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Atlanta Office:
3300 Highlands Parkway
Suite 120
Smyrna, Ga 30082
Sales Offices:
344 Leonard Street
Brooklyn, New York 11211
290 Oakhurst Lane #B
Arcadia, CA 91007
Ryan Bifulco – Founder & CEO
Ryan is an Internet and travel pioneer with over 15 years of travel and new media experience. An expert on interactive travel, destination marketing, and tourism, Ryan has been featured on Business Talk Radio's Travel Show, ABC Radio, NY Times, and USA Today. He launched the first ever luxury travel podcast in January of 2006 called journeyPod. He founded and leads Travel Spike, an interactive company offering custom marketing and technology solutions exclusively to the travel sector. Ryan and the team at Travel Spike provide digital strategy, dynamic packaging booking engines, and online travel marketing to over 1500 travel clients. Ryan regularly speaks at top industry shows like PhoCusWright, Travel Industry Association, Destination Marketing Association International, and Hospitality Sales and Marketing International. Prior to Travel Spike, Ryan was at LastMinuteTravel.com as VP Strategic Alliances and VP Operations. As a member of the AirTran management team, he established and ran the revenue management, pricing, distribution planning, tour, and e-commerce departments. Ryan launched airtran.com in 1998 and guided it to become the number one airline website according to Salomon Smith Barney. He worked for US Airways in international revenue management. Ryan was promoted three times in three years and was responsible for over $675 million in revenue per year. He received his degree in Economics from Wake Forest University.
Howard Koval - Executive Vice President, Business Development
Howard is a new media pioneer with extensive travel industry experience – spanning all facets of content, technology, marketing and business development. He has spent his entire 25-year career at the crossroads of entertainment, media and technology with the last 10 years focused on revolutionizing the travel industry through innovative digital applications and technologies. Howard has successfully implemented and managed many high level partnerships with companies ranging from AOL to Yahoo. Before Travel Spike, Howard was the founder and CEO of iPace, Inc., a venture-backed online personalization and recommendation platform optimized for leisure travel purposes. Prior to that, Howard was Executive Vice President and member of the founding team of Screaming Media, Inc. Howard actively advises companies on digital strategies and is a regular speaker at many industry conferences. Howard was involved with building the first website for the NY Times and is currently affiliated with the American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab in Hollywood, CA.
Ori Klein – Chief Technology Officer
As the company’s CTO, Mr. Klein handles all technology research, development, and support. Ori works with the technical team to enhance the company's dynamic packaging, hotel, and attraction ticket engines. A strategic thinker with a strong technical background, Mr. Klein is experienced in managing technical teams and participating in the development processes of travel websites. Mr. Klein has over 15 years of technology experience at the management level. Prior to Travel Spike, Ori founded and led Locust Systems, Inc., a full service application development and consulting company. Earlier, he held the position of Chief Technology Officer of RezConnect Technologies. This public company operating in the franchised travel world as Global Travel Networks has over 400 offices in 21 countries. Mr. Klein supported the complete business-to-business, consumer-to-business and e-commerce strategy for the various web portals.
Marlene Oliver - APR and Senior Vice President of Public Relations
Marlene is known for her strategic approach to communications. She heads up our Digital PR team at Travel Spike in order to increase exposure and online pickup for our clients. Ms. Oliver is also the founder and Manager Partner of NJC Communications. Fluent in English and Spanish, she brings more than 15 years of experience to the Company. Ms. Oliver served as the Director of Corporate Communications for FAR&WIDE Travel Corporation and its family of 21 global tour operator companies. She was able to get news coverage by Travel Guru Peter Greenburg of NBC’s The Today Show, The New York Times, USA Today, Travel+Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler and hundreds of other consumer and travel trade outlets (print, broadcast, and online).
Marlene served as Director of PR at Interval International, a global vacation exchange company. She was the PR manager for Miami Seaquarium and launched the theme park’s Water and Dolphin Encounter. Her awards include: MarCom Award, Travel Agent Magazine Rising Star, ARDA Gold Award for Community Relations Program and International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Brass Ring Award. She received a BS degree in Mass Communications from Florida International University, and completed language and culture programs at Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain and Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, Italy. Ms. Oliver received her Accreditation in Public Relations in March of 2003.
Ted Perlstein – Vice President of Operations
Ted brings over a decade of experience in e-commerce as a strategy expert (with a focus on the online travel industry). He has held strategy positions at Orbitz, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and LastMinuteTravel.com, in addition to strategic consulting positions at Niche Marketing and Ascenda Partners. Most recently Ted was responsible for driving strategy on the air business at Orbitz that constituted annual revenue exceeding a quarter of a billion dollars. Ted was a founding member of LastMinuteTravel.com and was responsible for the front-end consumer website, as well as the backend solution for all travel suppliers and partners. He has a rare skill set that allows him to understand both the marketing and technical sides to a travel organization. Ted holds an Electrical Engineering degree from Washington University in St. Louis and earned his MBA at Columbia Business School.
David Bowman – Vice President of Sales
Dave brings 30 years of general sales, enterprise sales, technology, and travel experience to Travel Spike and heads up sales and development for the company. Dave has cultivated strong relationships with almost every major hotel chain and property management company during his sales tenure in the hospitality sector. Prior to Travel Spike, Dave was VP of Sales at Computerized Lodging Systems, Director of Business Development at Micros Systems, and has many years of experience with other hotel technology organizations where he consistently exceeded his sales quotas. Dave is a dedicated professional that endorses strategic solution based selling and excellent customer service to retain client satisfaction. Dave was groomed in the advertising industry early in his career. His father was president of Byer & Bowman Advertising Agency employing over 200 people. Dave is a graduate of Boston University with a degree in Marketing and Communications.
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