The hotel industry is changing at breakneck speed and new disruptors are constantly entering the space: Think online travel agents, Airbnb, Google, Facebook et al, if you don’t continue to evolve, you will fall behind the industry.

If you are wondering, “Who moved my revenue?” then consider what has changed in the hotel industry and how your company has adapted. If you are a management company, are your goals fully aligned with those of your owner? Are you shaping an organization whose strategic focus is on revenue and profitability?

“The hotel industry is very slow to change and implement technology. For years the airline industry has perfected the self-check-in, upselling, ability to pick seats etc., but yet the hotel industry remains well behind on these seemingly basic functions,” says Maxine Taylor, Senior Vice President at hotel asset management and owner advisory company CHMWarnick and 2018 President of the Hotel Asset Management Association.

“Owner and management companies are often not aligned. The management company is focused on driving revenues, as they collect a percentage of the revenues, whereas the owner is driven by profits. Revenues are moot if you can’t drive it down to the profit line.”

One of the biggest changes faced by businesses today is digitization. A recent MIT Sloan Management Review highlighted how companies that adopt bold offensive strategies in the face of industry digitization will come out the winners.

This sentiment is echoed by change advocate Rik Vera, Co-Founder of Nexxworks. He states: “Our world has digitized. Digital is no longer a layer on top of society; it has completely changed how society works. For the very first time in history four billion people are connected wherever they are and whenever they want to connect. As such people have changed. It is not digital that has killed products, business models and companies, it is changing human behavior. Customers are the biggest disrupters.”

Business has become a digital numbers game. All actions and interactions in between customers and businesses and within the operations that drive the business leave digital traces: data.

“If a company can crack the code of dealing with many interactions and huge datasets, to use these to optimize revenue in an automated way, they have not just digitized their existing model, but they have developed a business fit for the digitized world. Those companies will outrun competition and maximize revenue. The others will not even survive,” says Vera.

A holistic approach enabling collaboration and innovation across all departments of the hotel enterprise needs to be at the heart of your change. By unifying all teams around a common source of dynamic data and a company-wide mission focused on profitability, an organization can become more efficient, drive more direct engagement with customers and ultimately more revenue and bottom-line results.

This blog is a snippet from our whitepaper on change management –Who Moved My Revenue? Download the report for free here.

Sarah McCay Tams joined Duetto in 2015 as a contributing editor covering Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). In 2017, she was promoted to Director of Content, EMEA. An experienced B2B travel industry journalist, Sarah spent 14 years working in the Middle East, most notably as senior editor – hospitality for ITP Publishing Group in Dubai, where she headed up the editorial teams on Hotelier Middle East, Caterer Middle East and Arabian Travel News. Sarah is now based back in the UK.

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