WE HAVE IMPLEMENTED SIMPLE TRACKING SYSTEMS TO MEASURE THE DEMAND ACROSS ALL CHANNELS : CRO ( CONVERSION RATE OPTIMISATION ), GROUPS , ONLINE , AND WE MONITOR IT CLOSELY TO GAUGE THE INCREASE IN DEMAND . THIS WAY WE INCREASE OUR SALES RESOURCES IN LINE WITH INCREASING INTEREST AND DEMAND .
– ALEX DE CARVALHO
ever-shifting demand remains a priority . And for RLH , that ’ s done through close communication with clients to determine exactly how and when they are traveling .
“ The Global Sales organization ’ s role in communicating account needs has really expanded to include much more detail around which travelers are back on the road or when they are anticipated to resume travel and what the behaviors of travel might look like ,” Hamilton explains .
One move RLH Corp . made recently to remove friction for small groups is their new direct book solution . While this was in the works pre-pandemic , it was sped up to appease this newly important source of revenue , and at the same time , “ mitigate manual processes for our hotel operators , speed up the buying process and improve the customer experience ,” Hamilton adds .
At IHG Hotels & Resorts , staying on top of the shifting demand through the pandemic restrictions and shutdowns has been challenging , but Jonathan Kaplan , vice president of Americas sales and a member of HSMAI , says the company has upped its focus on being a data-driven organization to make better sense of what matters most to clients and guests .
“ Our in-depth understanding of booking windows and business mix patterns from a hotel perspective allows us to optimize our segmentation mix and revenue performance ,” Kaplan says . “ It also provides us with the ability to track progress as it relates to capturing demand , and adjust strategies as needed .”
Additionally , IHG has gathered local , in-market knowledge from property teams as well as increased collaboration between teams around the world , so that when a market begins to recover , key learnings from that can be shared across the company .
Despite these hotel sales teams ’ nimble abilities to adapt to the ups and downs of business , the pandemic is far from over , which means demand will likely keep shifting , and so will the sales strategies .
“ There is no established playbook on effective sales in a pandemic ,” Er says . “ Companies will need to experiment , see what works .”
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