www.calodging.com January/February 2023 17 he Industry Women in Lodging Connect Leader of the Year Joan Harvey, Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa Beach Joan has been our Director, Sales & Marketing at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa for four years now and has worked with Accor for over 23 years. Amazing, respectful, empowering, and strategic are just some of the words shared by Joan Harvey’s team when asked to describe her leadership style. We’d say she is the perfect recipe for a well-balanced leader and mentor - thoughtful with her messages, leads with her head and her heart, smart, effective and drives results. Joan puts her team first. There is no greater example of this than when the pandemic hit and her decision to take a furlough herself so that a few of her team members could stay on board and continue to work. When it came to building back after the pandemic, Joan adapted and pivoted time and time again. Joan encouraged the team to look for additional revenue streams and unique ways to connect with guests. Joan has assisted in improving the guest room collateral and content, enhancing our website along with other third party websites, and successfully launched a new social membership club. This will be the best year of performance in the Hotel’s history. But you can still find Joan out and about on property when she has a few minutes picking up trash and showing a sense of pride in our resort. Community Service Award Melissa Begin, Hotel Paradox, Autograph Collection Hotel Paradox team member Melissa Begin initiated a community service on behalf of the Hotel Paradox in 2019 that remains in practice. With the goal of maintaining the health and beauty of the San Lorenzo Park, which is between the hotel and business in downtown, she created a program called “Bridging the Gap”, which allows hotels to “adopt” a block of the San Lorenzo Park and commit to clean it up on a quarterly basis. Melissa has engaged with many different businesses in the downtown area and, because of her efforts, the clean-ups have been conducted on a consistent quarterly basis. The Bridging the Gap River beautification project collects approximately 200lbs of garbage per clean-up and is a great success for the hotel, community, and businesses in the area. Congratulations Melissa and congratulations Hotel Paradox on this beautiful and successful project.
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