I'm back from Las Vegas and it's taken me a couple of days to recover! There was no partying… unfortunately... but a lot of time spent ensuring that everything went perfectly during the event. Before I share some of the great collaboration and some of the topics that were delivered during the forum, I would like to praise our marketing team who spearheaded this event and executed flawlessly – this was an amazing event, and our customers and partners have already delivered great feedback!

This year's theme was The Heart of Hospitality. How did we come up with this theme? We believe that true hospitality happens when hoteliers know the unique expectations of each guest and find ways to exceed those expectations, time after time. One of the avenues that allows hoteliers to deliver hospitality that goes above and beyond guests' expectations at scale is technology. And Sabre Hospitality is at the heart of hospitality technology, powering distinct and dependable guest experiences that will ensure our hoteliers can deliver on their promise of exceptional service!

Alex Alt's opening remarks discussed the state of the industry – the challenges we face, but also the opportunities – and highlighted Sabre Hospitality's continuous focus on customer experience through our SynXis Enterprise Platform's Performance, our Global but Local commitment to customers, and our vision to Transform the hospitality industry.

This year's keynote speaker was Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor-at-Large of Fortune magazine. Geoff presented research findings and examples of how the value of human capital is now more valuable than before. Pulling from his recent book, Humans are Underrated, he discussed the need for hoteliers to connect emotionally with guests in order to build lasting relationships and create excellent guest experiences.

Google's Victoria Fabiano gave an introduction to new research around Micro-Moments and how your brand should leverage those real-time, intent-driven moments to be relevant, not intrusive, throughout the consumer's journey.

Our two days in Las Vegas were packed with break-out sessions covering product insights and investments, as well as trends such as personalization, retargeting, ancillaries and mobility.

On Day 2, a "fireside chat" session was hosted by Sarah Kennedy covering tomorrow's trends and a sneak preview into an upcoming Consumer Mega-Trends report we are publishing soon. During this session, attendees were also able to ask questions about Sabre's product roadmap and innovations and get on-the-spot answers from Paolo Torchio and Robert Dawson.

For the first time, this year we hosted an Innovation Competition, where five hotel tech startups pitched their solutions to the audience and a "Shark Tank" style panel. By popular vote, attendees named Hello Scout the most innovative technology at this inaugural competition. The other participating startups included Suiteness, GuestDriven, Voyat, and Proxce.

Overall the 2016 Customer Forum was a content-packed and insightful event. It's always great to share insights and have a chance for personal, real engagement with our customers and partners. We look forward to next year!