Raul Moronta, CRME, CHIA, has had a career path that closely tracks with the growth and evolution of hospitality. He started out in an on-property sales position while attending college in his native Dominican Republic, then moved to New England and took a night auditor job as he worked toward his master's degree in hotel administration. He went on to work front-office jobs at various properties, then became a director of revenue management with Starwood, overseeing two properties for two different brands before taking on a variety of above-property revenue positions.

Moronta left Starwood to become senior vice president of revenue management for Crescent Hotels & Resorts, stayed there for nearly four years, then in December stepped into a brand-new position — for himself and his company, Remington Hotels: chief commercial officer. Over more than 25 years, he's gone where the industry has gone, from sales and operations to revenue and commercial strategy.

But looking back, he has no doubt where it all started. "I would say in high school," Moronta said without hesitation during a recent interview with HSMAI. "At the time, the Dominican Republic was actually having a big boom in hospitality. It had become the number-one industry for the country, and I was very excited about it. I said, 'This is what I want to do.'"

Pretty early in your career, you gravitated toward revenue management. How did that come about?

The initial part of my career was actually in operations. I went the full route of front-office manager, executive housekeeper, and my intent was actually to become a rooms division manager and general manager. But I've always loved numbers. I've always loved the mathematical approach to solving a problem, and early on I got an opportunity to go to a class in full front office management at Cornell University.

There was one chapter in the course called "Yield Management," and I was fascinated by it. I was fascinated with check-ins and checkouts and no-shows and cancellations, and that whole mathematical approach about how you ended the day and how much money you made. Then I had an opportunity to do some revenue management when I was front-office manager, and that is when I transitioned from being a front-office manager to my first revenue manager role.

Read the full article at The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI)