Participating in a recent panel discussion in Toronto sponsored by Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) alongside experts from Acxiom, Serenata, Oracle and Cendyn served to be a truly enlightening hour and half on the future of customer relationship management (CRM). Apart from your humble scribe, it was an impressive panel of leaders in this highly technical field with an equally prestigious audience comprising over two dozen CIOs from the world’s leading hotel brands. The program started with an identification of exactly what today’s CRM comprises. At a minimum, CRM includes the following in no particular order: Data collection and storage of information pertaining to hotel guests The ability to access and aggregate this data for the purposes of personalized marketing through email and perhaps social media Campaign management tools to effectively undertake this activity Triggered event activity from pre- and post-stay Analytics, including surveys and guest review analysis The ability to …