While occupancy continues to grow, the hotel industry struggles to gain ADR and profitability. This battle is constant—and unfortunately systemic. Many of the revenue channels the industry has come to rely on—including OTAs and third-party meeting/event lead generators—provide quick but temporary revenue relief. There is an urgent need for revenue management and marketing teams to work together to promote a “direct first” strategy. However, this “direct first” understanding and partnership cannot exist without two essential components: transparency and trust.
The following approaches can help build trust and transparency between marketing managers and revenue managers.
1Share.
Encourage your team to share the information they have access to and the way they use it in their areas. Your counterpart may use the information differently, looking at it through a different lens.
2Ask questions.
The more you learn about one another’s disciplines, the better you’ll be able to support one another.
3Set shared goals and incentives.
People tend to work together better when they are working toward a common goal. Give your revenue and marketing managers a common “direct first” revenue incentive, rewarding them equally for successful outcomes.
4Get better together.
If a marketing tactic doesn’t drive the amount of direct revenue needed, the revenue manager and marketing manager should investigate why together. Maybe the target audience was off. Maybe there were too many restrictions on the offer that made it less attractive. Whatever the cause, talk about successes and failures and learn from them together. You’ll ultimately become a stronger team faster.
5Celebrate wins together.
Marketing efforts cannot be optimized without sound revenue management strategy and execution, and vice versa. Wins come only when the entire team is giving 100 percent and should be recognized and celebrated as such.
About the Authors
Lily Mockerman is the president and CEO of Total Customized Revenue Management (TCRM). Andressa Chapman is the principal of Trigger Hotel Marketing.
