June 16, 2009 — Former CVB President Gavin Landry has joined Travel marketing and destination branding agency Wanderlust’s management consulting group. Gavin’s role at Wanderlust will focus on Hospitality Management Consulting, including overseeing business and operations analyses for hotels, attractions, tourism destinations and sports properties.
“We’re pleased to have Gavin join our team. It’s great to have someone on board who understands and represents the client’s perspective,” commented Wanderlust President Mark Shipley. “Our clients will appreciate his cut to the chase, highly analytic personality. He will fit well with our company culture.”
Gavin is an accomplished, results-driven marketing executive with more than 20 years of successful performance in building revenue and forging partnerships in highly competitive consumer markets. Prior to joining Wanderlust, he was most recently recruited to serve as Senior Vice President of Sales and Market Development of New York Racing Association (NYRA), where he is credited with consummating multi-million dollar strategic partnerships with companies such as NetJets, Prudential, UPS and others.
In 1995, Gavin became President of the Saratoga Convention and Tourism Bureau; a post he held for 12 years. He is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration. Upon graduating, he joined professional hotel management company Winegardner & Hammons, Inc. and for six years managed commercial hotels in Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, and North Carolina.
The Wanderlust tourism consulting group will offer a holistic approach to the operation, looking at all phases of service, outreach, and operations. The firm’s team will review current revenue management programs, study distribution channels, evaluate combined media/direct marketing/advertising spend and review overall marketing programs. The goal is to identify targets for revenue creation, suggest new outreach strategies and pinpoint misdirected or misspent dollars.
In addition, Wanderlust consulting can evaluate guest services from the pre-booking phase to curb, audit guest service delivery systems including hiring and training practices, leadership and company ethos, software and wetware systems and assess front and back of the house operations. The firm can analyze geographic issues, size up current market conditions, derive a true competitive set, and take measure of the efficacy of the current tourism promotion efforts.
From a revenue growth perspective, Wanderlust can analyze profit and loss statements and identify cost centers and revenue opportunities. The goal is to discover partnership opportunities, assess current pricing and sell strategies, and identify key sources of business for your property.
About WanderlustWanderlust specializes in travel marketing & destination branding. We help our clients understand what drives desire for travel, to bridge the gap from traditional media to the internet, and build integrated marketing communications programs designed to deliver people to their destinations.
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Contact: Mark Shipley
Phone: 518-272-2500
Email: mshipley@createwanderlust.com
