About Carnes Agency
Important work deserves the right support.
Carnes Agency was created for hospitality brands and leaders with meaningful ideas, evolving organizations, and opportunities worth pursuing.
We bring industry perspective, strategic judgment, and a dedicated agency team together to help move that work forward.
Built from inside the industry.
Carnes Agency is a strategic marketing and communications firm shaped by nearly two decades of experience across hospitality, associations, editorial media, public relations, and executive leadership.
We understand the relationships, reputations, and realities behind this business—and the responsibility that comes with helping organizations communicate what they are building.
How we show up matters.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Reputation Is Earned.
Every message, interaction, and decision contributes to how an organization is understood.
Clarity Creates Momentum
The strongest work begins with knowing what matters, where you are going, and what deserves attention.
Relationships Carry Weight
Hospitality is built through trust, responsiveness, and the way people show up for one another.
Ideas Need Follow-Through
Meaningful progress comes from pairing thoughtful direction with the care and accountability to carry it forward.
“I founded Carnes Agency to give ambitious hospitality organizations the kind of partner I believed important work deserved—thoughtful, responsive, deeply invested, and prepared to carry it forward.”
THE AGENCY BEHIND THE WORK
Connected expertise.
Shared accountability.
Carnes Agency is founder-led and supported by a dedicated multidisciplinary team spanning strategy, client leadership, content, communications, creative, digital, and project
management.Each engagement brings together the right expertise around a shared understanding of the client, the goal, and the work in motion.
One Connected Team
Shared context and coordinated thinking across the engagement.
The Right Expertise
Specialists contributing where their perspective creates the most value.
Clear Ownership
Dedicated leadership, organized execution, and reliable follow-through.
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Heather Carnes
Strategic Counsel for Hospitality’s Ambitious Leaders.
Heather Carnes is the founder and managing partner of Carnes Agency, a strategic marketing and communications firm serving hospitality brands, leaders, and organizations.
With nearly two decades of experience across hospitality, associations, public relations, editorial media, branding, and executive leadership, Heather brings a rare understanding of both the industry and the people shaping it.
She is known for bringing clarity to complex ideas, strengthening the way organizations communicate, and helping leaders move important work forward with greater intention and confidence.
After years of working alongside hotel owners, executives, entrepreneurs, and industry organizations, Heather founded Carnes Agency to create the kind of partner she believed ambitious clients deserved: thoughtful, responsive, strategic, and prepared to stay close to the work.
Today, she leads the agency’s strategic direction, serves as senior counsel to clients, and works alongside a multidisciplinary team carrying ideas from early conversation through execution.
Speaking & Workshops
Heather is the author creator of multiple workbooks, and has spoken at industry conferences and on national stages.
STRATEGIC THINKER // STORYTELLER // BRAND BUILDER // MESSAGE SHAPER // HOSPITALITY-MINDED // GRAMMAR GEEK // DOG LOVER // PURPOSE-DRIVEN
Let’s move hospitality forward, together.
Tell us what you are building, changing, or bringing to life.