Revenue management professionals feel the greatest pressure is the ever increasing complexity and variety of competencies they need to master in order to optimise revenue. 

EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta spoke to RM professionals from Hilton International, NH Hoteles, RCI Europe and IDeaS Revenue Optimization on what kind of changes have they witnessed from revenue management perspective in Europe andaccordingly, how has their organisation responded to such developments.

Excerpts:

Elisabeth Stevens, city revenue manager, NH Hoteles:

RM has become much more professional. Most hotels in Europe have moved away from short term tactics towards more strategically thinking. However, there are still many differences in development per country, per region even.

RM now plays a significant in the commercial organisations of hotel chains, even in the smaller chains. Due to transparency, pricing has become one: one sell rate for all. Controlling the distribution costs nowadays is more important, hotels are getting more focused to bottom line results: profits.

Sean Lowe, director of revenue management, RCI Europe:

Tour operators have got more involved in RM and have developed advanced scientific approaches to pricing and capacity management, whereas airlines are soul-searching as the low cost model has rendered a lot of complicated fence/fare-class systems obsolete. Customers have become more used to flexible pricing although in many cases they do not like it, but are willing to accept it - this is largely thanks to the approaches of easyJet and Ryanair.

Chris Silcock, vice president, Revenue & Service Delivery, Hilton International:

The greatest pressure on revenue management professionals is the ever increasing complexity and variety of competencies they need to master in order to optimise revenue ... our demands on them and expectation from them grow on a daily basis. Communication, training and education along side the development of technology to support them is our key focus to respond to these changes. A lot of it is driven by increasing complexity in the distribution environment and the changes brought about by the Internet, transparency and price parity are there for critical focuses.

Uli Pillau, managing director, EAME, IDeaS Revenue Optimization:

All aspects or revenue management have become much more complex with various channels and different pricing models to be managed. The issues of keeping control over their business and at the same time the reduction of the extensive manual work have increased dramatically.

IDeaS has been (and still is) developing many new tools in order to give hoteliers back the control and provide them with clarity of what is going on with their business. Key areas are accurate forecasting engines for all market segments, true Decision systems rather than recommendation support, IDeaS BAR/Best Available Rate and Dynamic Pricing Modules, and integration with Rate Shopping and channel Management solutions.

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