Original Research From HSMAI’s Curate: 9 Top Challenges

By Christopher Durso, Vice President of Content Development, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

What are the top-of-mind, priority-one issues for hospitality sales, marketing, and revenue-management leaders? That was the focal point of the original research that powered Curate, HSMAI’s new Executive Insights Forum, which debuted at Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on April 18–19.

To prepare for Curate, we distributed a pre-event survey to HSMAI’s Organizational Members and Executive Roundtable participants — representing thought leaders and influencers across the profession — that asked them to identify the number-one challenge facing the hospitality industry, along with hospitality sales, marketing, and revenue management. And because we asked survey respondents to identify which hospitality field they work in, we were able to cross-tabulate the results, which were analyzed by Dr. Lalia Rach, founder and partner of Rach Enterprises, and presented in detail at the start of Curate. (You can see all the slides from our research here.)

Here’s what hospitality leaders say are the top issues facing the entire industry — with several overarching trends followed by responses broken down by field:

 

And here are the responses regarding the most challenging issues facing hospitality sales — with a macro trend followed by specific breakouts from the three fields. Between these and the all-industry responses, you can see some common themes emerging, especially talent acquisition and disruptive technology:

 

 

Responses for the biggest challenges facing hospitality marketing also zeroed in on talent and technology, including data analytics:

 

The responses for revenue management went even more deeply into technology and data:

 

And this matrix shows everyone’s responses, cross-tabulated for all three fields, so you can see what hospitality sales, marketing, and revenue-management professionals think are the top challenges facing sales, marketing, and revenue management:

 

We distilled all these responses into nine top challenges:

 

Then Curate attendees voted on the three priority issues they most wanted to explore in detail during our day-long program. The winners:

 

Attendees discussed these priority issues during Curate, producing observations, takeaways, and possible solutions that will help us develop insightful, relevant content for HSMAI Organizational Members — meaning this research, while invaluable to us, is just the beginning.