Former IHG and Hyatt leaders join new London hospitality social media summit

By AI, Created 3:31 PM UTC, May 26, 2026, /AGP/ – The Hospitality Social Media Summit will debut in London on Sept. 3-4, 2026, bringing former IHG and Hyatt executives together with hospitality marketers to treat social media as a direct commercial channel. The event adds hands-on labs, an AI-powered learning hub and a benchmark study aimed at measuring how social drives bookings, trust and brand performance.

Why it matters: - Hospitality brands are being pushed to prove that social media does more than fill content calendars. - HoSS is built to connect social activity to awareness, reputation and direct bookings. - The Summit aims to give hotel, resort, restaurant and broader hospitality teams practical systems they can use in the boardroom, not just in marketing.

What happened: - The Hospitality Social Media Summit will launch in London on 3-4 September 2026 at Chicago Booth London. - Kordie created the event and co-produced it with Whitney Reynolds, former global director of social marketing at IHG Hotels & Resorts. - The Summit is positioned as an education-led event for hospitality marketers and social media leaders. - Tickets and partnership enquiries are open now at hospitalitysocialsummit.com. - A second edition is planned for Madrid in Q4 2026.

The details: - Whitney Reynolds spent 12 years leading global social strategy, content and creator partnerships across InterContinental, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and other IHG brands. - Reynolds also built Kimpton Hotels’ social media presence from the ground up. - Her work earned Skift’s “Best Social Presence – Hotels” in the inaugural Skiftie Awards and PRWeek’s “Best Consumer Launch” for a social-media-driven campaign. - Reynolds, a Brand Innovators “40 Under 40” marketer, will co-produce and headline the Summit and lead the Day 1 strategic masterclass. - Laura Ferrari and Stefano Della Schiava, co-founders of SHIFT Collective, are joining the faculty. - Ferrari served as director of social media EAME at Hyatt Hotels Corporation from 2019 to 2025. - Ferrari led the Park Hyatt Fashion Week activation across Milan, Paris and London, the Andaz creator-led brand campaign and the World of Hyatt TikTok launch. - Ferrari previously led global social media at IWC Schaffhausen, including content production for the IWC x Santoni collaboration. - Della Schiava built brand and content work for Nespresso, Toyota Europe and Mastercard. - Della Schiava created the Nespresso Content Studio across social, digital, e-commerce and retail. - Della Schiava also worked on Toyota Europe’s Beyond Zero 2.0 electrification campaign and the Drop by Drop purpose platform for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. - Ferrari and Della Schiava will lead “Winning Hearts Worldwide: Social for International Travellers,” a Day 2 lab on multi-market strategy, local messaging and booking paths for global guests. - Day 1 will focus on leadership-ready social strategy, including goal-to-KPI alignment, content pillars, brand personality, audience-channel mapping, modern tactics and reporting rhythms. - Every delegate is expected to leave Day 1 with a completed Strategy on a Page. - Day 2 will include eight facilitator-led, 90-minute practical labs built around real scenarios, peer benchmarking, toolkits, templates and action plans. - Delegates will also get access to the HoSS Digital Hub, Kordie’s AI-powered learning platform, with ongoing tools, templates and expert-vetted updates. - The Summit is designed to carry internationally recognised professional accreditation, and attendance will count toward formal professional development requirements. - Certification details will be confirmed ahead of the event. - Kordie is conducting a benchmark study, curated by Reynolds, of more than 300 hospitality social media and marketing leaders across hotels, resorts, restaurant groups and agencies. - The benchmark report will cover AI adoption, commercial attribution, team structures and resource allocation. - Summit attendees and media partners will get the first preview of the findings in London. - The full report is planned for distribution to more than 3,000 hospitality marketers globally.

Between the lines: - The event is part conference, part training program and part research launch. - The mix suggests Kordie wants HoSS to become an operating system for hospitality social teams, not a one-off industry meetup. - The focus on AI tools, attribution and measurable booking paths reflects where hospitality marketing is under the most pressure: proving revenue impact. - The faculty roster leans heavily on operators who have already run social programs for major global brands, which may appeal to teams looking for tactics they can deploy quickly.

What’s next: - Kordie will release certification details before the Summit. - The benchmark report will be previewed at the London event and then distributed globally. - Planning continues for the Madrid edition in Q4 2026. - The HoSS Digital Hub will continue providing post-event learning and implementation support after the London summit ends.

The bottom line: - HoSS is pitching itself as a working summit for hospitality teams that need social media to drive business outcomes, not just engagement.