How to align marketing with revenue management at your hotel: 1 of 3

Aligning revenue and marketing can deliver greater revenue results for hotels. But this is easier said than done. Many hotels share a similar struggle when it comes to maintaining open and effective communications between revenue management and marketing.

In our conversations with hoteliers from around the world, we hear that this disconnect leads to less collaboration and more competitiveness across functions. That’s unfortunate, as these roles are mutually beneficial.

Both roles use data and a creative mindset to create revenue opportunities. Both rely on data, such as demand patterns, booking behaviour, and conversions, to shape their creative output. Both have vital insights to share, clever ideas to implement, and rooms to sell. Creativity and data can - and should - align quite perfectly across revenue and marketing.

Yet, data sharing and mutually beneficial support isn’t always a given. For hotel GMs, it’s especially important to understand how to encourage a more collaborative mindset. A dysfunctional relationship has a negative impact on the hotel’s performance.

These conversations inspired us to create a series around how to align marketing with revenue management. First, we produced a webinar in collaboration with Hotelchamp to highlight the ways that these two departments can collaborate and share data to deliver outsized results. Today, we are pleased to release a companion eBook on the same topic, which further explores the best practices for aligning marketing and revenue management.

Our objective with this eBook is to outline just how valuable the overlaps are between revenue managers and marketers, and identify some starting points to increase collaboration. Ultimately, this thoughtful structure will help each role thrive, says Thierry Collard, OTA Insight’s Global Commercial Manager, a panellist on our recent on-demand webinar on this topic:

“Revenue and marketing are obvious partners - but collaboration doesn’t always come easily. It takes a clear understanding of what data each party brings to the table, as well as a mutual respect of the knowledge and expertise that exist within both teams. With those two pieces in place - data and mutual understanding - an organisation can rally around delivering profitable revenue consistently. Because that’s what it’s all really about: not just bringing in top-line revenue but improving the overall profitability of each booking.”

To find that collaborative sweet-spot, we’ve set out a clear framework. In our eBook, you’ll learn about:

• Bridging the gap between revenue and marketing. The first step is to do the groundwork that brings these two disparate teams together.
• Encouraging a mindset shift within your organisation. Once you’ve committed to bridging the gap, the next step is to start nurturing a new mindset.
• Leveraging data-sharing and analysis. Next, it’s all about using existing data to create more opportunities. This includes identifying the different types of data that marketing and revenue may share.
• The concept of non-price offers. By relying less on discounting, and more on delivering value outside of price, your hotel unleashes a powerful tool that can deliver more profitability per booking.
• Refining your measurement models. Even the most well-intentioned projects will fail if there are analytics gaps. Ideally, analytics will reflect greater collaboration and accountability across teams.
• Defining your next steps. To jump-start your action plan, we’ve included a quick reference checklist.

When marketing and revenue management collaborate closely, it's far easier to outpace expectations and deliver more revenue. It’s the best kind of synergy, where the whole equals more than the sum of its parts. Whether you work in marketing, revenue or hotel management, we hope to inspire greater collaboration and data-sharing in the days and months ahead. Follow our guide: it’s easier and more fun than you think...

In Parts 2 and 3 of this short series, we'll look at how marketers can align better with revenue and vice versa.