---
title: A New London Summit Wants Hospitality to Turn Social Media Into Direct Bookings
description: Kordie's Hospitality Social Media Summit, headlined by ex-IHG director Whitney Reynolds, opens in London in September 2026 to turn social into direct bookings.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-06-08T10:46:31.940Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/hospitality-social-media-summit-direct-bookings
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/hoss_event_hero.webp
categories: Business
content_type: Spotlight
region: London
publication: Sovereign Magazine
about:
  - type: Event
    name: Hospitality Social Media Summit (HoSS)
    description: An education-led summit for hotels, resorts, restaurants and other hospitality brands, focused on turning social media into a measurable commercial channel rather than a content exercise. The two-day London programme combines a strategy masterclass with practical labs, and delegates leave with a 90-day plan, KPI dashboards and six months of access to the HoSS Digital Hub. Created by Kordie and co-produced with Whitney Reynolds. A Madrid edition is planned for late 2026.
    url: https://hospitalitysocialsummit.com/
    startDate: 2026-09-03T09:00:00.000Z
    endDate: 2026-09-04T17:00:00.000Z
    sameAs:
      - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hospitality-social-media-summit
---

The Hospitality Social Media Summit, billed as the first event built only for social media in the hospitality industry, opens in London on 3 and 4 September. It was created by Kordie, a London learning company for the hospitality sector, and is co-produced and headlined by Whitney Reynolds, the former global director of social marketing at IHG Hotels and Resorts.

Kordie's case is that hospitality spends heavily on social media with little idea of whether any of it brings in a booking:

> "We kept seeing a massive disconnect between creative marketing and hard business metrics. Hospitality brands were spending incredible energy creating beautiful social media content, but treating it like a digital photo gallery rather than a revenue engine. There was a glaring gap for a dedicated space where hospitality professionals could stop guessing what looks good and start learning exactly how to convert attention into direct bookings, lower OTA dependency, and real bottom-line growth."

## Why Hotels Are Treating Social Media as a Revenue Channel

The financial case sits in the gap between two numbers. Online travel agents such as Booking.com and Expedia commonly charge hotels between 15 and 25 per cent of each booking, and the effective rate climbs higher once a hotel pays for better visibility on those platforms. Winning the same guest directly, through a hotel's own website, is usually put at around 4 to 5 per cent of the booking's value. For an independent hotel, shifting even a portion of its bookings off the agents and onto its own site is one of the few ways to lift margin without raising the room rate.

Social media is one of the cheapest ways to reach that guest. The trouble is how the work has been measured. Hospitality teams have tended to judge it by reach, likes and video views, figures that look healthy in a board deck without showing whether they brought in a booking. Owners and asset managers increasingly want marketing tied to revenue rather than engagement, and that pressure is what the summit is built around.

## What the Organisers Say Hotel Social Media Marketing Gets Wrong

Kordie frames the problem as a missing discipline rather than a lack of effort. Hotel social media marketing, on this reading, has plenty of content and very little connection to the booking system behind it. Teams are trained to produce content rather than to link it to bookings, so a hotel can end up with a steady stream of well-made posts that it cannot tie back to revenue. "Hospitality social media has outgrown the content calendar," Alisa Kremer, the founder of Kordie, has said of the company's reason for running the event.

## Inside the London Hotel Marketing Conference

The summit is structured as a working session rather than a run of keynote talks. Day one is a strategy masterclass led by Reynolds. Day two runs a series of practical labs in which delegates apply the ideas to their own brands. The organisers say attendees are meant to leave with a finished social media plan, a 90-day action list and dashboards to track it, rather than a set of notes.

Each delegate also gets about six months of access to the HoSS Digital Hub, an AI-based learning platform run by Kordie that holds templates, short courses and session recordings. The organisers say the programme carries international accreditation and CPD credits. Tickets start at £575 to attend in person in London and £295 to take part online. The event is being held at the London campus of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a second edition is planned for Madrid later in 2026.

### Event: Hospitality Social Media Summit (HoSS)
3 September 2026 – 4 September 2026
Hybrid
Venue: Chicago Booth School of Business, London, London, United Kingdom
Organized by: Kordie, Alisa Kremer

An education-led summit for hotels, resorts, restaurants and other hospitality brands, focused on turning social media into a measurable commercial channel rather than a content exercise. The two-day London programme combines a strategy masterclass with practical labs, and delegates leave with a 90-day plan, KPI dashboards and six months of access to the HoSS Digital Hub. Created by Kordie and co-produced with Whitney Reynolds. A Madrid edition is planned for late 2026.

[Event website](https://hospitalitysocialsummit.com/)

## The Former IHG and Hyatt Leaders Behind the Summit

The faculty is drawn from people who have run social media inside large hotel groups. Reynolds spent more than a decade in hotel social media, first building the social presence of Kimpton Hotels and then leading global social strategy at IHG across brands including InterContinental, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza. She now runs her own agency, Somewhere Fun Social, and leads the summit's opening masterclass.

Laura Ferrari, who led social media for Europe, Africa and the Middle East at Hyatt Hotels until 2025, is on the faculty through SHIFT Collective, the hospitality brand agency she co-founded. The summit's main credential is a faculty that has run hospitality social media inside major hotel groups.

## Social Media Strategy for Hotels Is Becoming a Booking Channel

The timing reflects a change in how people decide where to travel. A 2023 StudentUniverse survey found that 40 per cent of Gen Z travellers had booked a trip as a direct result of something they saw on TikTok, and that most used the app as a first source of travel ideas. Expedia's 2024 Unpack report found that half of travellers had wanted to book a trip they saw on social media but had been put off by how complicated it was to do so. The attention is already there. Turning it into a confirmed booking is where most social media strategy for hotels still falls short.

Conferences for hotel commercial strategy and marketing already exist, including events run by HSMAI and the United Kingdom's National Hotel Marketing Conference. The organisers argue that none is devoted specifically to social media, and that the summit is aimed at hotels, resorts, restaurants and other hospitality brands rather than hotels alone.

Kordie plans to publish a benchmark study drawn from more than 300 hospitality marketing leaders. How widely it is read will be one early test of whether the commercial argument is landing across the industry.

**About Kordie**

Kordie is a London hospitality education company that provides online, AI-assisted training for hotels, restaurants and other hospitality brands. It created and produces the Hospitality Social Media Summit and runs the HoSS Digital Hub learning platform. Its registered entity is Hospitality Digital Hub Ltd (Companies House no. 11621896).

[Website](https://kordie.com/)

## FAQ

**Q: How do hotels use social media to attract customers?**
Hotels use platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to reach travellers at the inspiration stage, then try to convert that interest into direct bookings on their own websites rather than through online travel agents. The commercial value comes from the booking, not the engagement, which is the case the Hospitality Social Media Summit is built around.

**Q: What is the difference between OTAs and direct bookings?**
An online travel agent, or OTA, such as Booking.com or Expedia sells a hotel's rooms in return for a commission, commonly 15 to 25 per cent of each booking. A direct booking is made through the hotel's own channels and costs far less, usually around 4 to 5 per cent of the booking's value, so it leaves more margin per room.

**Q: What is a good return on investment for social media marketing?**
There is no single benchmark, because results depend on the platform, the market and how spending is tracked. The shift the summit argues for is measuring social media against revenue and direct bookings rather than likes and reach, so that its return can be judged in financial terms at all.

**Q: What social media platforms do hotels use?**
Instagram and TikTok lead hospitality marketing because they are visual and travel-led, with Facebook and, increasingly, YouTube also in use. The summit's focus is less on which platform a hotel chooses and more on connecting any of them to bookings and revenue.