John Israel

John Israel has over 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry. John began their career in 1994 as a Destination Strategy Leader for The Mark Travel Corporation, now part of Hyatt/Apple Leisure Group. In 2001, they became an Associate Director for Intrawest, now part of KSL Capital Partners, where they negotiated hotel agreements and delivered call center services for Cancun.com and online and telesales solutions for Rivieramaya.com. In 2002, they began working for Occidental Hotels & Resorts, now part of Barcelo Hotels, as a Director. In this role, they were based in Miami and led direct online distribution and marketing strategies for third parties, owned direct call center and online channel hotels in Mexico, Caribbean, and Costa Rica, and negotiated cooperative marketing agreements with all third parties. In 2004, they became a Regional Director for Orbitz Worldwide (currently part of Expedia Group). In this role, they led regional hotelier facing teams and was awarded Sales Leader and Sales Team of the Year. In 2016, they joined Sojern as a Senior Director and enhanced direct bookings for hoteliers. John led office and remote sales and customer success teams and consistently delivered on stretch performance metrics. In 2019, they joined The Guestbook as Vice President of Partnerships and Vice President of Sales. In their role as Director of Sales, they implemented reward direct bookers versus discounting, cash back messaging and rewards for independent hoteliers, and custom private label solutions.

John Israel earned a BA in History & Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. John then went on to receive a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wisconsin, specializing in Business Administration and Management, General.