Amid labor challenges and rising costs, the hotel industry in general has entered an era of "do more with less." One way in which hotel companies are achieving that goal is by prioritizing the integration of sales, marketing and revenue management departments.
Speaking during the "A New Framework for Converging Sales, Marketing & Revenue Optimization" session at the 2022 HSMAI Marketing Strategy Summit, PM Hotel Group Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Lovell Casiero said the interrelation between sales, marketing and revenue teams has transformed how her company approaches its busy request-for-proposal season.
"Revenue management has done such a wonderful job of driving our [rates], and now we have to decide whether we even still need some accounts," she added. "So it takes a village, right? Two months ago, we decided to brush off one of our spreadsheets and have everybody look at what accounts they currently have ... to kind of understand where we're going from there."
Experts note, however, that achieving that level of cooperation among departments requires the understanding of each one's function and how they operate.
Chris Hardy, vice president of sales and revenue strategy for Parks Hospitality Group, said during the "How to Unsilo the Sales Process" at HSMAI's 2022 Revenue Optimization Conference Americas that his company is broadening its training.
"We started to train [our sales teams] on revenue-management principals and strategy ... and I think that has really benefited our team so we have a broader understanding of how the two disciplines need to work together," he said.
Lori Kiel, chief commercial officer for the Kessler Collection, said during the same panel that her company's department integration efforts have led to the creation of a sales executive committee. This committee is comprised of every director of sales across Kessler, the marketing leaders and revenue leaders.
"They all sit on one committee, and we meet every two weeks on Zoom," she said. "That way, all the leaders are at one table, if you will, where they can talk business, whether it's sales, revenue, marketing or anything else."
And while "breaking down the silos" has been a cliche phrase for the past few years, it's an opportunity that brands should take amid the hotel industry's recovery, said Michael Klein, vice president of global revenue management for Hyatt Hotels Corp., speaking during the “Post-Pandemic Evolution to Revenue Strategy” panel at HSMAI’s 2022 Revenue Optimization Conference Americas.
“I know that’s been the buzzword for the last five conferences, but I really think the regionalization of the recovery really opened our eyes to how we have to work through the pandemic and really made a great model for the future," he said.
Dave Roberts, former Marriott International revenue management executive and current professor at Cornell University, added that more collaboration among departments is essential during a "do more with less" era.
“There’s still a big gap [between workforce needs and available talent],” Roberts said. “I think there’s still an enormous opportunity for collaboration. Silos coming down is great, but what [panelists] describe is probably not universal across the industry.”
Hotel experts at the "View from the Top" panel at HSMAI's 2022 Revenue Optimization Conference Americas offered advice for young hoteliers who are entering this new normal of heightened collaboration.
"Earlier in my career, I used to come up with a way forward and say, 'OK, this is the right way to do it. To this date, I think some of the things we've tried to do are still the right way, but if the industry goes in a different direction — anyone who works for me has heard the saying 'You're all alone in Rightsville.' So, you can be right, but if you're standing there all by yourself, it doesn't do you any good. You've got to move on; you've got to let go," said Aimbridge's Executive Vice President of Commercial and Revenue Strategy Andrew Rubinacci.