Rainmaker’s OPTIMIZE2016 User Conference Delivers Insight, Instruction and Impetus to ‘Make Revenue Optimization Great Again’

While presidential campaigns are notorious for leaving stump pledges unfulfilled, OPTIMIZE2016 lived up to its promise to “Make Revenue Optimization Great Again.” The Rainmaker Group’s annual client conference convened more than 300 people for three days of substantive sessions addressing the state of the industry and solutions that move beyond revenue management to profit optimization. The conference, whose political theme played off its presidential primary season timing, was held (ironically) at Miami’s Trump Doral Resort, Feb. 17-19.

Key OPTIMIZE2016 takeaways include:

grouprev/Cvent partnership. This new partnership, announced at OPTIMIZE2016, ensures hospitality and gaming clients using Rainmaker’s innovative grouprev group pricing solution can more quickly and seamlessly respond to group business leads from Cvent’s cloud-based enterprise event management platform. The partnership mitigates the duplicity of RFP leads that so often plague the business process, and sorts leads by relevance. This amplifies the advantages of grouprev, which improves deal conversions by 11 percent, stimulates rapid base building and is geared to attracting the best possible business – that which maximizes total spend.

Changing values in a changing industry. Michael Tchong, globally renowned trend analyst and adjunct professor of innovation at the University of San Francisco and UC Berkeley, presented his unique perspective on changing business and consumer values and their impact on the successful companies of tomorrow. He expressed the need for companies to fuel innovation by challenging orthodoxies and disrupting the industry, stressing that “relentless innovation drives financial success.”

A keynote panel of experts from the multifamily, hotel and institutional asset management industries also shared insights on the economy, the outlook for 2016, and the implications for revenue optimization. They also expressed opinions and debated hot topics, such as AirBnB and its effect on the housing and travel industries. The panel included Issac Collazo, InterContinental Hotels Group’s vice president of strategy, Timothy Bright, senior vice president at Clarion Partners, LLC, and Julie Brawn-Whitesides, executive vice president of property management for ConAm Group.

Rainmaker gets a new look. With numerous technology solutions recently added to Rainmaker’s robust hospitality, gaming and multifamily portfolios, the timing was right for the company to launch a new look. Rainmaker rolled out a brand new web experience and industry-specific blogs to simplify its message and further its goal to help clients optimize their revenue, drive increased profitability, and outperform competitors. With the rebranding, the word “rev” was added to each product name: guestrev, grouprev, revcaster and revintel (previously called Business Intelligence).

Capitalizing on its election year theme, OPTIMIZE2016 delivered a lively debate between Rainmaker co-founders Bruce Barfield and Tammy Farley on macro-economic trends; town hall-style meetings that offered visitors a walk-through of Rainmaker products; a final keynote with political and policy legends Sigmund “Sig” Rogich and Mitchell Berger; and political props – from donkeys and elephants to Donald Trump wigs – for selfies.

“OPTIMIZE2016 was our most ambitious and well-attended conference yet,” said Rainmaker President Tammy Farley. “We did our utmost to share insights and changes to our technology, but we also wanted to give our attendees broader context for the work they do day-to-day, namely trends, the economy at large, and the political landscape. The feedback was so positive.”

Full coverage of the conference can be found on the Hospitality & Gaming Blog, as well as on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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(Left) Rainmaker President Tammy Farley and CEO Bruce Barfield start the conference with a lively debate.
Photo by Jeff Swensen

(Center) A panel of hospitality and multifamily executive strategists discuss their 2016 outlook.
Photo by Jeff Swensen

(Right) Rainmaker’s Social Media Wall captured all of the attendees’ photos, videos and insights.
Photo by Dom Beveridge
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About Rainmaker
Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, Rainmaker is the premier provider of profit optimization and demand-cycle solutions to the hospitality and multifamily housing industries. Since its founding in 1998, the company has focused solely on delivering the highest revenue returns possible through the development and cultivation of a suite of products and consulting services designed to streamline operational efficiencies, enhance revenue optimization processes, improve lead performance, and generate greater demand. Recognized as one of the top privately held companies in the United States, Rainmaker has been named to Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies for the past five years and was named to the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s List of the 100 Fastest Growing Companies in Atlanta. To learn more about Rainmaker and its suite of profit and demand optimization solutions, please visit www.LetItRain.com, and follow Rainmaker on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.