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By Kaitlin Dunn, Writer, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)
Do you wish you could pick the brains of sales and marketing professionals to see what they are really thinking right now? HSMAI hosted a virtual Executive Roundtable for chief sales and marketing officers of hotel management companies on Feb. 4 — and some of the thoughts they shared with one another are below.
Participating companies included Atlific Hotels, Commonwealth Hotels, Crescent Hotels, The Kessler Collection, LBA Hospitality, Marcus Hotels and Resorts, PM Hotel Group, Prism Hotels & Resorts, Remington Hotels, Sound Hospitality Management, Staypineapple, and Pyramid Hotel Group. Participants had a robust discussion around topics of their choosing, including:
CLUSTERING TODAY AND TOMORROW
While some management companies have clustered — or shared staff between hotels in a specific location or hotels in the same brand — for years, for others it has been a new way to cut costs due to the pandemic. “Prior to COVID, we were clustering with multiple brands and independents in key geographical locations,” one participant said. “And we plan to do even more of it as we come out of COVID.”
One participant said it is difficult to get owners or general managers to sign on to sharing a salesperson or marketing person, so it’s important to lay out a plan to show that the shared employees will be held accountable for all of the hotels individually. “You have to have goals for each individual hotel, so that they aren’t reaching an overall goal from only one of your hotels,” the participant said. “I think if you show them how you’re monitoring and tracking that, they are much more open-minded today because of the cost savings there.”
One participant said that while clustering can work for some locations, it isn’t always the best option. “The idea and the concept make a lot of sense, especially if you’ve got some regional bandwidth,” the participant said. “But it’s hard with disparate owners because you’re sort of ripping every seller apart by 15 different people.”
Another participant added that they have introduced clustering with some success in markets where the concept has previously failed, but they do not consider it to be a long-term solution. “In this COVID timeframe, clustering is a beautiful thing,” the participant said. “I think once we return to a corporate base and it’s much more business travel or corporate group work, I’d find that clustering to be a challenge. It works really well in leisure segments, but I’m envisioning at some point I’ll be pulling back out of some of the clusters I’m in once business travel resumes.”
THE LIMITS OF HYBRID EVENTS
Most industry experts say that hybrid meetings are the way of the future, but some roundtable participants said they see more negatives than positives to this solution. One participant said that he hasn’t seen a great demand for hosting hybrid meetings, but based on his own experience, that isn’t so surprising. “We did a virtual sales conference this year, and it went well but it was very lackluster,” the participant said. “We did a really good job with it, sending a party box out and things like that, but it’s just not the same. You just can’t get the same level of excitement and celebration.”
Another participant added: “I think that last year, Zoom was interesting, but we’re now Zoomed out. I wonder how long this hybrid piece will last, because you can’t hold the attention of the attendees.”
Participants also said that the cost of hosting hybrid events is greater than in-person-only events, because you have to spend so much more money on the technology to make sure virtual attendees have a high-quality experience. “The cost that the AV companies are giving to the clients is crazy,” one participant said. “And it almost becomes a negative to hold the meeting, because we’re passing on 20-percent cost increases to attendees, and we don’t even know how much they’re getting out of being there.”
Another participant added: “On the client side, I’ve talked to many who just hate it for so many reasons, but especially the reduction in level of engagement and the additional cost. It’s so expensive.”
BUDGETING AND INCENTIVES
While participants all have different ways of handling budgets and incentives at their organizations, the one thing they all agreed on was that it has been hard to do that this year. One participant said that because her company does budgeting on a rolling basis, it was tough to come up with a fair incentive plan when some budgets were submitted before the second wave of COVID hit. “We found it challenging to be holding bonuses tied to a budget that may or may not have been done with all the information,” the participant said. “We did roll it out based on budget, unfortunately, but then we have exceptions for hotels that require exceptions, and we got approval from owners to do it on a reduced budget.”
Another participant added: “We went through all the exercises trying to understand goals, and I tell you, it is a completely uncertain science right now.”
Participants are trying several different incentive plans over the next year. “We took them from quarterly to annual,” one participant said. “And then we took ’21 budgeted revenue, and that was a goal. And then future pays in ’22, ’23, and ’24 was a goal in RPI. So, we’re hitting all years, but focusing on ’21. You do anything you can to bring revenue into the hotel, it doesn’t matter what segment.”
Another participant added: “For the ops team and the ownership groups, it was imperative that they had a positive GOP as a gatekeeper before paying out any bonuses. For sales, it is something I have always advocated against, because our salespeople have to be motivated, regardless of whether the hotel has positive GOP. I stood down this time, given the current situation, and enabled that to be a part of the plans. We changed it from a six-month plan to a quarterly plan. And I feel like we’re not going to be paying out a ton because all of our big, full-service hotels that are not resorts still don’t have positive GOP.”
“We’ve got for the first time ever our salespeople aligned with the executive committee,” another participant said. “The payouts are different for different categories. So, they’re paying maybe more on RPI than