Peter Fitzgerald

Peter Fitzgerald delivers advice based on 20 years' experience in the travel, technology and hospitality industries and considerable expertise in distribution technology, e-commerce, online consumer marketing and channel management strategies.

Formerly president of Utell and Unirez, the world's largest independent hotel marketing company, Peter also has a proven track record in strategic vision, revenue growth, new product development, client acquisition and retention, and brand positioning.  During his time at the helm of Utell, Peter was responsible for repositioning the company from its primary focus on the travel trade to becoming a fully consumer-facing entity. This was achieved through a combination of organisational restructure, hotel portfolio segmentation, strategic web development, new products and new website design.

Prior to Utell, Peter was vice president - global sales for Pegasus Solutions Inc., responsible for the worldwide sales and account management teams selling CRS, PMS, booking engine and API technology, financial and representation services to hotels, travel management companies, online travel planning providers and wholesalers.  Peter was successful in developing new markets for the company including China, India and Eastern Europe.  During the 'dotcom era', Peter was responsible for Pegasus' technology and distribution sales.  Peter was fully involved in the emergence of online travel portals and negotiated agreements with all of the major players, including lastminute.com, ebookers, Opodo, hotel.de and laterooms  to source and provide them with hotel inventory.

In 1995, Peter established his own company to contract and operate exclusively as VIP Corporation Inc, now a part of Travelclick.  As managing director EMEA and ASPAC, Peter negotiated CRS and GDS contracts for hotel chains such as Stakis and Sarova, as well as bringing independent connectivity to the GDS for car rental companies such as Holiday Autos and Sixt.  Peter's early career was spent in the City of London working in banking and insurance.

Peter is available to advise clients on: 

• central reservation systems
• content management and data distribution
• contracting
• customer relationship management solutions
• e-commerce and online consumer marketing
• global distribution systems and other connectivity suppliers
• global marketing campaigns
• private label reservation solutions
• property management systems
• redefining organisational structure
• revenue maximisation and rate strategy
• sales, account management and service delivery team management
• salesforce management software
• soft branding companies, hotel consortia and hotel representation
• website creation, design, optimisation and booking engines

Peter is a graduate of Leeds University with a BA (Joint Honours) in Management Studies and Spanish. He is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Surrey (Guildford) Faculty of Management Studies and lectures for the online distribution module of the BA e-tourism course. An experienced public speaker, he is a respected presenter at industry conferences including Eye for Travel, Phocuswright, ENTER, and HEDNA.

Associated Areas of Expertise

Application programming interface (API) technologies Read more >

Booking engine selection Read more >

Central reservation systems (CIS) Read more >

Customer relationship management Read more >

E-commerce Read more >

Private label service agreements Read more >

Property management systems Read more >