Each year, incentive program creators are tasked with finding exciting luxury hotels for their qualifiers, who are among the world’s most seasoned travelers.
At the same time, new high-end hotels and resorts struggle to gain brand awareness among incentive buyers and luxury travel consultants.
Recognizing this gap in the market, hotelier Steve Davino, who has 40 years of experience (eight of which as vice president of international sales and marketing for Ritz-Carlton and Bulgari Hotels) and the following two years launched the Edition brand for Marriott Hotels ) decided to create a new hotel guide.
Davino joins forces with co-founder Penny Wing, whose industry experience as founder of Incentive Travel Inc. stretches back more than three decades. and founder of Brojure, an online content creation platform.
The number of users exceeded 10,000
The New Hotel Guide showcases new and newly renovated luxury (Forbes Four or Five Star) hotels around the world; since its launch last year, the site has more than 1,800 hotel listings from 130 countries, with the latest openings up to 2029.
The hotel’s basic list is free, and the upgrade list is divided into three different levels. Inclusion is at the sole discretion of New Hotel Guide. Planners expect to launch a direct booking platform in early 2025, with the website also linking to Cvent if they wish to book there.
The site also includes opening offers and promotions, as well as Brojure-like functionality that allows planners to quickly deliver high-quality briefings to clients using listing information and graphics.
Like detective work
Wen likened her job of finding new hotels before anyone else to that of a detective. “Sometimes I research building permits in major cities, other times I read all the media or contact DMCs and tourism boards.
“Many of our hotels are not listed on online travel agencies or Cvent,” Wing said. “They’re all waiting until it opens. We’re constantly discovering new properties, over 100 a month.
The company recently hired Linda McNairy from Ground Floor Solutions, who has decades of experience with StarCite (now part of Cvent) and American Express, as a partner.
“With my background at StarCite, I know how difficult it is to build a search engine and get the performance you want,” she said. “We’re really starting to gain momentum.”
