has over 15 years of international hospitality experience which includes hotel and restaurant operations, revenue management, sales & marketing, e-business, strategic planning, and hospitality consulting. He has worked with such companies as Fairmont, Four Seasons, Ian Schrager Hotels, Kempinski and Marriott.
Early in his career Jens's entrepreneurial edge was sharpened with him founding and operating a successful food catering company, starting a New York-based Internet leisure travel Internet company and managing an independent luxury golf resort in Germany.
Later in the corporate world, Jens has been instrumental in directing e-marketing and marketing automation programs in the hospitality and tourism industries, most recently with the Canadian Tourism Commission as Executive Director of Marketing Strategy, leading E-Marketing and Customer Relationship Management strategy articulation and execution, in order to ensure the effective management of campaigns, brand integration and technology development of integrated solutions to increase the penetration of Canadian tourism in targeted international markets. Prior, Jens headed up Marketing and CRM/Owner Services for Fairmont's Vacation Ownership and Residences division, as well as E-Commerce for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, where he was responsible for defining and executing Fairmont's overall direction on the Internet, by ensuring the hotels and business units leverage the Internet in order to increase revenues, brand awareness, and build strong long term customer relationships. Under his direction, Fairmont.com has won prestigious awards in website design and online marketing, and in the May 2004 "E-Commerce Report" by Economist Magazine, Fairmont was ranked as one of the top-performing travel firms online. Prior, he was the co-founder of a couple revolutionary internet start-up concepts in the luxury travel space, including MyLeisureTime.com and WOW.travel, which he successfully merged with Vancouver based publishing company Kiwi Collection.
Jens is regarded as a thought-leader by his peers, as he is the founding chair of the HSMAI Travel Internet Marketing Organization and the HSMAI Hotel Internet Marketing Committee, and initiated the HSMAI Travel Internet Marketing Strategy conferences. Moreover, he co-founded and co-chaired the first Online Revealed Canada conference in May 2006, founded and chairs the Canadian E-Tourism Strategy Conference, Canada-e-Connect, which is held in conjunction with the first ever Canadian E-Tourism Awards, which he created, featuring the first ever E-Tourism Climate Change Award in collaboration with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
He also established and chairs the Canadian E-Tourism Council, consisting of the "who's who" in travel and tourism marketing and e-commerce in Canada, spanning through all industry sectors and all over Canada. In addition, he is quoted and has contributed to numerous articles, white papers, and text books, and is a speaker at many industry conferences and events. Thraenhart has served on various industry boards, including both the Global Board and the Americas Board of Directors of the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), as well as North America Board for the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT). In his spare time, he operates the "Tourism Internet Marketing Blog", and he is co-founder and editor-in-chief of global travel blogging community "Tips from the T-List <http://www.tipsfromthetlist.com/> ".
Originally from Germany, Thraenhart holds an MBA-accredited Masters of Management in Hospitality from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, and a joint Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality Management from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University Center 'Cesar Ritz' at Brig, Switzerland. He was recognized as one of the 'travel industry's top 100 rising stars' by Travel Agent Magazine in 2003, and was listed as one of the '25 Most Extraordinary Sales and Marketing Minds in Hospitality and Travel' in 2004 and 2005.
Most importantly, he has a wicked sense of humour and can usually be spotted in some of the most exotic locations in the world helping to define the next great trend!
For more information, visit Thraenhart.com <http://www.thraenhart.com> and TourismInternetMarketing.com <http://www.tourisminternetmarketing.com> .

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