Education

• BSc in Hospitality and Tourism Management - University of Technology, Jamaica 
• MSc in Hospitality Management - University of South Florida (USF).

Expertise & Research Interests

• Employee Retention
• Organizational Behavior in the Hospitality Industry
• Training and Development
• Supervisor Support

Career Highlights

Laur-Ann Daley has a passion for delivering consistently exceptional customer service and fostering healthy employee cultures that promote satisfaction and engagement. Her career spans over 11 years across various sectors of the industry - primarily lodging and food service operations. Her experience includes hotel quality control, food safety auditing, general operations management, and catering and events management. Laur-Ann has worked with renowned international brands in Jamaican and St. Lucia including Excellence Resorts, RIU Hotels & Resorts and Royalton Resorts; in the USA she has worked with Aramark and McKibbon Hospitality. While pursuing her master's she joined the Hillsborough County Public Schools Hospitality and Tourism Advisory Board for which she had the opportunity to serve as Secretary on the Executive Advisory Board. 

Early in her career, Laur-Ann recognized a significant gap in associates’ understanding of ‘why’ exceeding guest expectations truly matters. This sparked her passion for coaching, training and talent development and her guiding belief that ‘our associates are the key to our success’. Now pursuing a Ph.D. in Hospitality Administration at the University of Houston, Laur-Ann's research is informed by her breadth of experiences. She has presented at the Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism (2023, 2024) and SECSA-CHRIE (2023, 2024).