Small Luxury Hotels of the World hosts first PR day for hoteliers

Paul Kerr, CEO of Small Luxury Hotels of the World

Lotus UK had the pleasure of meeting over 45 hotel representatives from the Small Luxury Hotels of the World portfolio yesterday at the first dedicated 'SLH PR Day'.

The attendees, who represent some of the world's finest independent properties met at SkyLoft, located on the 28th floor of Westminster's iconic Millbank Tower.

Paul Kerr, CEO for Small Luxury Hotels of the World was first on stage, welcoming the attendees and highlighting the great success of 2012 which saw a 10% year on year increase in room nights for SLH and a 9% increase in revenue.

Tim Davis, global marketing director followed, underlining the value of the SLH brand attributes and emphasising the unique brand stories of each of the 520 SLH properties. The morning also welcomed Erin Woodward, global PR manager, Carla Severn, director of marketing, Shirnka Ghosh, social media manager and Sabrina Blanc Miele, general manager of SLH property Hôtel San Régis in Paris and PR Ambassador for France.

After a networking lunch where there was an opportunity to meet with some of the UK’s key travel and luxury journalists, the afternoon session started with Jules Ugo and Kate McWilliams from Lotus UK, who took to the stage to explain the global PR strategy that spans across nine markets; UK, France, Germany, Russia, Brazil, China, USA, Canada and Australia.

The global PR activity for SLH is focused on four key pillar campaigns across the year and underpinned with a full service press office in each target market. The current campaign focuses on technology and luxury and reveals how significant the mobile economy is to the luxury travel industry. For the full analysis, please contact slh@lotus-uk.co.uk

Guest Speakers

Jeremy Skidmore, former editor of Travel Weekly and expert in crisis communications took to the stage in the afternoon to talk about the changing face in media and how to deal with issues and crisis in an increasing digital landscape.

Steve Keenan, former travel editor of Times Online and co-founder of Travel Perspective also took to the stage to discuss the digital mix, the power of video and new and emerging technologies.

Both presentations were followed by two interactive workshops.

The Lotus UK presentation on the global PR strategy for SLH is now available in our ‘Downloads Section’ on the right hand side of our main 'newsroom' homepage.