{"id":264,"date":"2018-05-24T15:38:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T19:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hospitality\/?post_type=profile&p=264"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:35:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T15:35:59","slug":"leora-halpern-lanz","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hospitality\/profile\/leora-halpern-lanz\/","title":{"rendered":"Leora Halpern Lanz, ISHC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Globally recognized hospitality marketing strategist and educator Leora Halpern Lanz, ISHC<\/strong> is the author of Developing Your Marketing Mindset: Real-World Lessons from Hospitality<\/em> (released September 15, 2025) and the forthcoming Marketing Mindset in Motion: Inspired by Hospitality<\/em> (February 2, 2026). Developing Your Marketing Mindset<\/em> achieved Amazon\u2019s International Best Status within 24 hours of release and also won the New England Book Festival\u2019s Business Book of 2025.<\/p>\n

Leora is Professor of the Practice, teaching the locally revered senior Experiential Marketing course (formerly called Advanced Strategic Marketing) and the graduate level Hospitality Digital Marketing Strategies class. She has been an active leader and presence in the field of hospitality marketing throughout her career.<\/p>\n

Since joining the School of Hospitality Administration (SHA) in January 2015, she has served for five years as Faculty Chair of the Graduate Program and for three years as Academic Assistant Dean. She has spearheaded the development of several of the school\u2019s courses, concentrations and master\u2019s programs, including the online Master of Management in Hospitality. In addition to her teaching and administrative responsibilities at SHA, Leora serves as faculty advisor to the Boston University Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity and participates in the Faculty Advisory Council for BU Hillel.<\/p>\n

Prior to joining SHA, Leora founded LHL Communications, assisting hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and destinations with branding and marketing strategies and solutions, including media relations, digital and social media advisory, and online reputation management, including development of internal and external position statements; content creation and storytelling for audience engagement and connections; media training, and \u201cbranding\u201d and \u201csolutions\u201d sales training. Her clients include hospitality management and ownership companies, consulting firms and advisory services, regional investment conferences around the globe, a lodging brand owners association, and experts in a variety of hospitality-adjacent services.<\/p>\n

For 15 years, Leora served as Global Director of Marketing & Communications for HVS, the leading global hospitality consulting and services firm. She was responsible for overseeing the internal and external marketing communications for the organization\u2019s multitude of offices, services, conferences, and articles and research. She directed the firm\u2019s global business teams for marketing and communications, graphic standards, internal communications, social media, conference branding and the Market Connections annual event. She also managed and edited the firm\u2019s weekly newsletter, the Global Hospitality Report and was the company\u2019s primary media contact.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, Leora directed HVS\u2019s Sales & Marketing division, working directly with a myriad of hotel owners, properties and companies, hospitality-related services, and other entertainment and recreational venues. Leora and her team of experienced marketing communications specialists provided strategic planning, innovative sales training and action planning, social media marketing and publicity, and big-picture branding consultancy.<\/p>\n

Prior to joining HVS, she worked for nearly nine years as Director of Public Relations & Advertising for the ITT Sheraton Hotels of New York and for five years as Director of Public Relations for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau (now Meet Boston). With ITT Sheraton, she ran the public relations and advertising operations for six hotels and played a significant public relations role for the hotels during the 1992 Democratic National Convention, and for numerous hotel openings. While in Boston, she spearheaded the citywide promotion of the Monet exhibition and was invited by the Japan National Tourist Organization to teach destination marketing to tourism officials there.<\/p>\n

Leora is a founding member of the Board of Directors for the non-profit Center for Responsible Hospitality, promoting responsible hospitality through data, education, and community. She is also a member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC) and the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), for which she served as a member of the Americas Advisory Board.<\/p>\n

Leora was named one of the Top 100 Powerful Leaders of Hospitality in the US in 2022 by the International Hospitality Institute (IHI)). The IHI also named her one of the Top 50 Influential Hospitality Educators for 2024, Top 30 Influential Hospitality Educators for 2023, and Top 25 Influential Hospitality Educators for 2022, and appointed her as one of its five Educational Advisory Board Members. In February 2017, HSMAI\u2019s national leadership awarded Leora as one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds of Hospitality Sales & Marketing. She was also honored as Professor of the Year for 2016-2017 by the students at Boston University\u2019s School of Hospitality Administration.<\/p>\n

In November 2019, she was named one of the \u201c18 Women Paving the Way in Hospitality\u201d by Lodging<\/em> magazine; in early 2020 she was nominated as a Massachusetts Lodging Association Business Partner of the Year; and in 2010 Hospitality Marketing Executive of the Year by the Big Apple (Greater New York) chapter of HSMAI.<\/p>\n

Leora earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from Cornell University and a master\u2019s from Boston University, writing her master\u2019s thesis on hotel crisis communications. Over the years, she has written for dozens of industry publications including BU SHA\u2019s Boston Hospitality Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Connect on LinkedIn<\/a><\/p>\n

Office Hours<\/h2>
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By appointment.<\/p>\n

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Courses<\/h2>
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SHA HF100<\/td>\nIntroduction to Hospitality<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SHA HF260<\/td>\nIntroduction to Hospitality Marketing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SHA HF378<\/td>\nDigital Marketing for Hospitality<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SHA HF460<\/td>\nExperiential Marketing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SHA HF768<\/td>\nDigital Marketing for Hospitality (graduate level)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Recent Publications<\/h2>
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