This is the seventh and final webcast in the Insights and Innovations for Hospitality & Gaming webcast series, which highlights hot topics in the hospitality and gaming industry, including data quality, labor planning, customer loyalty, sustainability, and more.
Join industry executives, thought leaders and academics as they discuss the most important trends, biggest challenges and groundbreaking technologies of the hospitality and gaming industries.
The panel session will feature live, in-studio commentary, as well as interviews of industry practitioners from leading organizations such as Harrah’s, Wyndham Exchange and Rentals, Sonesta, Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group, and others.
Key Topics:
- What issues are keeping industry executives up at night
- What will it take to keep motivating patrons?
- How will the global economy shape the future of gaming and hospitality?
About Panel of Industry Experts
Duane Vinson is Vice President of Smith Travel Research (STR), the leading authority on lodging industry performance trends. STR benchmarks hotel occupancy, rate, and revenue through its STAR program.
Vinson joined STR in 1997 and serves as the head of STR’s Global Lodging Census and Global Pipeline Groups, which overseas the creation and updating of hotel information from the earliest stages of planning through the life of the property. He serves as the President of the Southeast States Chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (SETTRA). Vinson earned a degree in marketing from the University of Louisville.
Cathy Enz, PhD has served as the Executive Director of the school’s Center for Hospitality Research, as well as the Associate Dean for Industry Research and Affairs. Enz conducts numerous strategic management consultations and presentations in North America and around the world, and serves on the board of directors for two privately owned hotel companies.
Prior to her academic activities, she held several industry positions, including Strategy Development Analyst for a large insurance organization and Operations Manager in the dietary food service division of a US health care corporation. Before arriving at Cornell in 1990, Enz received her PhD from the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, and taught at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
James Ruttley is responsible for all aspects of the delivery services that IDeaS provides to its clients, including technical and forecasting support, project management, client training and client management.
Previously, Ruttley served IDeaS as Director of Consultancy Services and also as Director of Process Development. He has been involved in the design and implementation of revenue optimization solutions for virtually all of IDeaS’ clients, with particular emphasis on the integration of systematic revenue optimization into the hotel culture.
He joined IDeaS in 1997 with more than 12 years of experience in the hotel industry, including a variety of senior management roles in major London hotels.
Radhika Kulkarni, PhD has been with SAS for more than 25 years and oversees software development in many areas, including statistics, operations research, econometrics, forecasting and data mining. Her team also provides algorithms for analytical solutions in several diverse application areas, including finance, retail, marketing, hospitality, supply chain and the newly created SAS Center of Excellence.
Kulkarni is a member of the board of directors for IDeaS, a SAS company; an active member in the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS); and serves on the advisory board of the Institute for Advanced Analytics at North Carolina State University.
She has a master’s in mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and a master’s and PhD in operations research from Cornell University.
