8.50am - 5.10pm DAY ONE - Wednesday 1st October

9.00 - 10.30 Session 1

Maintain Revenues and Set the Right Prices During in the Face of Economic Slowdown

• With less disposable income and the continuing credit crunch, what else is the revenue manager to do to stop the bleeding and stimulate demand, if not to cut rates?
• In the face of an impending recession, hear best practices for managing revenue in a down market and avoid rate erosion over the long term
• What are the dangers of chasing demand by lowering your prices?
• Considering the success of Ryanair and Southwest, are we to assume that the low-price model is the ultimate solution for the airline business? Will the low-cost models ultimately fare better?
• How does opaque pricing allow you to tap into the price sensitive market and generate true incremental demand? How does opaque pricing act as a segmentation vehicle?
• Examine the price-elasticity of your customers and propose alternative products

• Jay Hubbs, Director of Revenue Management, Expedia Partner Services Group
• Chris Anderson, Assistant Professor, Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration
• Kristi White, Director of Revenue Strategy, Travelclick
• Ben Druce, Director of Revenue and Pricing, WestJet

10.30 - 11.00 Networking Coffee Break

11.00 - 12.30 Session 2

Align Distribution With Revenue Management

• How are distribution channels shifting and what impact does this have on revenue management? Where should you focus your time and resources?
• How should you integrate revenue management and distribution?
• Should your revenue management rules vary depending on your distribution channel?
• See how to measure your performance across various channels and streamline your processes to effectively implement revenue management
• How do you manage all your channels and where they get their data from?
• Identify the marketing opportunities for each channel, like GDS ad placements and 3rd Party Enhancements, to increase your hotel´s sort order and market promotions
• Get a better understanding of how much each reservation costs your hotel e.g. GDS fee, commissions, brand reservation fee

• Dr. Bill Brunger, Internal Consultant, Continental Airlines, (SVP Network, Continental Airlines, retired)
• Chinmai Sharma, VP Revenue Management, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts
• Chris Bishop, Senior Director of RM Consulting and Training, Harrah's Entertainment
• Kurien Jacob, SVP RM and Distribution, Highgate Hotels

12.30 - 1.30 Roundtable Lunch Break

1.30 - 3.00 Session 3

The Role of Revenue Managers Within Travel Organizations

• How do you persuade your organization to put RM at the core of all business decisions order to achieve maximum revenue?
• Which RM organizational structures work and why? Should sales and marketing report to RM?
• Resolve the ongoing battle between your marketing department and RM and ensure your marketing promotions alignment with RM decisions
• What combination of skills makes a good revenue manager?
• Has web 2.0 made a revenue managers life more difficult?
• Where should you look to recruit talented revenue managers?
• How do you stop Reservations Managers making rate changes at their own discretion?
• How can you show the results of your RM efforts to senior management and convince them to give RM the respect it deserves?

• Susan Cary, Director of Revenue Management, Alaska Airlines
• Melissa Skluzacek, Director of Revenue Management, Midwest Airlines
• Elizabeth Churchill, VP Sales and Marketing, Aqua Hotels and Resorts

3.00 - 3.30 Networking Coffee Break

3.30 - 4.10 Presentation

Spotlight on Revenue Management for Small and Independent Hotels

• How do you managing prices across various channels to ensure that you intermediaries don´t undercut you?
• How should a revenue manager divide their time when resources are stretched? What should you be focusing on?
• Is a best rate guarantee on your website the best way to encourage direct sales and greater rate control?
• Get advice from hotels who have built basic RM tools from scratch
• How do you overcome the challenges that small and independent hotels present?
• Is a manual system always out-dated?

• Kate Varini, Senior Lecturer - Oxford Brookes University & Founder betterrevenue.com

4.10 - 4.40 Presentation

Spotlight on Revenue Management Techniques for Groups and Meeting Space

• How can you apply revenue management techniques to groups and meeting space to generate more profits?
• How do you price for large groups and conventions? Hear the latest group pricing models
• How do you evaluate in advance which conference/event will yield the most revenue?
• How do you measure the performance of an event? Occupancy or revenue per individual?
• How can you optimize revenue through group pricing and length-of-stay patterns?

• Kim Nugent, Corporate Director of Revenue Management, Benchmark Hospitality

4.40 - 5.10 Presentation

Spotlight on Condo and Time-Share Revenue Management

• How does Condo Revenue Management vary from a traditional hotel? What do you need to know to keep our individual owners content?
• Who is staying in condos, are they different to hotel guests? How does their length of stay and booking patterns compare?
• What is the difference in terms of contract and operational needs?
• What is the difference between condo hotels and condo owners?
• Condo owners often don´t understand why you are selling your condo for different prices. How do get the owner to have confidence that the rate decisions you make are in the best interest of the property?

