Name: Guest Retention with AI: What's Working, What's Hype, and What's Next
Start: 2026-04-16T12:00:00.000-04:00
End: 2026-04-16T12:30:00.000-04:00
Location: Online Event

Fully Booked by Directful

Two Sides of the Hotel Tech Divide: Can AI Actually Fix Guest Retention?

Hotels have years of guest data collecting dust in their PMS. Meanwhile, OTAs are using that same data — and AI — to win those guests back first. So what does AI-powered guest retention actually look like when you strip away the buzzwords?

Join two hospitality voices coming at this from different angles:

For an honest, 30-minute conversation about where AI is genuinely moving the needle on guest retention and where the industry is still buying into hype

This isn't a product demo or a slide deck. It's a podcast-style conversation between two people who see the problem from different sides — followed by live Q&A where you bring your own questions.

https://www.linkedin.com/event/manage/7445186518903803905/

Founder & CEO, Directful Sevket built five online travel platforms processing billions in annual bookings before switching sides to help hotels fight back. That experience — knowing exactly how OTAs capture and re-engage travelers — led him to build Directful, an AI platform that revives up to 40% of redacted hotel PMS records and drives 15% repeat-stay conversion through hyper-personalized outreach. An Istanbul-raised engineer-founder who still codes, Sevket's approach is rooted in measurable impact: clients typically see five-figure direct revenue uplift within 90 days.

Founder, Hospitality 2.0 Consulting | Adjunct Professor, SDSU Ira has spent over two decades at the intersection of hospitality and technology — as a revenue management director, co-founder of iRates (acquired by iQware), and product leader at Duetto and Cloudbeds. Today she consults hoteliers on AI, distribution, and revenue strategy, teaches hospitality technology at SDSU's Payne School, and is the author of "Hotel Tech 101" and "Hospitality 2.0: Digital Revolution in the Hotel Industry." Her latest course on AI search optimization for hotel content reflects where she sees the industry heading next.