Finance

It depends. Smaller less complex hotels will be the first ones where there is no need for a revenue manager. Pricing and Inventory Management can be indeed fully automated. The role of a revenue manager already has evolved / needs to evolve to focus more on-demand generation.

Currently, doing research on the topic and most of the experts I talked to indeed think that the position of Revenue Manager will disappear in the next 5 years (replaced by AI tools and/or integrated with other hotel functions such as Commercial).

First thing I've done - of course- is ask Chat GPT. AI itself "believes" that it will not fully replace humans as It can not match human insight and intuition or adaptability to crisis scenarios, neither has interpersonal and leadership skills.

Wellness in hotels has become important due to a growing consumer demand for holistic experiences that prioritize health and well-being. This department can in some cases generate revenue for hotels similarly to F&B, however, the extent of this contribution is contingent upon factors such as the size and features of the wellness center and F&B and the type of destination.

The wellness travel boom is really shaking things up in the hotel business. It's not just a big deal; it's a whole new direction for the industry. Here at Catala Consulting, we've noticed that the integration of wellness into hotels isn't just a response to a passing trend.

Can wellness generate revenue the same way as F&B services in hotels? - Yes. Hospitality is a lifestyle industry- from its location, to its architectural design, to the services offered. In the United States, wellness is about a USD$450B industry (70% in product and 30% in service) and growing.

Do OTAs generate demand in hospitality. The short answer is no, but they can in limited conditions. In the business/group related traveler the answer is a harder no. Generally since the budgets and logisitics are more controlled.

Yes - in a way ...and No. Yes - in a way: OTA's, Social Media posts, destination marketing organizations, newsletters, and emails containing special offers, etc., all stimulate interest in leisure travel. OTA's are helpful during the planning phase since users can quickly compare prices and availability between various options being considered.

It is hard to argue with billions of dollars spent annually on marketing by the largest OTAs. One could certainly make the case that such a robust amount of travel-related content would spark travel wanderlust from even the most "home-rooted" consumer.

Obviously a blessing. In hospitality, we are with one foot in legacy and one foot into the future. We need more exponential technology development to liberate team members from mundane, repetitive, and 0 value add tasks. We should have been further away already.

Its a double edged sword. Community driven can lead to building everything for noone. My viewpoint, and having my own technology company, is that you need to solve an issue at hand. Sort the issue and then you can gather user feedback to make it more efficient - ie less clicks to get to the result, different colors, visualisations, etc.

Technology, such as attribute based selling (upselling) has been talked about for many years, software companies have tried and optimized it for real release for a considerable amount of time, minimizing the user "optimization" afterwards.

Making Attribute-based Selling (ABS) and upselling a reality! Is mine and ROOMDEX's 2023 resolution! Attribute-based Selling (ABS) re-imagines hotel inventory merchandising in order to improve guest satisfaction and generate greater hotel revenue.

Challenging to predict given the current VUCA environment, but since "we've come to play" typing here, I would say 2023 will show a more thoughtful European customer, looking more into the rates and offers, and not as splendid as they were in 2022, when they blew the savings of two years of no travelling.

I believe that if we don't figure out how to utilize ChatGPT AI in our workflows for revenue and profit optimization in 2023 - we will have wasted a year.

I am of the opinion that guests (and groups) should be able to book the hotel on their preferred channel. As it is mentioned in the intro, apparently OTAs already enable group bookings in some way, of course one can blame the OTA for this, but the fact that it is happening clearly shows there is demand from guests and groups to book via an OTA, most likely because it is easier.

This does not surprise me to see this trend. It could be an indication of one of two things. One, they percieve that the best deal to be had is through the OTA site. Secondly, the convenience factor of booking and managing without having to speak to anyone and deal with deposits, cut-offs, etc.

The answer is simple: only if it generates incremental revenues. What's not simple is differentiating between incremental and displaced. The Revenue Management discipline in our industry hasn't yet evolved to the point that would allow to find reliable ways to calculate those.