A Deep Dive Into the Minds of Brand Revenue Executives

By Kaitlin Dunn, Writer, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

Revenue leaders have a lot on their mind these days — such as planning and innovating to bring revenue back to pre-COVID levels. HSMAI hosted a virtual Brand Chief Revenue Officer Executive Roundtable on Feb. 16, bringing together revenue executives to discuss some of the ways they’re doing that.

Participating companies included Accor, Ashford, Auberge Resorts, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels, Preferred Hotels & Resorts, Radisson Hotels, RLH Corporation, and Rosewood Hotel Group. Here are select insights that participants shared:

ON SHIFTING STAFFING MODELS:

  • “We wanted to do some streamlined, centralized approaches, and the pandemic provided us the opportunity to do that. We took advantage of that opportunity, reduced headcount in some geographic locations, and then centralized some other approaches. The return on our investment has been fantastic.”
  • “With less corporate and global support, it’s definitely difficult to prioritize what you can do in terms of a support mechanism for the hotel. Therefore, less corporate headcount is impacting the number of hotels that we can support. You really have to pick and choose the areas of focus that you can lend to your operators and owners.”

ON THE VALUE OF REVENUE OPTIMIZATION:

  • “We’ve been doing some revenue-for-hire and it’s something that’s optional for hotels if they’ve reduced staffing. It’s very challenging, because when you finally get to one foot forward in getting what’s left of the staff to accept the strategies that we’re offering, it is two steps back, because then ownership puts in somebody who might be unqualified.”
  • “There’s a desire to showcase the benefit of our services, but a lot of people are wed to the status quo, even though the status quo is no longer relevant.”
  • “I think it’s tough from an owner’s standpoint, because you don’t want to be shortsighted and make decisions that are going to impact you for the long haul, and so some owners have found ways through services to show savings for alternative hotels, where one DRM would oversee another.”

ON GROUP BUSINESS COMING BACK THIS YEAR:

  • “As a company that does a lot with big groups, we’re not anticipating any significant recovery in the group space, although we have seen some of our hotels get smaller groups.”
  • “I can’t fathom getting on a plane right now. We’re still under lockdown here, so we’re just making sure that we’re flexible with contracts and that we’re working with the clients. No one’s thinking of doing anything in person up here.”
  • “We have the benefit of having quite a bit of distribution in Asia, and even mainland China, that’s been ahead of recovery. They’re not getting group back together yet; as much as they try, it just ends up being problematic. We’re not thinking anything is going to happen much at all this year in North America or Europe.”

Categories: Revenue Management
Insight Type: Articles