The presentation lasted forty-five minutes. The math was clear. The mechanism was explained. The CMO understood both. She went back to her desk and did nothing. Not because she disagreed. Not because the numbers were wrong.
NB: This is an article from Americas Great Resorts
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But because the thing being described was going to take eighteen months to compound, and the current quarter was already complicated, and the ownership group had questions about the renovation budget, and eighteen months felt like a different administration’s problem.
The OTA commissions were manageable. The occupancy was holding. The RevPAR comp was acceptable. Nothing was on fire.
The Number That Changed the Conversation
Twelve months later the revenue manager flagged it in a Tuesday morning meeting.
He had been watching it for two quarters and had finally put it in a slide: OTA-sourced bookings as a percentage of total revenue, trending up. Not because the property was performing worse. Because the direct channel was flat and the OTA channel was filling the gap.
The CMO recognized the slide immediately. Same mechanism, different source. The presentation she had ignored twelve months earlier, now arriving through the revenue manager’s yield report.
The difference was that this time the number belonged to them. Not an agency’s projection. Not a framework applied to a hypothetical property. Their commission line, growing, without anyone deciding it should.
She said she wanted to revisit the acquisition conversation. The revenue manager said he remembered the presentation. His tone suggested he had not filed it under solutions.
She called a meeting anyway.
The Conversation Nobody Writes About
It took three meetings, not one.
The first was with the CFO. He came prepared with the right question and did not like the answer.
Eighteen months before meaningful compounding. Twelve months before attributable data on new guests acquired through an audience they did not own. Six months before the first campaign results would be interpretable enough to defend.
“So we’re spending money we won’t be able to evaluate for a year.”
“We’re spending money we should have spent two years ago. But yes.”
He did not approve it that afternoon. He asked what channel was getting cut to fund it. The CMO had anticipated the question. She had not anticipated how much ground she would have to give to answer it.
