HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW
OCTOBER FOCUS: Revenue Management

Getting it Right: Integrated Revenue Optimization Teams

By Sunny Brewer Director of Revenue Optimization, Ashford, Inc. | October 2018

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." Henry Ford

Getting it right in revenue management has certainly become more complicated!

Technology is driving significant change in our industry where the pace of innovation and disruption is accelerating with no end in sight. Buzzwords such as personalization, Internet of Things, AI, chatbots, and Blockchain frequently make the headlines. The distribution landscape has become increasingly complicated facilitated by a robust and complex digital landscape. Big data and prescriptive analytics are driving efficiencies and improvements to revenue management software and answering the question "so what do we do about it?"

Consumers continue to shift their research and buying behavior from desktop to mobile resulting in significant changes to booking windows and behavior. In a report for eMarketer , it was forecasted that mobile bookings would surpass 40% of digital sales in 2017. The growth in technology over the last 10 -20 years has not only changed consumer's behavior, but has fundamentally changed how hoteliers do business, especially revenue management.

Occupancy levels remain at record highs, June 2018 surpassed 100 months of consecutive RevPar growth, and the industry forecast predicts steady growth the remainder of 2018 and into 2019. Despite the strong fundamentals in place to support growth of the industry, RevPar has not grown at a rate to offset the growing distribution and customer acquisition costs related to OTA and travel agency commission, marketing expenses, and other expenses related to distribution. Rising costs continue to put pressure on profit margins driving a focus to shift customers from high cost to lower cost channels such as booking direct.

The competition to acquire, convert, and retain customers is fierce. From new hotel supply, to social media, OTAs, and metasearch engines, and to short term lodging options such as Airbnb; the battle to win the hearts, minds, and wallet share of the modern traveler is an ongoing challenge. A 2016 report from Expedia Media Solutions and comScore found that U.S. travelers visit 140 travel sites within the 45 days leading up to booking with the OTAs comprising 33% of the site visits. In this highly competitive landscape, the evolution of technology has driven a collision between revenue management, sales, and marketing teams, in particular, digital marketing. In many ways, the swim lanes have become blurred.

Historically, revenue management focused on controlling demand and marketing focused on generating demand. As revenue managers shift from tactical to revenue strategy, they too are responsible for demand generation. Today, a revenue manager must take proactive steps to fill need periods as well, including partnering with the digital marketing team for additional demand. Stating "that's digital marketing" or "that's revenue management" is a very fragmented approach to solving shared business problems, but a reality in many organizations today. To catch up and keep up with the rate of change, it's time organizations challenge traditional thinking where these two disciplines operate in separate silos and work towards a holistic collaborative approach to driving revenue.

In the early days, revenue managers crunched numbers analyzing mountains of reports with the end goal to obtain optimal RevPar through the tactical implementation of inventory and length of stay controls. Driven by advancement in technology and changing consumer behavior, today, RM systems efficiently integrate and automate business process enabling the revenue manager to impact hotel revenues in a more proactive way. Pricing and inventory strategies are based on complex mathematical algorithms using property and competitor data resulting in price optimization yielding increased profitability. This has allowed the revenue manager to evolve from a tactical, button-pushing approach, to a strategic, business oriented leader within the organization with a big picture view of the hotel's revenue streams and potential.

A critical component to the success of every hotel is an effective and measurable revenue strategy. It is the roadmap that keeps cross-functional teams on track, outing actions, responsibilities, and timeline for completion. It ensures the hotel looks into the future and creates a long term path towards success to avoid the pitfalls of tactics focused on short term gains. In development, it is important that all key stakeholders, including digital marketing, have an opportunity to provide their ideas and fully buy into the strategy.

Elements of a successful revenue strategy include identifying (for the full year by season) the most optimal and profitable customer segments, periods of high and low demand, customer acquisition plans, and a distribution strategy designed to convert customers from most profitable channels. Communication of the revenue strategy across all disciplines is vital to ensure goals are aligned and everyone knows their marching orders. It is critical that the revenue strategy is a living breathing document and not a one-time exercise that goes on a shelf until next year.

Intersections of Revenue Strategy and Digital Marketing

Let's explore elements of the revenue strategy, specifically where revenue management and digital marketing intersect. A critical component covering all elements of the revenue strategy is the hotel website. It also happens to be the most important piece of the digital marketing strategy. Known as the channel with the lowest distribution cost, the hotel website is the first impression to the traveler. It is the hotel's digital storefront, a 24 hour/7 days-a-week sales person, and has a direct impact on customer acquisition and distribution.

Best described by Bill Marriott, "When I started in the hotel business 52 years ago, the first impression customers had of our hotels was the lobby when they walked through the front doors. But in this digital age, often the first impression comes when they visit Marriott.com. It's our digital front door." Marketing tactics such as search engine optimization, search engine marketing, email campaigns, and social media all drive consumers to the hotel website. When visitors arrive to the website, it is important the information and content they find is accurate, relevant, and compelling. Investing in exceptional photography that visually depicts the space and style of the property, while clearly answering the guest's question "what am I buying?" drives increased customer conversion. It is important to ensure the photography is a realistic representation of the hotel to avoid negative social media reviews for misleading the customer.

