Global Hotel Alliance today announced the appointment of Robin Korman as Head of Loyalty Marketing & CRM.
This newly-created role further strengthens the GHA management team, as the alliance embarks on an exciting new five-year growth plan, which was recently presented at its annual CEO meeting in London. A key part of that plan is to grow the DISCOVERY loyalty programme from its current 11-million member base to over 25 million members, and thus drive more cross-brand revenues, which this year will reach US$100 million for the first time.
Korman is a marketing leader with a 25-year track record of driving multi-million dollar revenue growth for world-class hotel and credit card brands, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Wyndham Hotels, Citibank Credit Cards, JPMorgan Chase and GE Capital. Korman brings a wide range of expertise in building loyalty through brand positioning, modelling and CRM, increasing customer profitability, building experiential luxury lifestyle brands and growing ancillary revenue streams through partnerships and sponsorships. She joins GHA after four years of consulting on loyalty, customer engagement and partnerships to hotel companies, marketing agencies, private equity and hedge fund firms, and membership-based businesses.
“We are delighted that Robin is joining the GHA team just as we announce ambitious growth plans,” says Chris Hartley, GHA’s CEO. “As the mega-brands merge and enlarge their loyalty propositions, and the OTAs consolidate and grow market share, so the DISCOVERY loyalty programme, provides a low-cost solution for our independently-owned and operated member brands, who by sharing a common platform, offer a much richer choice of hotels to their customers. Robin brings experience of running global loyalty programmes for Starwood and Wyndham, and she will enable us to further define and differentiate our DISCOVERY programme’s proposition, so we can become a genuine, attractive alternative for today’s customers, who we know are seeking new brands and local experiences when they travel.”
Originally from the US, Korman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Purdue University and an MBA in International Marketing from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) is the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands, bringing together 35 brands with 550 hotels in 76 countries.