Accor

General Manager

ConversionWell

Helping and educating hospitality professionals on digital marketing, revenue management and distribution.
Exciting project that has been planned for couple years - finally arrived. 
Life today is about learning new skills - and new things - constantly. But current lifestyle rarely allows any time for learning. 
Is it a Catch 22? It is a bit. I was in this situation myself - when I started my MBA program, and had to juggle family, a very demanding job, and studies. 
This is when I started looking into ways to learn fast and efficient - and this is how ConversionWell was conceived. 
I do not have all the answers, nor am I a guru - but I have found a way of learning faster than reading. 
It is a life-changer - and I am hoping to help more people advance their careers and learn new skills.

Founder

Dewa Phuket (Beach Resort, Villas and Suites)

Lovely beachfront property with Villas, One- and Two-bedroom apartments and Deluxe rooms.
Brought in to help revamp hotel commercial position and increase guest satisfaction
-  Re-organized sales, marketing and distribution within 2 months
-  Increased direct website bookings from under 1% to over 10% of total monthly revenue within 4 months
-  Evaluated and re-implemented SOPs to achieve increase in guest satisfaction (Booking.com ranking increased by 0.1 points within 3 months), as well as employee satisfaction by introducing structured empowerment programs for line employees
-  Achieved balanced distribution mix, both in terms of nationalities and bookings sources (wholesale, OTAs and direct bookings)

InVision Hospitality Co., Ltd

In charge of driving revenue for GLOW and MAI HOUSE brands, with 2 hotel openings and a launch of MAI HOUSE brand. Portfolio comprised both city hotels and beach resorts.
- Implemented sound revenue management procedures, that enabled to over-achieve very aggressive GOP budget for 2 consecutive years
- Turned around the business for an existing property, including increasing the ADR  and revenue to over 15% YOY, while changing the market mix to achieve best revenue results.
-  Created and implemented sales, marketing and revenue plan for a new opening property, achieving positive cash-flow within 3 months of opening (during low season).
-  Increased direct bookings by 20% by implementing sound rate and distribution policy
-  Established positive relationships with member properties’ owners, which brought in new business opportunities
-  Used creative approach to marketing to achieve results with minimum cost, including co-marketing campaigns that reached over 500 000 people without any spend; personally ran Facebook ad campaigns

Director of Sales, Marketing and Revenue Management

Interim role to help manage the property while waiting for a new GM to come onboard

General Manager GLOW Pratunam (taskforce)

Stepped in to take care of the property while waiting for the permanent GM to join.

Centara Hotels & Resorts

Supervised Centara group transition into a new online distribution system, including company online booking engine and GDS. 
- Managed transition to the new back end of booking engine system in 50% of time initially assigned and 99.9% accuracy
-  Boosted group online sales in a period of need 50% YOY during one week time (spent around 120 000 THB, extra revenue earned YOY over 6 million THB) 
-  Boosted online sales for Thai-language website users by 50%

E-commerce manager

Self-employed

Took some time off to learn Thai, while creating a digital strategy for an upscale property rental portal.

Sabbatical to learn Thai and do a digital marketing project

Taking some time off to complete several marketing projects

Freelance

Best Western Asia

Regional head of sales capacity for Best Western Asia hotels, including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, and Middle East, total around 50 properties.
-  Brought in over 80 new clients from leisure, corporate and embassy sectors to different properties (including creating “from scratch” client base for a property in Bangkok, whose occupancy grew from 10% to 95% within 3 months of me taking charge, bringing at least 6 million THB per month in revenues)
-  Brought in a client for Bangkok hotel during protests, with revenue of 780 000 THB (hotel within walking distance to the protests zone)

Senior Regional Sales Manager

Inbound Travel Agency - DMC

In charge of business development and daily operations for an inbound tour operator (full service travel agency).
-  Managed mixed international team of 15 people
-  Created recognizable company brand, re-positioned the company as an “excellent service provider” within 2 years
-  Restructured company business processes that increased guests’ satisfaction from 70% to 98% within 2.5 years
-  Brought in over 100 new clients, Increased company profits by 260%

Director Of Business Development

General Manager, in charge of Sales, Marketing and Digital

17 years experience in hospitality industry with some great results:
- 2 new hotel openings, 1 brand launch, turn-around of several operating hotels 
- creative marketing campaigns that sky-rocketed direct bookings 
- hands-on revenue management to exceed the budgets 

Guest journey does not stop when they check-in.
The real question is  - how you create memorable guest experience while increasing ancillary spend?  

Over the years I have tried different ways, the lowest-hanging fruit is to financially motivate teams to upsell.

However, there are other ways to gently nudge guests to spend more while also making their stay fun.

Join me at the NoVacancyAsia on18th November for some discussion and insights on the topic

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA

As the year end nears, most hotels do performance reviews.

I have also started doing those with the team.
Over past 2 years, I only had 1 head of department leaving the hotel. 
Overall staff turnover decreased as well. 

And if I had to put the secret to that into one sentence, it would be this:

"You make the workplace a place we feel happy to come to every morning".

This is what one of my team members told me. And I am not all "soft and fluffy" person. When it comes to work, I am pretty demanding and not shy to give a piece of my mind. 

Let's be honest, hospitality is a very demanding job.
Dealing with plumbing issues, busy breakfasts, bad weather and many other things is not easy, especially when the guests are unhappy and vocal about it.

It becomes ever more important that despite all of this, team feels happy to come to work. Happy team translates into happy workplace. It translates into happy service and happy guests. And higher revenues. 

No hotel is perfect. The deal breaker is oftentimes the service and the team

Seeking some input as weekend is approaching.

As a senior leader, I know that my working hours are unlimited. 
It comes with the territory, and work needs to be done.

Quite often I need to work during my days off and vacations. 
If I do it, I do it by choice and not out of obligation.

However, recently a person shared an opinion that senior leaders are in fact expected to be working regularly during their vacations and days off. 

It did not sit right with me and sounded more like slavery. But I thought, maybe I misunderstand the situation and it is indeed expected of a senior leader. 
Would appreciate your opinions and comments on this

taplio

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's Linkedin Analytics

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA

Performance ScoreOlga G. Gergenkop, MBA's LinkedIn Performance

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's Linkedin Analytics

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's LinkedIn Performance

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreOlga G. Gergenkop, MBA's LinkedIn Performance

Olga G. Gergenkop, MBA's Best Posts (last 30 days)