INDIANAPOLIS — The idea that commercial strategy in hotels needs to evolve through better collaboration between revenue management, sales and marketing is not new, but the hope that artificial intelligence can help bring that dream closer to reality is.
Ankur Randev, principal and chief commercial officer for Highgate Hotels, said most worries about AI replacing jobs are misplaced because the technology will create more opportunities than it takes away. He described the emergence of AI a "great reset" for the hotel industry, which has been notoriously behind the curve on tech adoption in modern history.
"Of course, it's true to some extent that some jobs will become redundant, but some jobs will be created and every job will change," he said during a panel at HSMAI's 2025 Commercial Strategy Conference. "I think it's an amazing opportunity, and AI will become a force multiplier of sorts."
Kristie Goshow, chief commercial officer for Peregrine Hospitality, said higher adoption of AI will allow each of the commercial disciplines in the hotel business to better use their time.
"I think it's going to relieve us of the burden of all the drudgery and things that we really don't want to do every day that limit our ability to think and think deeply," she said. "That will just make for far more enjoyable hours at the desk."
The irony of this vision is that despite it being focused on an emergent technology, it means that more professionals will be able to "rediscover our humanity," Goshow said. She hopes that transition will include not viewing guests as consumers but people.
"We are in the business of making lives better, aren't we?" she said. "We're not in the business of dealing with economic units, which I think unfortunately is how we tend to think about a lot of what we do every day."
Allison Handy, executive vice president of commercial for Aimbridge Hospitality, said in addition to a greater focus on hospitality, AI will allow the people within the three major disciplines of commercial to focus on more high-level tasks.
"Yes, we do need to get back to hospitality, which I think in many cases is missing a bit from our business, but also looking at it from a revenue-strategy standpoint, hopefully we can get out of the rate-management business and we can truly get more deeply into a revenue and profit strategy business, as well," she said.
Handy and Goshow both noted specific parts of the commercial discipline that need to be more highly valued in order to elevate hotel performance, as a whole.
Goshow said she continues to be frustrated with the assertion that the success or failure of marketing spend can't be quantified in a meaningful way.
"That's a head-scratcher for me because we know we have data points we can point to," she said. "So I have to ask myself, what are we not doing that leads to some of the senior people in our organizations not understanding the true value of that function relative to revenue strategy and to sales?"
Often the most instructive thing for many hotel leaders is finding out just how much revenue they miss out on when they cut back on their marketing spend, which Goshow described as a kind of reverse key performance indicator.
"So the reverse KPIs are, well how much business did we not close? How many leads did the sales team not capture or close because our reputation stinks or we didn't create a brand that people love?" she said.
Relative to revenue, sales and marketing, there are significantly fewer people within commercial departments specifically dedicated to distribution, Handy said. But that function is what ties the entire discipline together and should be top of mind for everyone in commercial careers.
"If you are in sales, marketing or revenue strategy, you are also in distribution because distribution is 'Where is your product on the shelf? How are they finding you? How are they buying you, and what is the cost of that reservation?'" she said.
Handy added it's a misconception that distribution should be largely left to brands and not hotel operators.
"The analogy I'll give you is that brands fill your refrigerator with food," she said. "The brands get you really good deals on the food that they buy you. They buy really good, quality food, and they stock your fridge, but it is still up to you to decide what you are going to make with those ingredients. And not every meal will look the same."
By their vary nature, distribution strategies should be tailored to properties based on demand coming into specific hotels along with the tools and data available to assess those strategies, Handy said.
"You can look at all this data and determine what is and what isn't working," she said.