As a best practice, revenue managers should pay attention to the website to ensure it is the best representation of the hotel, as it plays a significant role in retail merchandising, customer acquisition, and channel mix. While revenue managers may not be directly responsible for tactically executing hotel website optimization, they should be invested in the optimization of the website and identify opportunities to improve key performance metrics related to the site.

Secondly, the revenue strategy should outline the demand forecast indicating softer time periods on the horizon when business and additional demand is needed. This information should be communicated to the digital marketing team in order to develop a robust demand generation plan and ensure the resources, such as the marketing budget, support what is needed to execute the plan. When discounting for short term gains during tough economic conditions, it will only be effective in generating demand when it is directly linked to strong marketing initiatives. Otherwise, discounting alone will not generate additional demand, will dilute overall RevPar, and has a domino effect on the competitive landscape.

Additionally, it's equally as important for the revenue manager to communicate periods of high demand to marketing, just as you would to sales teams. When demand is high, it could be more optimal for paid media spend to be reduced or require adjustments to marketing campaigns leveraging special offers. As the demand forecast ebbs and flows, it is vital revenue management and digital marketing teams remain in constant communication to ensure digital strategies are optimized to drive revenue through the most profitable channels in the most effective way. These examples illustrate how revenue management and digital marketing intersect and why there is a need to converge these disciplines towards a holistic approach of demand generation and total hotel revenue optimization.

Integrating Teams

In many organizations, revenue management, sales, and digital marketing operate in independent teams generally with their own technology, data, and goals. There is often a lack of integration and coordination of efforts among the various disciplines, specifically in regards to revenue management and digital marketing. From experience, it often seems like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, usually as a result of lack of internal communication and information sharing.

For example, a promotion that was put on the shelf by revenue management and pushed live to the hotel website. Fast forward a few weeks, that offer does not have availability to book. It was found that revenue management closed the offer weeks ago after discussion with the general manager; however, that internal communication did not make it to the digital team. These inefficiencies result in longer decision times to solving a business problem, a poor customer experience, and are to the detriment of price integrity and profitability.

Over time, much has been written on this topic. Many companies have reorganized their structure where sales, revenue management, and digital marketing disciplines fall under one umbrella. Despite the disciplines falling under one umbrella within an organizational chart, silos continue to exist. Why? In order to move in the direction of integrated revenue optimization, organizational and cultural change must occur and be led from the top. The vision of a holistic revenue culture across all disciplines must be clearly articulated and shared across the organization. Leaders should work relentlessly to drive towards the vision; not just by talking about it, but through visible action and small wins.

This evolution and culture change cannot be effective through a top-down mandate or a revision to an organizational chart. It must be a deep desire and shared belief by everyone on the team of "this is how we do things here" in order to gain full and lasting commitment to change. Integrated revenue optimization teams require increased and fluid communication more frequently than during the weekly strategy meeting or the monthly performance review. Find a shared common language and identify tools and processes to share real time data and information. Shared information will aid in breaking down silos among the group.

Additionally, as the roles of revenue manager and digital marketing manager continue to evolve and become more intertwined, it's important to understand each other's points of view and how the disciplines overlap. Education and cross-functional training is a key ingredient to developing a collaborative environment. While revenue managers and digital marketing managers generally are cut from a different cloth, understanding the details of each other's jobs and how they impact each other is important to fostering the partnership long term.

In summary, the speed of technological change and changing customer behavior demands we challenge traditional thinking and break down barriers and silos within organizations. To be successful today and thrive in the future, the need for a holistic approach to demand generation, customer acquisition, channel strategy, and revenue optimization is vital. When hotels are getting it right, they have fully integrated the disciplines of revenue management, sales, and digital marketing and are working together towards one vision and unified goals. They are undivided by cubical walls or silos and have combined systems, disciplines, and resources to form a symbiotic solution to driving total revenue and optimal profitability.

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We can be reached via telephone, email, or online at our contact page. When you visit our site we do not log any information regarding your domain or email address. Information Sharing: We do not share user information with any third parties other than via press release distribution as described below.

Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

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Designing for Tomorrow: How Lighting Innovations are Shaping New Hotel Trends

By Jason Bird, Founder & Creative Managing Director, Luxxbox

The hotel industry is undergoing a design renaissance. Guests no longer evaluate spaces only by their appearance. They also consider how they feel, how well they function, and the memories they create. A visitor may notice a striking chandelier, but they are equally likely to recall the comfort of a quiet lounge, the glow of a spa, or the restorative quality of a perfectly lit room. Travelers expect hotels to feel purposeful. A lobby should be more than a grand entrance—it should set the tone for connection. A guest room should be more than a place to sleep—it should be...

Choosing a Labor Management System

By Kenneth Heymann, Managing Director, Heymann2 & Associates

Imagine that each time you check into a luxury hotel a single associate is assigned to take care of all your needs 24/7. The associate checks you in, takes your bags to your room, then waits outside your door to fulfill any request you might have. How about checking into a select service hotel and having a valet parker, doorman, bellman, concierge, and front desk agent (not all the same person) there to greet you? Any hotel is capable of increasing service beyond the level that a guest typically expects. But the reality is that all hotels have...

