Internal hotel teams that are focused only on their own revenue streams risk inefficiency, duplicating work and restricting each other’s progress. According to the study done by Salesforce, 86% of the interviewed professionals consider a lack of collaboration to be responsible for workplace failures, while PWC’s 2015 Global Operations Survey found that an astonishing 55% of companies work in silos.
So how do you solve the collaboration issue? Unfortunately putting all your teams in one room and telling them to work together isn’t enough – or realistic, in case of hotel chains.
We invited Oliver Geldner, Revenue & Distribution Expert at Taktikon AB, Patty de Gruiter, VP Revenue & Sales at EHPC, Sebastian Arnshelm, Director of Revenue Management at Nobis, and Sam Riches, Director of Sales & Marketing at The Curtain, to the Direct Booking Summit in Amsterdam to discuss the relationship between Marketing, Digital and Revenue – and how to improve it.
Here are the top tips from our expert panel that you can start implementing with your teams today:
#1: “Bring leadership as close to property as possible”, suggested Sam Riches. Leaders that champion collaboration affect the way teams work together. While it seems easier for an independent hotel like The Curtain to execute this strategy, hotel chains should know – just the knowledge that the hotel’s leaders believe in collaborative culture has a positive impact on teamwork. Owner or General Manager don’t have to be on site to communicate their ideals to the teams. Instead, they can include the collaborative spirit into the core set of values.
#2: Create one goal to unite your teams – and set the same KPI for all. Get them to strategize together. Sebastian Arnshelm suggested working out the target cost for the whole customer journey and bringing all teams on board to develop a strategy and monitor results. The Marketing team might have insights into how – and via what channel – to approach certain customers, while the Revenue team can shed light on which segments to prioritize to generate demand.
