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. There was the longstanding complaint about the OTAs, but little being done about it. And the more recent debate about whether AI was on track to replace the Revenue Manager, despite only 15% of all hotels globally even having a revenue management system. Some openly warned that without evolving, the discipline risked losing relevance, and the influence and opportunities that go along it.
Then COVID-19 came out of nowhere to occupy the top of everyone's mind… overnight. Short term crisis management became the only job requirement. But these concerns did not go away, and if anything, the opportunity (and responsibility) that organizations possess to challenge every existing norm as they rebuild has only shortened the timeline.
The question to the Revenue Management community is: As we move out of the crisis management phase and towards the "next normal", how have your organization and responsibilities changed? What tools, technology, and processes have earned a permanent place in your routine going forward?
I published an article on Hospitality Net this week. The role of the Revenue Manager has to become much commercial. A deal maker for promotions, flash, tour operators, wholesalers, etc. Revenue Managers need to change the mindset from filtering demand to generating demand. See here for the full story: https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4100033.html.
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.
