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LRA Worldwide CEO Rob Rush to Speak at the 2006 ESOMAR Leisure World Research Conference in Rome
HORSHAM, Pennsylvania; October 26, 2006 - Rob Rush, CEO of LRA Worldwide, Inc. will be presenting a research paper at the 2006 ESOMAR Leisure World Research Conference in Rome, Italy on Monday, November 6, 2006. The paper, titled "Building a Hotel Brand: How a Business Class Hotel Discovered its Brand DNA," outlines how Grupo Posadas SA de C.V., the premier hotel company in Latin America, employed a variety of research methodologies to reinvent the guest experience for its Fiesta Inn brand. The conference is being held at the Radisson SAS Hotel Rome from November 5-7.
Rush will co-present with Javier Barrera, the Chief Marketing Officer for Grupo Posadas. The findings will be presented during the "Building the Experience" segment of the program, which is one of three experience-based tracks at the conference, along with "Managing the Experience" and "Discovering the Experience."
"It is very gratifying that a global research organization of ESOMAR's stature would focus its entire Leisure conference on Discovering, Building and Managing the guest experience," Rush said. "The structure of the entire conference matches our Customer Experience Management methodology directly, which only serves to reinforce our point of view that in any business, the experience is everything. Javier and I are very excited to present the paper LRA authored, which outlines one company's CEM journey and the research findings driving the process."
ESOMAR's Leisure Conference convenes annually to examine how market research can help rethink the core of the leisure industry. For 2006, the conference organizers have identified the customization of and attention to the total guest experience as the trend that is impacting all levels of the travel, hospitality and leisure industries. In addition to LRA Worldwide and Grupo Posadas, some of the other companies presenting are Cathay Pacific (Airline), Costa (Cruise Ships), Fairmount Hotels & Resorts (Hotel) and MyTravel (Internet), as well as a number of other leading market research companies.
Rush has been a featured speaker at a number of corporate events and industry conferences in the past year. Rush has delivered the CEM message at annual meetings for Farm Credit Canada, InfoGenesis, the Delaware North Companies, Colorado Ski Country USA and Historic Hotels of America, among others; he has also presented at the North American Conference on Customer Management (Orlando, FL) and the Internal Branding Conference (New York, NY). In March of 2007, Rob is scheduled hit the speaking circuit again, where he will present at the Achieving Customer Service Excellence (Anaheim, CA) and New Product Development for Service (San Diego, CA) conferences, as well as at the Conference on Marketing (Las Vegas, NV).
This is Rush's first time participating in an ESOMAR event. For more information on the conference program and registration, visit the organization website at http://www.esomar.org/web/show/id=66292. For a copy of the original paper, please submit your request to Zach Conen at LRA Worldwide.
About ESOMAR
ESOMAR is the world organization for enabling better research into markets, consumers and societies. With 4,000 members in 100 countries, ESOMAR's aim is to promote the value of market and opinion research in illuminating real issues and bringing about effective decision-making.
About LRA Worldwide, Inc.
LRA Worldwide, Inc. is a leading consulting, organizational development and research company that specializes in Customer Experience Management (CEM). LRA helps companies and brands design and deliver the optimal customer experience across all key touch points using an integrated suite of services that measure and improve service quality, customer satisfaction, employee performance, loyalty, customer advocacy and profitability. LRA specializes in "operationalizing the brand" - turning brand promise and customer strategy into operational reality. LRA's CEM practice areas include CEM Strategy Design, Standards Development & Content Management, Organizational Development & Training, Research and Quality Assurance & Mystery Shopping; these are either deployed together in a strategic manner to continually monitor and improve the customer experience or deployed individually to address a specific tactical client need.
LRA's clients include some of the world's leading companies and brands, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos, the PGA TOUR, Albertsons Supermarkets, the NBA and First Niagara Financial Group. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.LRAworldwide.com
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