Rob Kwortnik, Associate Professor of Services Marketing, joined Cornell’s faculty after earning his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Temple University in 2003. He also earned a B.A. in Journalism from Temple and an MBA from California State University, Northridge. Professor Kwortnik’s research focuses on consumer behavior in service contexts, with special attention to service experience management. He has published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Service Research, The International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, among others. He has been honored eight times as a Teacher of the Year by students at the School of Hotel Administration. Prior to his career in academics, Professor Kwortnik held several professional positions in marketing and was a travel industry consultant. He is a recognized expert on the leisure cruise industry.

Hospitality Strategic Marketing and Brand InnovationImmersion Program
Overview
Developing a strategy to effectively communicate and differentiate your brand promise is crucial to driving demand in an increasingly competitive hospitality environment.
In marketing your hospitality services and brand, success ultimately depends upon knowing what target customers want and aligning it with the value your organization or property delivers. This requires an integrated approach that includes market analysis and demand generation, marketing strategy, brand management, and marketing communications.
This in-person certificate program at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, New York, prepares you to deliver memorable experiences, exceed customer expectations, and gain competitive advantage.
You will have the opportunity to work with faculty experts and hospitality professionals from around the world to explore hospitality marketing and brand innovation via hands-on activities, interactive case studies, and team assignments. Mastering practical approaches for addressing strategic marketing challenges, you’ll walk away with new skills, new best practices, and a powerful network of international colleagues.
This certificate program is part of the Anheuser-Busch Professional Development Program (PDP) at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. First launched in 1928, this world-renowned executive program has welcomed hospitality professionals from around the globe for over 90 years. For additional information, please review Frequently Asked Questions about the program, including information about traveling to Cornell and information for European students on applying to the Leif Torne Scholarship.
Daily Schedule
- 7:30am - 8:30am: Networking and continental breakfast
- 8:30am – 12:30pm: Class
- 12:30pm – 13:30pm: Buffet networking lunch
- 13:30pm - 17:00pm: Class
- Evening: Individual or group assignments, networking
Special Program Events
- June 13, 2022
- 17:00pm - 18:30pm: Networking Reception
- June 16, 2022
- 16:30pm - 17:00pm: Certificate Presentations and Program Wrap-up
*If it is not possible to travel to the Cornell campus due to COVID-19 restrictions, you will have the option to transfer to a future date or receive a refund.
Creating Value Through Strategic Hospitality Marketing
Rob Kwortnik
In this on-campus, faculty-led intensive, you’ll engage with innovative and practical approaches for addressing strategic marketing challenges to improve revenue, profit, and customer loyalty. Through class discussions, case studies, and real-world examples, you’ll discover the latest applications of strategic thinking and analysis to marketing challenges facing the hospitality industry. Case studies and examples will be drawn from hotels, restaurants, and other world-class hospitality firms around the globe. You will walk away with new ideas to significantly improve your business practices then apply these ideas, concepts, and principles from best-practice examples to develop innovative and profitable solutions.
Hospitality Brand Innovation
Cheki Dev
Brands have become the central organizing principle of most hospitality organizations, guiding every decision and every action. Combining the latest in thought leadership with experiential exercises and case studies, you’ll explore how to manage a brand for increased customer loyalty, market advantage, and profitability. Using a proprietary 8P hospitality brand innovation model along with case studies, insights from published research on brand management, and in-class exercises, you’ll engage with the essential elements of creating, sustaining, and strengthening your brand.
How It Works
Program Dates
Location
Ithaca, NY
Class Size
What's Included
Program Dates
Location
Ithaca, NY
Class Size
What's Included
Faculty Authors
- Digital Marketing 360
- Social Media Marketing
- General Managers Program
- Hospitality Strategic Marketing and Brand Innovation
- Hospitality Management Essentials
- Management 360
- Integrated Marketing 360
- Revenue Management 360
- Hospitality Management 360
- Strategic Hospitality Marketing
- Hospitality Management
- Hospitality Digital Marketing
Chekitan Dev is an internationally renowned scholar and thought leader on marketing and branding in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industries. As an expert witness, he has testified in deposition, at trial, and at arbitration in numerous hospitality-related matters, both in the United States and internationally, including multiple cases involving hotel owner–brand relationships and the online travel industry.
Professor Dev has consulted on marketing and branding to major corporations. He has more than 40 years of experience analyzing an array of issues involving hotels, travel, and tourism. Professor Dev’s recent research has focused on how branding and rebranding affect both public perception and profitability in the hospitality industry. In particular, he has assessed key drivers of profitability and customer loyalty, including branding, digital marketing, and consumer service. Professor Dev has also evaluated brand portfolio strategy in the context of hotel mergers.
An award-winning author, Professor Dev wrote “Hospitality Branding” (Cornell University Press), as well as over 100 articles in leading academic and practitioner journals, including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, and Harvard Business Review. He has coauthored multiple case studies for Harvard Business School and in 2019 received the overall winner award for best case study from the Case Centre at the Cranfield School of Management (UK). The American Marketing Association recognized Professor Dev and his coauthors as finalists for the Best Service Research Paper of the Year Award for their article “Return on Service Amenities” (Journal of Marketing Research, 2017).
Professor Dev is a sought-after commentator on hospitality trends. He has been interviewed numerous times in the mainstream media, and his research has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and the International Herald Tribune, among others. The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) has selected Professor Dev as one of the “Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality, Travel and Tourism Sales and Marketing.”
At Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Professor Dev teaches courses on brand and marketing management.
Key Course Takeaways
- Apply strategic planning concepts, with an understanding of how both guide all marketing decisions
- Explore the use of consumer research as the foundation of strategy development
- Increase profitability by leveraging marketing activities that hotels use to build competitive advantage
- Assess the role of customer experience management in designing and implementing brand strategy
- Explore how marketing media (search, social, mobile) affects consumer choice and marketing strategy
- Define important concepts and principles for developing, managing, and growing brands
- Analyze contemporary brand management challenges facing hospitality brands and develop innovative solutions


What You'll Earn
- Hospitality Strategic Marketing and Brand Innovation Certificate from the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration
- 32 Professional Development Hours (3.2 CEUs)
Who Should Enroll
- Hospitality marketing and operations professionals
- Industry professionals interested in analyzing hospitality marketing data to make strategic decisions

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$5,499
Hospitality Strategic Marketing and Brand Innovation
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