Revenue management as a discipline is changing all the time and it is increasingly important for RM teams to look at the bigger picture to ensure maximum commercial benefit from all a hotel’s activities. In this exclusive interview we hear how Hilton Hotels is approaching this challenge.

Sometime it means a trade-off, but the core task for revenue managers remains the ability to make the right call on which demand to pay attention to. Aside from this, agile RM executives should be aware that the discipline is advancing into other areas and has the potential to deliver new revenue streams. As such, RM teams must go much further today than they have in the past – they need to talk a language that other parts of the business understand. What is more there are organisational hurdles to address, such as fragmented data resulting from various business functions using different key performance indicators. This makes it difficult to achieve a common understanding of all the activities that may impact revenue performance.

Eoin Furlong, Senior Director - Revenue Management Analysis & Support at Hilton Hotels has this to say on the issue: “On the data side of the business, we’re aligning and integrating data from many different sources and although it’s a challenge, creating better attribution models tell us what customer focused activities make the biggest impact on performance.”

When it comes to looking at the bigger picture of integrating all sales, marketing, and revenue functions, the group is also making important steps. “We’re deep into a very wide integration effort that is allowing us to speak a focused common commercial language and work together in swim lanes rather than silos,” says Furlong.   

Theintegration effort, says Furlong, is about “more closely aligning the activities and priorities of departments like RM, marketing and our brand web sites to ensure that we’re not confusing customers with inconsistent rates or messaging”.

Furlong, who is scheduled to speak at EyeforTravel’s TDS North America 2013 in Chicago (23-24 September), spoke to EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta talks about the evolving role of revenue management and the RM executive.

EFT: At this exciting time for revenue management, what is your biggest challenge? 

EF: Trying to juggle the multitude of systems, data outputs and distribution channels and still find time to actually analyse and make sound decisions based on the results and trends.

EFT: Can you talk about some of the real issues that organisations are facing today – be it for social media or ancillary revenue generation?

EF: There is a role for RM outside of just the transient and group rooms side of the business. Catering, F&B outlets and other revenues are very much part of plans to revenue manage all potential income streams, but it’s balanced by the proportion of revenue and profit that the different areas can generate.

EFT: Social media is increasingly seen as integral to a hotel’s business. What sort of coordination is there between the RM team and the social media team to improve on RM-related decisions? 

EF: Our eCommerce and Revenue Management organisations are now under a common umbrella. This is working to bridge the gap between traditional RM focuses and new opportunities in the electronic distribution space. Social media does seem to be more of a function of brand and reputation management though and it’s harder to attribute revenue to those activities.

EFT: Can you provide an insight into the role of data management in areas such as demand forecasting and tapping rate opportunities?  

EF: It’s critical to have timely, accurate data that’s aligned and accepted across the organisation and available for any number of organisations to tap into. While many reporting and analytics functions can be centralised, there will always be unique and niche needs that must to be satisfied too. Providing access to clean data sources is critical to ensuring everyone’s numbers sync up.

EFT: Revenue managers have started relying on analytics to serve appropriate offers at various stages of the traveller’s journey. What role does analytics play in any upselling strategy?  

EF: There is a benefit to understanding what a customer’s propensity to upsell is, depending on the rate they’ve purchased and what else they may be willing to buy into beyond just the room itself. The harder part is getting the data and the systems that serve offers that are aligned and dynamic enough not to require ongoing manual intervention.

EFT: How critical is to maximise the value of every customer interaction?  

EF: It’s highly critical; we don’t want to leave money on the table either through a lost enquiry or a lost opportunity to sell the customer a product they would have been willing to buy once the had booked. Nor do we want to lose them to higher cost distribution channels if we have the ability to capture them ourselves.

Market share is not just about hotel competitors, it’s also about channel strategies and competing against non-hotel services in our local markets that attract the guests we’re bringing in. Why lose them to other hotels, channels or outlets when we have much of what they need right in front of us?

Eoin Furlong, senior director - Revenue Management Analysis & Support, Hilton Hotels, is scheduled to speak at EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit, North America 2013, scheduled to take place at The Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, Chicago (23-24 September)