COMMUNE ’ S
NEW LEADER
When Niki Leondakis took over as
CEO of Commune Hotels & Resorts last November , she faced big goals — among them , leading the San Francisco-based company to US $ 1 billion in revenue within the next five years and expanding its footprint around the world . Fortunately , Leondakis has almost two decades of experience at Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants to guide her . HOTELS chatted with Leondakis about her first couple months at Commune .
HOTELS : What has been the toughest part of your new job so far ?
Niki Leondakis : Just learning a lot of the internal details that after 19.5 years with Kimpton I had embedded in my brain — learning about each individual property , the ownership groups , the room counts , the competitive set , the employee structure . H : The most fun part ? NL : I have been traveling around
the country doing fireside chats at all of the hotels and learning what the employees love about the hotels , about their jobs and what I can do to help improve whatever I can .
H : How is your experience at Kimpton informing the way you approach your role at Commune ?
NL : My experience at Kimpton highlighted the power of a strong internal culture . It all starts with a strong culture everybody believes in and is excited about .
H : What is the hottest item in your inbox right now ?
NL : Three years of organizational charts with boxes representing positions I need to hire to support the growth of Commune .
H : There still aren ’ t many female CEOs in the hotel industry . What is the biggest key to your success ?
NL : I ’ ve become very comfortable being who I am . That means leveraging my strengths but also facing my challenges head-on and surrounding myself with people who have strengths where I do not . I think for a lot of women it ’ s tempting to be somebody you ’ re not because you ’ re alone at the table .
Niki Leondakis
In an effort to reach younger travelers , in November 2012 Marriott International launched the Marriott Hotels & Resorts Mood Reader , an application on digital music service Spotify , which offers music streaming and social network sharing .
The app matches music to the listener ’ s mood , allows users to create mood-based playlists and offers contests . The campaign concluded at the end of 2012 , but not before 48,000 playlists were created with the app by 110,000 unique visitors , even though
Spotify only guaranteed Marriott 40,000 unique visitors . Marriott says it is planning to extend the program into 2013 with a creative refresh .
“ We exceeded the guarantee by almost four times and the playlist guarantee by 12 times . This has been to date the most successful advertising program that Spotify has run globally ,” says Karen Olivares , director of marketing , Marriott Hotels & Resorts . “ We know our target customers are huge music fans who like to listen to music digitally and share with their social networks . Marriott Hotels & Resorts is increasingly hosting younger travelers in our hotels , and Spotify is a perfect fit for their lifestyles . Spotify ’ s more than 28 million U . S . users fit neatly into our target demographic , and Spotify offered us the ability to demo-target within the app .”
www . hotelsmag . com March 2013 HOTELS 11