When franchisees personally asked Marina MacDonald, Red Roof’s chief marketing officer, for a women’s leadership panel, she saw the need for a forum to discuss issues facing women hoteliers today. The Red Roof Forum on Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs, taking place Nov. 1–2, will give female franchisees the tools they need to overcome obstacles. “They want to learn about leadership, and they want to learn to drive top-line revenue,” MacDonald says.
Attendees will hear from Red Roof’s top leaders, as well as have the chance to share their own experiences and successes. Franchisees will learn different ways to apply their skills to their profession and grow their business. Rita Patel, owner of the Red Roof Inn Ocala in Florida and member of the Forum Advisory Panel, says, “This is a great networking opportunity along with being part of the corporate team, because the corporate team is there to assist in anything we need. For them to be there for us like this is just a way of showing their commitment to their franchisees.”
Networking opportunities will allow attendees to voice their ideas, experiences, and career goals with a like-minded group of peers. Doing so gives women who are already successful the opportunity to better their own abilities, MacDonald says. “The participants have a common goal of how to increase their value in the hospitality space.”
Along with networking, talks, and interviews with Red Roof’s female leaders, the event will include panel discussions with the Forum Advisory Board. In addition to Patel, the panel will feature a diverse group of five other successful women from the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and the Red Roof franchise as a whole. The panelists will discuss point-of-view and experiences with female leaders like MacDonald herself, as well as emerging leaders in the industry to provide multi-generational coverage. Focus groups after the panels will cover driving local sales, revenue management, distribution channels, digital marketing, and loyalty. “We should always have a view of continuously being a student and learning, and this is one,” MacDonald says.
The future looks bright for women in hospitality, especially as companies like Red Roof take the right steps to develop women’s leadership talent through forums and events like this one. “We’re seeing that there is an increase in women owners,” MacDonald says. “We’re seeing multi-generational women owning and operating their own properties.”
