Travel Outlook Renews Kennedy Training Network Certification for the 15th Consecutive Year

Industry-leading hotel call center continues its long-standing commitment to reservations excellence, guest engagement, and revenue performance.

Travel Outlook, The Premier Hotel Call Center™, announced today that it has successfully renewed its Kennedy Training Network (KTN) Certification for the 15th consecutive year, continuing one of the longest-running certifications of its kind in the hospitality industry.

Originally earning its first certification in 2012, Travel Outlook has maintained KTN Certification every year by consistently meeting the organization’s rigorous performance standards through ongoing quality evaluations and call scoring. Unlike many certifications that are earned once, KTN Certification is continuously measured, requiring organizations to maintain an average score of at least 85 percent over a rolling 90-day period.

“Our clients trust us with one of their most valuable revenue channels—the conversations that ultimately become guest bookings,” said John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook. “Maintaining KTN Certification for 15 consecutive years demonstrates that our commitment to quality, guest engagement, and reservations excellence isn’t something we achieve once. It’s something we earn every single day.”

Founded by hospitality sales expert Doug Kennedy, Kennedy Training Network is widely recognized as the lodging industry’s leading authorities on hotel reservations sales, guest service excellence, call quality, and training. KTN’s methodology emphasizes authentic conversations, relationship building, and consultative reservations sales that create better guest experiences while improving conversion rates.

Every Travel Outlook reservation specialist completes KTN’s comprehensive onboarding and coaching program before serving hotel clients. Team members continue to be evaluated using KTN’s industry-leading call scoring methodology, which measures not only reservations sales effectiveness, but also service quality, personalization, and the ability to create meaningful guest connections.

“Travel Outlook continues to demonstrate that exceptional reservations performance comes from investing in people, coaching, and accountability,” said Doug Kennedy, President of Kennedy Training Network. “Fifteen consecutive years of certification reflects a culture that prioritizes continuous improvement and consistently delivers the kind of guest conversations that today’s travelers expect.”

Travel Outlook has long differentiated itself by combining KTN-Certified hospitality reservation specialists with Annette™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™, creating a seamless hybrid guest engagement model that blends AI efficiency with human hospitality. Annette handles routine inquiries, frequently asked questions, and many reservation-related conversations 24/7, allowing certified reservation specialists to focus on complex guest needs, personalized service, and high-value booking opportunities. Together, this approach helps hotels answer more calls, improve reservation conversion, reduce abandoned calls, and deliver exceptional guest experiences without compromising service quality.

“Technology continues to reshape hospitality, but exceptional guest experiences still depend on authentic human connections. Annette allows our KTN-Certified reservation specialists to focus on the conversations where they make the greatest impact—building trust, solving unique guest needs, and converting more reservations. That’s where AI ends, and hospitality begins,” said John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook.

As voice interactions remain one of the highest-converting booking channels for hotels, Travel Outlook’s continued KTN Certification reinforces its commitment to helping hotel partners protect revenue, elevate guest satisfaction, and strengthen brand loyalty through exceptional reservations experiences.

About John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook

A veteran in the hospitality industry, John has owned, developed, and managed hotels for many years.  After earning a BBA from New Mexico State University, he started his career with AT&T, gaining invaluable insight and experience in the early years of the data revolution.  His experience in technology and hospitality merged in his development of Travel Outlook, the world-class hospitality contact center.  More recently, he has branched out with the creation of Annette, the first AI-powered conversational AI assistant for the hotel industry.

About Travel Outlook the Premier Hotel Call Center™

Travel Outlook is an innovative, custom off-site central reservations office (CRO) service that serves as either a primary or overflow reservations department for hotels. Travel Outlook utilizes industry-leading talent combined with hospitality-specific AI-powered technology (Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent™) to enhance customers’ voice channels and increase conversion rates.

Given its progressive approach to the voice channel – in terms of performance, training, transparency, testing and the tools used to measure performance – Travel Outlook, the premier hotel call center™ is the leading voice reservations team in hospitality. Travel Outlook’s valued client list includes Viceroy Hotel Group, Curator Hotels and Resorts, Outrigger, KSL Resorts, Proper Hospitality Group, Atlantis, The Irvine Company, Sage Hospitality, Noble House Hotels, HEI Hotels, Pyramid Global, and many others. Travel Outlook’s team and approach increases sales conversion and helps to create more effective voice communication between hotels and their guests, resulting in improved social scores in addition to increased voice channel revenue.
https://traveloutlook.com/

About Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent™

Annette is a guest-led conversational AI assistant designed specifically for the hospitality industry. Annette has been programmed using a breakthrough approach to conversational AI, using natural language understanding software built from human conversations. Using social media, chat forums, and movie dialogue, Annette learns from billions of casual human conversations to understand human inflections and multi-turn queries. This revolutionary approach means Annette understands callers no matter what they say, when they say it, or how they speak. Annette can answer FAQs specific to your property, understand multiple languages, route calls, send follow up texts, and more. For more information, visit https://traveloutlook.com/annette/

About Kennedy Training Network (KTN)

Headquartered in the Atlanta Metro Area, Kennedy Training Network (KTN) is the leading resource for training in the lodging industry, offering expert programs and support services in hotel reservations sales, guest service excellence, hospitality, and sales team development.

Services include customized, on-site training workshops, private, live, small group webcam training webinars, and telephone mystery shopping for hotel sales, transient reservations sales, hotel-wide hospitality, and “Heart of Hospitality” certification.