Ray joins HotelTonight with more than 19 years of e-commerce, marketplace and marketing experience and will be responsible for all aspects of HT’s brand, communications, customer acquisition and customer retention.
HotelTonight officially announced the hiring of Ray Elias as our new CMO. Following an announcement last week that we’re a profitable company, Ray’s hiring is the next step on company's journey to becoming the most trusted source for booking great hotel rooms at great rates with minimal planning.
Ray joins HotelTonight with more than 19 years of e-commerce, marketplace and marketing experience and will be responsible for all aspects of HT’s brand, communications, customer acquisition and customer retention. Previously, Ray was Chief Marketing Officer for StubHub where he worked from 2004 until 2015. Over his tenure, StubHub grew from a small start-up to a leading consumer brand in live entertainment and e-commerce with tens of millions of customers and over 3.5 billion in annual tickets sold. Additionally, he led StubHub Labs which helped transform StubHub, born on the Web, into a mobile-first experience. Ray also played a key role in eBay's acquisition of StubHub in 2007.
“Ray is a well-respected marketer with a track record of success across ecommerce and digital service businesses,” says Sam Shank, our CEO. “His experience growing a game changing marketplace and ubiquitous consumer brand like StubHub speaks for itself. I can’t wait to get to work with him on continuing to grow the HotelTonight brand across the globe.”
It is a pivotal time for us as we continue to reshape how people think about travel planning. The industry is experiencing a transition as hotel bookings move towards mobile and the on-demand model and we welcome the opportunity to lead this charge. As CMO, Ray will be responsible for a renewed focus on raising awareness for our brand and our service, which is already used by millions of savvy travelers each year.
In his own words: “I am so excited to be joining HotelTonight, and this extraordinarily talented team. This is a space where consumer behavior is shifting rapidly to mobile. HotelTonight is already mobile-first and on the cutting edge. I am looking forward to helping connect more people with amazing, spontaneous hotel experiences wrapped in extraordinary HT services, not just cheap rooms.”
"Ray will also be focused on making sure our hotel partners know they have a friend in HotelTonight. Our model drives incremental, high value bookers and we cherish our relationships with our partners just as much as we value our bookers. Becoming profitable has allowed us improve the resources at our disposal, which we’ll put towards developing new and existing industry leading tools that place our hotel partners in the driver’s seat."
“We are in this for the long haul. We are the innovative channel with a unique audience, not like a traditional OTA, and we will continue to bring the highest value guests to our hotel partners.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
