In June 2015, citizenM Hotels’ Commercial Director Lennert De Jong was elected to succeed Christian Boerger as chair of the HSMAI Region Europe Revenue Management Board.

De Jong has been working in hotels for more than a decade. He is currently responsible for citizenM’s commercial strategy and transformational topics. He is passionate about developing the hotel distribution landscape and fine-tuning hotel online marketing, demand management and sales. He believes hotels need to work together to create a fair price for the guest and a fair price for themselves.

Since taking on the chair of the HSMAI Region Europe Revenue Management Board he has been involved in two Think Tank conferences, leading discussion and change in the revenue management field.

“The Think Tank conference that we organise each year follows the same pattern,” De Jong said. “The people working in the industry on a daily basis organise the conference. We are not paying for speakers. We are asking for people to come up with a good story and tell it.

“It is hoteliers with the microphone, and it all makes sense. There’s no vendor pitches, no sponsor pitches — it is pure. This is such a fantastic group of people, and to take a more leading role in this, I really feel energised by it.”

A year into his chairmanship, I caught up with De Jong to find out more.

from Pocket
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