Karen Stephens
Chief Marketing Officer
Karen Stephens drives long-term growth by building Revinate’s brand equity, product marketing, and customer acquisition strategies. With more than 25 years of expertise in global hospitality technology and online distribution, her deep connections with hospitality industry leaders play a key role in crafting strategic partnerships. She is also the host of The Hotel Moment Podcast, where she interviews top players in the hospitality industry.
Featured articles
7 Social Media Habits of Highly Effective Hotel Marketers
Here's a tried and true way to dramatically increase content success on social media: Post engaging content! Easier said than done, of course... But the starting point is your overall approach to content. Many social media managers start the content creation process from their hotel's perspective, with a goal to share their story and their message. Because the hotel's message is the most important thing, it seems the logical place for beginning the creative process. [...]
The Untapped Hotel Asset: Your Guests
Hoteliers traditionally consider room inventory to be their primary assets. However, in other industries, companies look at their customers as assets. Where a hotel might say, “We’re a full-service resort with 200 rooms,” a consumer-goods company might say, “We have 10,000 customers.” When you think about your business, are you thinking about the right assets? Are you thinking about your property, or are you thinking about your hotel’s best asset -- your guests? Among growing [...]
5 Best Practices to Increase Direct Hotel Bookings
When direct bookings are low and you’re losing share to the OTAs, your instinct may go in a few directions. Look for a marketing problem. Add a best-rate guarantee. Refresh the loyalty program. Boost the paid ad spend.But most hotels that struggle with direct share have a data problem — not a marketing one. Somewhere between 25–35% of the average hotel database is masked OTA emails: guests who have already stayed, who already trust you, [...]
What loyalty programs can teach hotels about building social media community
Hotel social media managers often assume low interaction rates mean their strategy isn’t working. Usually, that’s the wrong conclusion — and the wrong metric. The average Facebook interaction rate for hotels is 0.22%. One like or comment per 500 followers is the industry baseline, not a red flag. The real question isn’t how many people are liking your posts. It’s whether your social presence is building the kind of community that keeps guests coming back [...]