Juliet Lewis - HBAA‘We should give this sector the status that will make youngsters aspire to a career in it’, says Juliet Price, Chair-elect of the HBAA
Tuesday, 04 January 2011 10:27
‘We should give this sector the status that will make youngsters aspire to a career in it’, says Juliet Price, Chair-elect of the HBAA
Juliet Price always wanted to be a hotel receptionist. She didn’t get the job she applied for in 1978 as trainee receptionist in Trust House Forte’s Post House hotel in Reading, so she has had to settle for being elected Chair of the HBAA. The members of The Hotel Booking Agents Association are 88 agencies and 202 venue organisations. Considering that the largest agencies are members and Accor Hotels, Hilton Worldwide and InterContinental Hotel Group, for example, each count as a single member, then the HBAA should be able to wield some clout.First she feels strongly that both agents and venues should ensure that they offer an attractive career prospect to new recruits. ‘I want those young people that fly’, as she puts it, ‘to aspire to coming into this industry as their objective, rather than by chance. The Association needs to support the development and retention of talented individuals, and give them recognition for their achievements.’
The HBAA Academy training program will also ensure that the core skills of the hospitality sector are continually emphasised and updated. ‘I have been very closely connected with the technological developments in the hotel booking business’, she says. (She is currently Head of UK Marketing & Business Intelligence at Hotelzon. An important part of its business, in addition to hotel booking and related services, is the supply of advanced technology systems.) ‘Technology brings many benefits, of course, but it can never replace the personal relationships and interaction which our clients value so highly. We at Hotelzon are introducing systems that permit client companies to carry out online self -booking for smaller meetings, but we won’t lose sight of the importance of deploying personal skills on behalf of clients to suit their needs.’
Another important plank in her policy during the coming year will be to make more progress in delivering ROI to the members of the HBAA. ‘We shall be holding gatherings for members in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol’, she says. ‘We will be keeping closer to our members and working more with them to provide them with services and support they see as important to them’.
‘In many ways’, she suggests, ‘I will be following on from what has been achieved by the 2010 Chair, Stephen Usher. He is handing me, for example, a much more agile organisation that can more rapidly respond to our members. I will be implementing a 3-year Strategic Plan, so that there will be longer-term focus and direction that can help in guiding my successors and maintain continuity of purpose for the HBAA’.
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