Coping up with the challenge of recruiting and retention of property revenue leaders in Asia

Revenue Management Asia Special: By EyeforTravel Correspondent

In a market like Asia, which is considered to be a late starter in recognising the benefits of RM and in implementing RM systems, the dearth of qualified personnel is termed as a major challenge.

“One of the biggest challenges that our industry faces in Asia Pacific is the recruiting and retention of property revenue leaders.  Revenue Management is a relatively new discipline in the region and has really just come into its own in the last few years.  Consequently, there is not a large pool of existing talent so we have had to identify candidates from other disciplines, to grow, and develop revenue leaders,” says Norma Tomkinson, regional vice president, revenue strategy, Asia Pacific, Marriott International, Inc.

In an interview with EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta, Tomkinson spoke about emerging role RM in the region, handling of rate parity across various channels and other issues.  Excerpts:

How do you assess emerging role of RM? 

Revenue Management has a much higher profile in the region now and it should continue to grow as we are able to bring value to hotels in the areas of strategy, analysis, business evaluation, and inventory management. 

What major initiatives has your organisation has taken this year for sustaining consistency in revenue management across all your distribution channels?   

One of our on going initiatives is what we refer to as “single image inventory”, meaning that we are selling the same rates across all booking channels, including property direct, call center, Marriott.com, and third party channels. For the guest, this is our Look No Further Best Price Guarantee.

So how do you handle issue of rate parity or disparity across various channels?   

Under the terms of Look No Further, if a guest finds a lower rate within 24 hours of booking via one of the Marriott channels, Marriott will honor the lower rate and give 25 percent off the lower rate. Note that the rate must be for the same hotel, same room type, reservation dates, and terms and conditions. 

How is customer behaviour affected by changes in price and pricing strategy?

Customers today are looking for prices that represent good value for the location and the product being offered.  The leisure guest in particular is responsive to value added items such as breakfast, spa treatments, and transfers.  The Internet has enabled travelers to comparison shop not just for price but for location, facilities, and amenities being offered.   

How do you think the way forecasting is done has evolved? 

We have more sophisticated tools available today and our property management, reservations, and yield management systems provide better access to data. However, we still need revenue leaders who understand demand in the market and the competition to analyse the data and create a meaningful and accurate business forecast. 

What route/practices do you adopt when it comes to building RM team?

We start by assessing our needs and determining the profile of candidate who will be a successful revenue leader.  Marriott is very focused on the training and development of our revenue leaders; we offer both self paced and classroom training, along with support from Area Directors of Revenue Strategy.  One of our goals at Marriott is that every manager receive a minimum of 40 hours of training per year.  This could be on line, self paced, or classroom (either discipline specific or general business skills).

How do you overcome language barriers and complexity of different markets in Asia when it comes to training?

We have developed a training cadre in the region of multi-lingual facilitators for our classroom training.  We are also translating our core courses into Mandarin and Japanese.

How can RM be implemented with CRM? How are you leveraging your database for RM?

Revenue Management and Sales and Marketing must work in partnership.  Revenue Management should work closely with sales to help educate the customer about market dynamics, including demand, and the impact on pricing. We must work closely with marketing to insure that the demand generating activities are directed to the customer segments that support our revenue strategies and business goals.

What’s on your agenda?

Growing revenue and profit, RevPar, and market share in the region.  Additionally, the ongoing recruiting, development, and retention of revenue leaders.