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. While the global picture is still very gloomy, we are starting to see isolated upticks in reservations. However, whether it is traveler's slowly adjusting to the "new normal", or just pent up leisure demand, the booking patterns are different than ever before. And just like the periods following previous disruptions, the most aggressive and innovative hotels will gobble up all of this trickle of new travelers, leaving most hotels still staring at the horizon, looking for signs of life. Although there will be few winners and mostly losers during the early stages of the recovery, most hoteliers are still working with the exact same set of tools they had, pre-pandemic, including over half of the industry that uses no dedicated revenue optimization technology whatsoever.

So, we ask our panel experts: 1) For a hotel just getting started implementing a revenue optimization process, what technology and services are most essential, and how should they be selected? or 2) For a hotel with an established revenue optimization culture, what new tools have emerged that could be game-changers?

Kelly McGuire
Kelly McGuire
Principal Travel & Hospitality, ZS
Diego Fernandez Perez De Ponga
Diego Fernandez Perez De Ponga
Corporate Director Revenue Management Palladium Hotel Group
Christoph Hütter
Christoph Hütter
Non-traditional Revenue Manager & Consultant
Scott Dahl
Scott Dahl
SVP Sales, Marketing, & Revenue Management at The Wurzak Hotel Group
Raul Moronta
Raul Moronta
CRME, CHIA, Chief Commercial Officer at Remington Hospitality
Ally Northfield
Ally Northfield
Director at Revenue by Design
Trevor Stuart-Hill
Trevor Stuart-Hill
Founder and president of Revenue Matters
Federica Salvatori
Federica Salvatori
Revenue & Commercial Strategy and Founder of Federica Salvatori Consulting
Max Starkov
Max Starkov
Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant
Klaus  Kohlmayr
Klaus Kohlmayr
Chief Evangelist and Development Officer, IDeaS
Ira  Vouk
Ira Vouk
Hospitality Technology and Revenue Management consultant
Gino Engels
Gino Engels
Co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight)
Michail Tzouvelekis
Michail Tzouvelekis
Director of Global Marketing, Fornova
Sharad Kapur
Sharad Kapur
Revenue & Distribution Strategist
Nicole Adair, CRME
Nicole Adair, CRME
Director of Revenue Management Services at SHR, Sceptre Hospitality Resources, LLC
Oleksii Kapichin
Oleksii Kapichin
Revenue Management Expert