While both marketing and revenue management are vital to a hotel's success, they typically operate with different perspectives and different tools to achieve similar goals. The question becomes, how much more powerful could the sum be, if these two groups practiced their disciplines in concert?

With increasing levels of competition, more and more properties are vying for the same share of travel spending. Establishing a synergy between marketing and revenue management is the strongest weapon hotels have - allowing them to deftly capture new guests, retain existing customers and maximize spend from every stay.

Both marketing and revenue management have the same end goal of driving revenue - but in most cases today they are totally misaligned. By knocking down departmental walls and silos, revenue management and marketing teams can compound their value and significantly enhance the hotel's revenue opportunities, particularly by partnering together to drive direct bookings from the hotel's most valuable guests.

These may seem like opposing responsibilities, but when RM and marketing work in unison, there are natural synergies. Revenue management knows where holes in demand are, and marketing knows the consumer preferences to target the right customers to fill those holes. Together the departments can move the hotel away from out-of-sync demand generation and towards proactively targeting the right type of guest using the best channel.

Now more than ever it is critical that hoteliers to embrace processes that enhance and magnify business analytics in order to maximize revenue. One of the simplest and most productive ways to do this is by opening up dialogue between the revenue management and marketing departments. By doing so, hoteliers can compound the value of each department and increase the overall profitability of the enterprise. A combined team can also drive business to the hotel's own direct-booking website, its most profitable channel. Direct business has many benefits to a hotel, as hotels can better control and manage the guest experience, drive additional spend in other outlets on property, and reduce third party commissions. Perhaps most importantly, though, hotels own all the customer data when guests book direct. This results in a robust guest database that could stimulate recurring revenue for years to come.

Together with Tambourine and hotel revenue and marketing experts, we've created an eBook, The Hotel Power Couple, offering deeper insights on ways to align revenue management and marketing to unlock profitability. Featuring sections like The Big Eight: Revenue Management Has It, Marketing Needs It, and What Marketers Need to Share with Revenue Managers, download the eBook today to drive revenue together by creating a powerful, cross-functional revenue optimization team.  Click here to download the eBook!