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HSMAI recently honored the 2020 Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization — recognizing leaders from hospitality, travel, and tourism organizations for their accomplishments in the preceding 18 months. We’re profiling all of them in an HSMAI Special Report that we’re previewing with excerpts, including Dana Cariss, CHDM, Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Distribution, CoralTree Hospitality.
Dana Cariss is responsible for implementing the revenue strategy, distribution, and ecommerce objectives for CoralTree Hospitality. He works closely with property revenue optimization community teams and helps support each in their pricing, distribution, channel management, and marketing strategies to drive revenue and profit across all segments. Before joining CoralTree, Cariss worked for Destination Hotels in several revenue optimization roles before expanding to corporate director and then regional vice president for the company’s West Coast properties. He has also held management positions with Handlery Hotels, Loews Hotels, Evolution Hospitality, and Open Hospitality. He currently sits on HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Advisory Board and is immediate past president of the HSMAI San Diego Chapter. Cariss is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, with a double major in mathematics and economics.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Cariss has been instrumental in shifting CoralTree’s distribution and channel mix by creating a “book direct” mantra among the company’s independent hotels, leading to significant pre-pandemic increases in rooms profit, profit per occupied room, and profit per stay.
NOMINATED BY: Nancy Kern, CoralTree Hospitality — “Dana is a true asset to HSMAI and the hospitality community. He has the unique ability to mix the science of revenue management and analytics and bring them to life through creativity and innovation. He is a true partner to the home-office team, and his talent in the marketing arena complements the convergence of revenue and marketing online. Even through this year, Dana has continued to see the positive and think beyond the current crisis to build the foundation for CoralTree to continue into the future.”
DANA CARISS ON STAYING MOTIVATED IN 2020: “I think I was able to find comfort in the uncomfortable rather quickly. Many of the traditional expectations and job functions of a DORM were immediately upended, so we had to adapt quickly and develop new approaches to old questions. It was kind of exciting in a way