Consulting Services answers recent client questions about hotel revenue management
Digna Martinez Kolar, IDeaS director, industry consulting, talks about what revenue management culture is and how to achieve it.
In one of my previous blogs, I spoke about the need of a revenue management (RM) culture and the questions continue to keep rolling in… how do we develop a revenue management culture in our organization? And what does it mean?
No question about it, a RM culture is difficult to develop and takes time. But the good news is, it’s not impossible. Think about all the individuals that have experienced a new culture due to a temporary assignment in another country or city. They didn’t learn about that culture overnight or how best to fit within it. They likely took the time to understand, learn and adapt to the culture including factors like: language, food, traditions, values, beliefs and more.
Let’s explore 5 steps that you can take to develop a healthy RM culture in your organization:
- In your organization, it is likely that the revenue leader has taken the role of developing the culture; however, as we stated earlier, developing this culture is difficult and requires more than one person to help it along. Engaging others to develop the culture will be the first step: assemble your RM culture team!
- Keep in mind that this RM culture team will want to drive change within your organization. Ensure you have recruited enthusiastic team members who are strong advocates and believers of the RM discipline that can communicate and engage other team members across the organization. Their current role or background is not as important as their impact and influence.
- The RM culture team needs to define a clear vision of what the culture looks like, what the key principles, beliefs and values are and basically decide the new way of life in terms of RM for the entire organization.
- Set milestones and specific actions to achieve your vision. These milestones or goals can be anything from enhancing RM understanding across the organization, reviewing and updating of processes supporting the new culture, as well as improving the tools and roles that different people will play within this culture.
- Start executing and tracking results, keeping in mind that you may need to adjust and modify as you go along. Don’t forget to set up a process to ensure you maintain a fresh approach to revenue management as a discipline. We all know RM is continuously changing, so it is important to consistently review people, processes and tools’ efficiency to ensure a sustainable, long term and effective RM culture across your organization.
What does RM culture mean? The vision of a RM culture can be different from organization to organization but most of them will include:
- Achieving optimal revenues. The end goal of RM culture is to ensure the whole team is driving, supporting and looking to achieve optimal/maximum revenues.
- Providing a clear and involved workplace. By using different technologies, processes and having a clear understanding of people’s role in the equation.
- The vision is to be achieved as a team. If the whole team works together you will have a higher probability of achieving your goals in a shorter and less painful way than if you try to work in silos.
Hey, don’t leave now—the fun is just beginning. Here are more industry insights making the rounds this week:
- 10 tips to optimize your OTA distribution: No pressure or anything, but as a hotelier it is your responsibility to drive more revenue and customers. Thankfully, Sabre has put together a list of tips to streamline your efforts and maximize your hotel’s exposure across OTA channels, while driving more revenue.
- Hotel Yearbook 2018: Winter is coming: Preparing for the next season of channel management: Will you sign our yearbook? IDeaS has published an article in the new Hotel Yearbook 2018 series describing how data plays an important part an intelligent business strategy to drive the decision-making process.
- Hotel Marketing Strategies: How To Drive Direct Bookings And Why You Should: If you’re defining “guest experience” you most definitely should be including travel research and booking experience. We know well, that if the guest isn’t happy, no one is happy. Our friends at Revinate have put together a list of hotel marketing strategies you can use to encourage direct bookings and compete with OTAs.
- Analysis to Action: The Smart Way Independent Hotels Can Manage Distribution: Looking for a fun read? SnapShot Travel has a great article describing the struggle of Independent Hotels who do not have the option to throw massive amounts of money at traditional advertising and how they can still succeed in the market.
Before joining the IDeaS global team in 2011, Digna spent 11 years in leadership roles at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). With deep expertise in the deployment and structuring of pricing and revenue management processes, Digna helps clients build sustainable revenue management cultures in multicultural environments. Digna holds an MBA in Hospitality Management from IMHI, a joint program of Cornell University and ESSEC.
Latest posts by Digna Martinez Kolar (see all)
- Organizational Transformation with Help from Our Global Consulting Services - May 26, 2022
- Facing Hospitality & Travel’s Greatest Challenges, Together - December 16, 2021
- Back to Work – Hotel Change Management in the Era of COVID - July 22, 2020
