Hotel revenue managers and strategists are redefining their roles across the hotel industry and pushing for more sophisticated practices from broader commercial teams, experts say.
In a recent story by Hotel News Now's Trevor Simpson, revenue-management executives said employees in their discipline have grown in influence.
"It's now its own discipline in many hotels, you're part of the executive committee," Tina Meredith, vice president of revenue management at PM Hotel Group, said at a roundtable discussion during the Hotel Data Conference. "A lot of things transpired in between from the evolution of the distribution channels and everything we've had to deal with with that, but it's taken quite a leap from two or three decades ago."
But those same revenue managers say they need to be a bigger part of the decision-making process particularly when it comes to technology.
"Someone could pick up a property-management system where you can't map the detail that you need to make the revenue decisions that you need," said Jenna Fishel, senior vice president of commercial strategy at First Hospitality. "Revenue, commercial needs a bigger seat at the table when it comes to some of the technology decisions."
Revenue managers are also looking to evolve their discipline with an increasing focus on profitability and revenues that don't come purely from rooms.
"Hotels are not just rooms," Priya Chandnani, senior vice president of sales, revenue and distribution strategy at Sage Hospitality Group, said during a panel at HDC. "There's food and beverage. There's spa. There's cabanas. There's tents. There's all of this opportunity out there that we can continue to leverage, and it really is coming out of our comfort zone and trying new things."
As the discipline looks to grow, leaders say they need more influence on overall strategy and a more direct connection with owners.
"Revenue managers should lead the total strategy for the hotel, whether it be group, transient, [business transient], we should kind of be the guiding force," said Lynn Edwards, vice president of revenue management at Chartwell Hospitality. "We're looking at stats, day-of-week trends, lead times, we've got all that data, so we should be driving those discussions with our sales teams. But I don't think that means that sales should report to revenue management."
One big shift in revenue strategy coming sooner rather than later is pricing transparency rules that are already adopted in California and are likely to see a nationwide rollout before the end of the year, according to Troy Flanagan, the American Hotel & Lodging Association's executive vice president of external government affairs and industry relations. He said his group, the top lobbying organization for the U.S. hotel industry, has been pushing for the change in order to guarantee consistency rather than allowing states to take a piecemeal approach.
"In a situation like this where you've got consumers across political boundaries booking hotels or considering booking through the internet, this is an event where the solution should be a federal solution," he said. "We've been pushing on that for several years, and we're getting pretty close."
Dallas-based Remington Hospitality's senior vice president of revenue strategy Gilbert Arredondo said he's focused on the bottom line and share as the top metrics of success.
"Market share and profitability really go hand in hand working with your sales team, working together with your marketing team, but really our goals for the rest of 2024 is to gain momentum for 2025," he said.
At Davidson Hospitality Group's lifestyle division Pivot Hotels & Resorts, senior vice president of revenue management Harry Carr said his company is actively adjusting to a pullback in leisure demand and a shift in group booking behaviors.
"The [group] booking window is still very, very short. So we're seeing companies book a few weeks out for a regional or a sales meeting," he said. "Overall volume and our pace for 2025 is strong. Some of the larger pieces of business, we've seen a lower attendance. So even though the number of bookings may be up year over year in some markets, the volume of attendees is down."