• Tim Coleman, Principal, The Coleman Company

5.10 - 7.30 Networking Cocktail Party

8.00am - 3.10pm DAY TWO - Thursday 2nd October

8:00 - 8:50

Cornell University Breakfast - Open to All

Q&A Breakfast with Chris K. Anderson, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, Cornell University

Cornell´s Office of Executive Education invites attendees of Eye for Travel´s Revenue Management conference to a Q&A breakfast with Chris Anderson, Ph.D. Chris is an assistant professor at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, and will be speaking on Wednesday. The Thursday breakfast will allow for more in-depth discussion surrounding revenue management within the hospitality industry. Specific questions may be submitted ahead of time via email to Amy Boardman: adb237@cornell.edu

9.00 - 9.10 amModerators Introduction

• Warren Lieberman, President, Veritec Solutions

9.10 - 10.40 Session 4

Maximize Your Revenue Through Accurate Forecasting

• For the airline industry a 10% improvement in accuracy can contribute a 3% increase in revenue. Learn how to create a forecast mentality throughout your organization
• Which periods of time should you use for forecasting? How do you divide time and provide a good basis for forecasting?
• How should you forecast in a time of economic instability?
• What is the best forecasting model? Historical models? Advanced models? Combined models? What are the pros and cons of each?
• How can you adapt forecasting models in a period of rapid market change, when historical data is insufficient? Or do you need a new model entirely?
• Are guests so predictable that their buying patterns can be pinpointed and predictions made about what they will do? What about the human element?
• Improve your forecasting to take into account the effect of pricing on purchasing behavior
• Understand the difference between constrained and unconstrained forecasting. How can unconstrained demand forecasting help you optimize revenue? What role can your RM system play in forecasting demand?

• Rick Zeni, VP Revenue Management, JetBlue Airways
• Jim Rozell, Senior Director Revenue Optimization, Carlson Hotels Group

• Michael Bentley, Director, Analytics and Modeling, Global Revenue Management, InterContinental Hotels Group

10.40 - 11.10 Networking Coffee Break

11.10 - 11.40 Keynote Presentation

Impacts of Changing Fare Structures on Airline RM Systems

• How have simplified and less restricted fares affected the ability of airline RM systems to maximize revenue?
• To what extent do the current shortcomings of RM systems contribute to lower yields, higher loads factors, and overall lower airline revenues?
• What are airlines and RM system developers doing to modify forecasting and optimization models in an effort to reclaim revenues lost to fare simplification and reduced demand segmentation?
• Learn about the latest research into new RM methods designed to estimate passenger willingness to pay and optimize revenues in today's less restricted airline pricing environment.

• Dr. Peter Belobaba, Principal Research Scientist, MIT International Center for Air Transportation

11.40 - 12.10 Keynote Presentation

Integrate Profit Optimization and Revenue Management

• See why a lack of Profit Optimization understanding, coupled with internal politics, often prevents the unlocking of this huge revenue source - How can you overcome the challenges to unleash the power of a coherent profit optimization strategy?
• How do you quantify, analyze and strategically implement a profit optimization strategy?
• How do you applying a centrally coordinated profit optimization strategy to numerous areas? How much will it increase profits? Should you invest in a profit optimization system?
• The cost of every sale, the same booking in different channels has different profitability. What channels deliver the best profit?
• Should you stop accepting GDS reservations because they are less profitable? Or close down 3rd party channels?
• How can you use XML across all your systems and get your revenue management system to automatically close the channel?

• Neil Salerno, CHME, CHA, Consultant & Author, Hotel Marketing Coach

12.10 - 1.10 Roundtable Lunch Break

1.10 - 1.40pm Session 5

Revenue Management´s Next Frontier

What will the benefits be when Revenue Management is integrated with customer intelligence lifecycles, marketing automation, distribution/demand management? How will this effect pricing and will it increase profits? Will it help to have one place to go to see if all of these separate demand generating areas are in alignment? What are the benefits to automating the exchange of data between each solution and to have a user interface that allows users to look in one interface to see what actions each solution is taking on a specific date?

• Steve Pinchuk, VP Profit Optimization SAS Institute

1.40 - 3.00 Session 6

Actively Pursue a Consumer-Centric Revenue Management Strategy To Boost Revenue

• Hear how to segment your customers into distinct buying groups, demonstrating different booking behaviors, then find out how to track their traits to predict future behavior
• How do you monitor changes to various customer segments and detect downturns? Learn how to set prices your according to your customers´ willingness to pay
• Discover your competitors have boosted sales by sending targeted messages to certain segments in specific channels at specific times
• Casino customers may be willing to be segmented when they can see they immediate benefit, but how do you segment other groups of travelers who are less willing?
• How are the airlines classifying the needs of customer and providing them with a variety of purchasing choices? What impact can this have on revenue management?
• Unearth the psychology of how and when different groups buy and hold out for a more profitable reservation
• Examine the lifetime value of the customer and take a humanistic approach to revenue management

• Juston Parker, President, Parker Hospitality Group

• Stowe Shoemaker, Associate Dean of Research, University of Houston

• Dan Kowalewski, VP Revenue Strategy and Services, Wyndham Hotel Group

• Steve Pinchuk, VP Profit Optimization, SAS Institute (panel)

3.00 - 3.30 Networking Coffee Break