Citibank

With the economy (hopefully) starting to gain steam, hotels are starting to see some relief. Prices have been creeping back up over the last few years after the lows of 2008-2009. But hotel owners and managers still face the basic business dilemma – how do you get more revenue? The answer is obvious: fill more rooms! But how you fill those rooms is also important.

As you're packing for this week's Shop.org Annual Summit, it's useful to keep in mind how digitizing the retail experience for your business's consumers via APIs can really make your business stand out as an innovative and more influential player in the retail space. To help keep things in perspective before the show, we'll use Best Buy as a case-in-point example for how a traditionally brick-and-mortar store transformed its business model into one that has proven great success in this post-website era.

THE PROBLEM