Editorial Board   Guest Author

Mr. Connolly

Patrick Connolly

Chief Customer Officer, Orange Lake Resorts

Patrick Connolly provides strategic vision and leadership for Orange Lake Resorts' operations, guest services and the company's Holiday Inn Club product, managing its development, growth and delivery to more than 125,000 Club members throughout the world.

In his role, Mr. Connolly also manages inventory and operations for the growing resort portfolio, as well as customer service and product engagement for more than 340,000 owners and Club members.

Mr. Connolly's strategic leadership and initiatives were instrumental in the growth of the company from a single-site timeshare property in 2006 to 28 resort properties located in 14 states today.

In 2009, he also helped to conceptualize and launch the company's first luxury villa product, the Signature Collection, which is has expanded from its launch at Orange Lake Resort in Orlando, FL to ten resorts across the country. His teams have been honored with numerous industry and national hospitality awards for guest service and operations.

Mr. Connolly's career encompasses 30 years in customer service and manufacturing roles, including extensive experience in the mortgage and timeshare industries. For nearly a decade prior to joining Orange Lake Resorts in 2006, he was engaged in the member servicing divisions as Senior Vice President of Membership for RCI® North America, the largest timeshare exchange company in the world, and oversaw many of their relationships with numerous member clubs throughout the industry. He also held previous management positions with PHH Mortgage and General Electric.

Mr. Connolly holds a B.S. from Notre Dame University and an Executive M.B.A from the University of South Florida.

Please visit http://corporate.orangelake.com for more information.

Mr. Connolly can be contacted at +1 4073956876 or pconnolly@holidayinnclub.com

Coming up in February 2020...

Social Media: Social Listening Tools

The reach and influence of social media is staggering. Nearly 3 billion people use social media daily, posting a range of messages, selfies, images, and everything in-between. According to HubSpot, almost 4 million posts are uploaded to the major social networks every single minute! That's an astounding amount of content and it is crucial for hotels to skillfully use social media in order to effectively compete. From establishing a suitable brand identity and voice to creating content across all the major networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.), the goal is to actively engage consumers and to eventually convert them to customers. Some hotels are initiating online contests as a way to attract new customers, while others are rewarding customers with discounts who subscribe to the their email lists or follow their social media pages. Another recent strategy is to employ social media listening tools that track what people are posting online about their businesses. These tools allow hotels to monitor - or listen to - what's being said about a brand across the entire social web, and this can prove to be very valuable, unfiltered information. Social listening permits hotels to be aware of people's opinions about their business, industry or competitors, and some of these tools even listen beyond social media platforms. They also monitor publicly available information on blogs, forums, news outlets and websites. Some listening tools are more focused on gathering and analyzing data, while others offer more engagement-oriented features, which allow hotels to interact with people right from the platform. Often the information that is gleaned from these listening tools ends up being the most authentic, unbiased insights a business can get. The February Hotel Business Review will document what some hotels are doing to successfully integrate social media strategies into their operations.


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