Hunter Hotel Investment Conference: Revenue Strategy Panel Recap

Our team at Cogwheel Marketing attended the 2023 annual Hunter Hotel Investment Conference for a consecutive year and we wanted to be sure to share with our network the 10 Key Takeaways we extracted after packing in 3 days of education, collaboration and relationship building with hotel industry experts.

The Hunter Hotel Investment Conference welcomed attendees to Atlanta in March 2023. The revenue strategy panel included:

• Isaac Collazo (Moderator) of STR
• Alex Cisneros of Red Roof Inn
• Casi Johnson of M3
• Kate Burda of Kate Burda and Company
• Sarah Williams of Intermountain Hotels

10 Key Takeaways from Hotel Revenue Strategy at Hunter Conference:

• Sales and Marketing can create demand, where revenue management manages demand. Sales and Digital Marketing need to employ resources and strategy together.
• You cannot focus on pricing until you have brand awareness. Ask more questions about the entire revenue generation process with a focus on loyalty.
• Our disparate systems leave gaps and risks data accuracy. We need to make data simpler – leverage automation and create a data map
• How much money do we leave on the table with those who call and do not book?
• The goal of customer segmentation is how do we evolve past distribution to engaging with them.
• Who do you hire? “Only 16% of top leaders were rated very effective at either strategy or execution. Only 8% were very effective at both, while 63% were rated neutral or worse on at least one dimension.” (Source: HBR)
• Do we focus the right energy? We tend to focus on point of sale (bottom funnel) versus point of inspiration (top of funnel).
• How to mitigate costs with high cost channels? Understand which customers and segments are the most profitable.
• Can hotels differentiate like airlines? Airlines have various class types and experimented with baggage fees. The hotel industry is less likely to “upset the apple cart”. What can we learn from other industries like retail? Hotels get the benefit of a (generally) higher profit margin where retail is super slim margins.
• Key Takeaway: Define shared goals on revenue strategy – Seek to understand what the other person is saying instead of yelling to hear yourself talk. Focus on the entire buying journey and not just the point of sale.

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