Recently the question has been asked at events, in social media posts and industry articles if revenue management is stuck in a rut. The authors assert that revenue management has not really advanced in the last 10 years and revenue managers are not doing anything differently than in the past. What is your opinion of the state of revenue management in 2020?
I think various factors have lead to the slow advanced of Revenue Management. Technology hasn't helped with integration issues leading to the need for manual input in may areas. This has lead to bespoke processes being put in place that are very hard to change. With data readily available across all channels now I am hoping the pressure put on the revenue teams will be solved, allowing for greater transparency on profitability across channels and also including other departments such as F&B, Leisure and Events.
It is no longer news that the hotel industry has suffered the worst decline in history. The resulting business failures are starting to make the news and most industry experts agree that it will be several years until the industry returns to anywhere near the health it had in 2019.
By the end of 2019, many of the thought leaders in revenue management had begun echoing a common theme, basically that the Revenue Management discipline was stuck in a rut. Industry-wide, Total Hotel Revenue Management was starting the become a joke.
The global hospitality industry has been through every perceivable calamity over the past decades: earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, major floods, terrorist attracts like 9/11, SARS, global recessions, epidemics and pandemics like SARS, MERSA, ZIKA, swine flu and now COVID-19.
Robert Cross, the de facto Godfather of Revenue Management, stated "…everything starts with a day by day, segment by segment forecast", yet many hoteliers no longer produce one as part of their strategic process.
Recently the question has been asked at events, in social media posts and industry articles if revenue management is stuck in a rut. The authors assert that revenue management has not really advanced in the last 10 years and revenue managers are not doing anything differently than in the past.
