Revenue on the line: Why the voice channel matters more than ever | with Agnelo Fernandes

Episode notes

In this strategic episode of Hotel Moment, host Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, welcomes back Agnelo Fernandes, CEO of Cote Hospitality with over two decades in luxury hospitality, to discuss Revinate's 11th annual 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report findings specifically for the voice channel. The report gathered data from Revinate's platform with 12,500+ customers, analyzing 2 billion emails, 28 million guest reviews, 4 million calls, and 22 million text messages, diving into tactics for email, voice, messaging, and web channels broken down by hotel size and class. What you'll learn: Voice as premium inventory mindset : Agnelo emphasizes voice is premium inventory "like gold today" requiring protection and prioritization by connecting to CDP, rejecting declining voice beliefs while acknowledging maturation where calls still convert strongly despite peak time pressures. Peak season staffing transformation : Peak season breaks manila staffing models requiring two frames: triaging calls into revenue versus service categories, and scaling staffing into two layers with highly trained closers separated from service support staff.