Uniting Top Leaders for Realistic Employee Retention

By Cara Silletto, President & Chief Retention Officer, Magnet Culture

Which of your leaders would benefit from improved employee retention? Whoever those leaders are, they have a role to play in implementing effective retention initiatives. When turnover rises, executives often point to HR to "fix it" but their plate is overflowing with termination paperwork, payroll, benefits management, and back-fill recruiting to replace lost talent. HR then blames bad managers for running off the good people they hired, and the managers push back complaining executives do not give them enough time or training to manage their people properly. They’re asked to cover far too many responsibilities at their properties,...

The New Non-Negotiables for Today's Meeting Planners

By Jamie Bruce, President, Teneo Hospitality Group

The meetings and events industry has transformed in recent years, with wellness and sustainability rising as integral components of event planning. Post-pandemic, there’s an evident shift in attendee expectations around health and well-being, driven by increased awareness of physical and mental well-being. For organizations looking to host impactful meetings, integrating wellness and sustainable practices is no longer optional but essential to creating memorable, productive, and responsible events. In my role as president of Teneo Hospitality Group, I’ve seen first-hand how hotels and resorts are innovating to meet these new demands. From incorporating eco-conscious design to offering immersive activities to further...

How the Right Asset Management Firm Helps Optimize Hotel Investments

By Kasia Russell, Senior Managing Director, Practice Leader, HVS

When implemented effectively, partnering with the right asset management firm can help maximize investor returns and real estate property values. Asset management is particularly important in this post-pandemic environment where macroeconomic conditions are in constant flux, geopolitical issues continue to intensify, and domestic monetary policy has considerable implications for real estate wealth management. These factors present both challenges and opportunities; however, without the proper analysis and expert tactics of skilled asset managers, risk becomes more difficult to anticipate and opportunities more challenging to harness. The following article outlines how choosing the right asset management firm, and more specifically, the right...

From Drab to Fab: Revitalizing Your Hotel's Wine List from The Outside-In

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The moment he filled my glass with a Cabernet from Domaine de Long Dai, Chateau Lafite’s iconic vineyard in China, I knew Doug Frost was the right partner to help elevate the wine program at The Prime Rib at Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland. A favorite dining destination of our casino’s patrons, The Prime Rib was in the midst of a reimagination, and wine was a top priority. While I am a longtime wine enthusiast and understand how to craft a diverse and comprehensive list from my over two-decade long career in food and beverage, I also believe...

Redefining Hospitality Through Sustainability and Innovation

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When TIME Magazine named Iberostar one of the 100 Most Influential Companies of 2025, we felt so proud—but also humbled. A recognition of this kind is not the destination of our journey, but a reminder that we are on a good path, even as so much work lies ahead. For us, sustainability is not a project or a campaign. It is a transformation—one that began with the Fluxà family’s long-term vision and Gloria Fluxà’s bold decision to launch Iberostar Wave of Change in 2017. Her conviction was clear: the future of tourism depends on healthy oceans, thriving...

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By Jerome G. Grzeca, Founder & Managing Partner, Grzeca Law Group, S.C.

The first three months of President Trump’s second Administration has been defined by a flurry of Executive Orders and changes to government agencies, many impacting the nation’s immigration policy. Understanding how these changes will impact your foreign national workers is essential to assisting your workforce. By examining the policies implemented during President Trump’s initial Administration and his current Administration, we can begin to build a picture of potential immigration-related implications for your foreign national workers. With immigration restrictions being a cornerstone of the second Trump Administration, it is necessary to remain informed on the issues and potential complications...

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A major challenge for most U.S. hotel owners and operators during 2023 and through the first quarter of 2024 has been their ability to control fixed-expense budgets, particularly rising insurance costs. A toxic combination of weather events, inflation, hotel valuation, reconstruction, material, and labor costs has created an extremely challenging environment for hotel operators, other real estate-focused industries, and personal property owners. Limited-service or franchised economy-branded hotels face an even bigger issue - securing affordable coverage. The insurance environment is much more cautious and thorough regarding hotel pricing than it was pre-pandemic. Obviously, there...

Legacy Vacation Resorts: Empowering Employees, Uplifting Democracy

By Alex Smith, Chief Operating Officer, Legacy Vacation Resorts

The best intention of a democracy is that there is a fundamental right to have every voice heard and pathways that exist to allow those within it to practice their civic duty. However, despite its importance there are barriers that many people face to take part in it. As employers we have a unique opportunity to help remove some of those barriers and uplift our team to become the best citizens they can be through a variety of different programs. By providing these kinds of resources and overall encouragement, we develop a more engaged and informed workforce while also...

HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW OCTOBER FOCUS: Revenue Management

Getting it Right: Integrated Revenue Optimization Teams

By Sunny Brewer Director of Revenue Optimization, Ashford, Inc. | October 2018

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OCTOBER FOCUS: Revenue Management