategic Roundtables on Big Marketing Issues
Industry experts and well-known keynoters offer lots of takeaways and insights, but HSMAI also believes that it is important to make time to allow attendees to learn from one another. This portion of the program will spark attendee conversation, engagement, and peer-to-peer learning, taking advantage of the collective brain power at the Marketing Strategy Conference.

With a strategic focus, it will be an open exchange – in small groups – of ideas, experiences, and insights that leverages the talent in the room, and leaves you with new connections and knowledge that you can use to immediately impact your business.

Topics will be announced in June.

The session is organized — and will be hosted by — members of HSMAI’s Rising Marketing Leader Council.

Today’s Social Media: Strategies for Continued Evolution and Growth
As fast as the social media landscape evolves, it can be challenging for hotel marketing leaders to keep up, stay authentic, engage their audiences, and adapt to new features. This session will cover the latest trends when it comes to a variety of platforms — and their users (aka your audience!). We’ll help you understand which tools and platforms will best support your strategies and reach your audience effectively.

Crack the Code: Understanding and Leveraging TikTok
Looking for a deeper understanding of TikTok and how it can be leveraged in your hotel marketing efforts? This interactive, hands-on session will get you up to speed on the platform’s unique features and how they can support your marketing strategy, and teach you to create shareable content. You’ll leave with a deeper understand of the impact TikTok can have on your marketing efforts, and actionable insights and practical tips for creating effective TikTok content based on your target audience.

More details coming soon on these topics and more:

  • Social Media Content Creation with a focus on FB and Instagram
  • Owning Your Brand from A to Z
  • Building Loyalty
  • Maximizing Creative
  • Insights from Google
  • Insights from Meta
  • Using Data to Build Your Marketing Strategy and Measure it’s Impact

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Details coming soon!

Awards Celebration
The awards celebration will shine the spotlight on the incredible talent and accomplishments of revenue optimization leaders.

The “Of the Year” awards are co-presented with Expedia Group.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Breakout sessions over the course of the day will address the most important issues facing revenue leaders.

It’s not Management! Setting the Foundation for True Revenue Strategy
Revenue Strategy is more than revenue management. But to truly make that move, you need the right tools and foundation in place to empower your team to think more strategically. We’ll explore what effective tools look like that improve the team’s efficiency and engender trust in revenue optimization.

Beyond the Rs: Revenue Strategy is More than Rooms Revenue, Rates, and RevPAR
True revenue strategy is about total hotel profitability. If that’s the goal, what are the “new” KPIs if it’s not Rooms Revenue Rates, and RevPAR? We’ll also examine how the role of the revenue manager has changed and what skills are now required to be a true strategist.

COLLABORATE: Strategic Roundtables on Big Revenue Optimization Issues
Industry experts and well-known keynoters offer lots of takeaways and insights, but HSMAI also believes that it is important to make time to allow attendees to learn from one another. This portion of the program will spark attendee conversation, engagement, and peer-to-peer learning, taking advantage of the collective brain power at HSMAI ROC.

With a strategic focus, it will be an open exchange – in small groups – of ideas, experiences, and insights that leverages the talent in the room, and leaves you with new connections and knowledge that you can use to immediately impact your business.

Topics will be announced in June.

The session is organized — and will be hosted by — by members of HSMAI’s Rising Revenue Optimization Leader Council.

More details coming soon on these topics and more:

  • Translating complex analysis into data-driven insights
  • Commercial strategy organizational case studies
  • Tools & resources to support commercial strategy in hotels and hotel companies
  • Commercial insights: data and insights to support your revenue strategies

Monday, June 26 | 12:30 4:30 pm

These half-day workshops review the key components of the Certified Hospitality Digital Marketer (CHDM) certification or Certified Revenue Management Executive (CRME) certification materials, and are a helpful final “cram session” before you take the exam. Participants have the opportunity to take the CHDM or CRME exam on site immediately following the review course if they have submitted their application in advance.

Both courses are the day before the HSMAI Marketing Strategy Conference, and 2 days before HSMAI ROC. Space is limited, and an additional registration fee is required.

CHDM Review Course | 12:30 – 4:30 pm

Learn more about this course — and how to be approved to take the exam on site.

Reserve your seat when you register for either the Marketing Strategy Conference or HSMAI ROC. Or register for just this program.

Facilitated by Holly Zoba, CHDM, Principal, Scout Simply, and past chair of HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board

CRME Review Course | 12:30 – 5:30 pm

Learn more about this course — and how to be approved to take the exam on site.

Reserve your seat when you register for either the Marketing Strategy Conference or HSMAI ROC. Or, register for just this program.

Facilitated by Tim Wiersma, CRME, Principal, Revenue Generation, and past chair of HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Advisory Board

Monday, June 26 | 1:30 – 4:30 pm

Partner Insights Workshops are 55-minute sessions designed to help you make the most of your travel to Toronto. They offer an extra 1/2 day of learning brought to you by HSMAI’s partners. Each session is designed and delivered by the designated sponsoring company.

Reserve your seat when you register for either the Marketing Strategy Conference or HSMAI ROC. Or, register for just this program.

1:30 – 2:25 pm

  1. Details coming soon!
  2. Details coming soon!

2:30 – 3:25 pm

  1. Details coming soon!
  2. Details coming soon!

3:30 4:25 pm 

  1. Details coming soon!
  2. Details coming soon!

Partner Insights Partners