Former IHG Executive Steve Sickel Joins Room Key as Interim CEO

Veteran hotel industry executive Steve Sickel has been named interim CEO of Room Key®, the experience-tailored hotel search engine created by six of the world's leading hotel companies. He succeeds John Davis, who has led the company since its inception and has decided to step down from the post at the end of September.

One of the founding leaders who conceived of and brought Room Key to market in 2012, Mr. Sickel previously served for more than 13 years at IHG, most recently as Senior Vice President, Distribution and Relationship Marketing. Mr. Sickel departed IHG in late 2013, when he left to launch his own consulting company; he now returns to a Room Key leadership role as interim CEO until a permanent CEO is named.

“John Davis has played a vital role in launching this company and creating a strong foundation from which Room Key will continue to evolve and grow,” said Jeff Diskin, Chairman of the Room Key Board of Directors and EVP Commercial Services at Hilton Worldwide. “As he transitions the reins of CEO, we are fortunate to have an executive as experienced and talented as Steve on board to lead the company forward as we continue to build on our many successes.”

Mr. Diskin noted that Mr. Sickel will focus on advancing Room Key’s efforts to expand its core business-to-consumer meta-search offering while also planning and developing a broad business-to-business distribution product offering. He will also lead marketing, product and technology efforts in addition to overseeing Room Key’s finance, legal and human resources operations.

“Room Key is a compelling platform with an exciting future in store,” said Mr. Sickel. “I look forward to furthering the progress the company has made in just over two years, including achieving substantial conversion rate growth and increasing hotel inventory by more than double since launch.”

About Room Key®

Room Key is an experience-tailored hotel search engine created by six of the world's leading hotel companies. The personalized service enables travelers to quickly and easily review value for their stay – based on specific attributes and preferences most important to individual guests – and book directly with more than 100 leading hotel brands in 159 countries around the world. With a continued focus on providing consumers the best, personalized value for their trip, Room Key also allows travelers to review properties based on the pricing and benefits associated with their respective hotel frequent guest programs – something that cannot be done on any other online travel booking site.

Through a collaboration with Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), Room Key makes it easy to join the fight against cancer: for every stay booked on www.Roomkey.com, Room Key will donate $1 to SU2C through February 2017, accelerating vital research, delivering new therapies to patients and helping to save lives now. Room Key donates $1 each and every time you stay with a minimum guarantee of $500,000 annually.

Room Key was founded in 2012 by Choice Hotels International (NYSE:CHH), Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE:H), InterContinental Hotels Group (NYSE:IHG), Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE:MAR) and Wyndham Hotel Group, part of the Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE:WYN), or their respective affiliates.

For more information about Room Key, visit www.Roomkey.com, or for information about the campaign, visit www.Roomkey.com/StaytheNight. You can follow Room Key on their blog, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.