William Carroll

Dr. Carroll is a Clinical Professor (ret.) at the School of Hotel Administration. For more than twelve years he has taught economics, pricing and marketing distribution courses at the undergraduate, graduate and executive education level. He holds a B.A. degree in economics from Rutgers, an M.S. in labor studies from the University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in economics from Penn State.

As CEO of Marketing Economics, a consulting firm specializing in travel industry pricing, distribution, yield management and strategic planning, Dr. Carroll works with a variety of clients including global distribution systems, hotel service companies and travel intermediaries. He also works closely with PhoCusWright, Inc., a travel industry research, consulting and publishing company, and has written a number of reports and articles, including a report covering the evolution of hotel distribution and its impact on major chains and intermediaries.

For over 25 years Dr. Carroll held a variety of senior positions in the travel industry. He was the Division Vice President for Global Marketing Planning at Hertz where he was responsible for global pricing, yield management, marketing information systems, and counter sales. He implemented the first decentralized yield management system in the car rental industry and a comprehensive Executive Information System (EIS) that gained national recognition. Following Hertz, Dr. Carroll served as the Global Vice President for Reed Elsevier’s Travel Group which included responsibility for Travel Weekly, the Hotel and Travel Index, the Official Hotel Guide, and the Official Meetings and Facilities Guide. He was also responsible for production and data base systems and the migration of information products to electronic distribution.

Prior to his work in the travel industry, Dr. Carroll was an assistant professor of economics at Drew University where he taught courses in econometrics, public finance, labor and environmental economics. He also served as a member of the economics staff at AT&T where he was an expert witness before state regulatory bodies and prepared filings on pricing and forecasting with the Federal Communications Commission.

Dr. Carroll has written numerous academic and popular-press articles on economics and travel industry topics.

In addition to his business and academic career, he is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and was a university lacrosse coach for over 10 years.