As the hotel industry continue its path to the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, hoteliers are figuring out the revenue-management part of the puzzle to bring in cash flow while keeping guests and clients happy.

During the “Revenue Management at the Verge of Exiting the Pandemic” webinar from HSMAI Europe, hotel revenue-management experts shared their experiences over the past year and how their companies have approached the discipline to set themselves up for success.

Experiences of the past year led Nordic Choice Hotels to focus on having the right people at work, said Pär Augustsson, vice president of total profit at Nordic Choice. During a crisis like this one, revenue-management departments need people who can make the bigger decisions by themselves and faster, he said.

“Before, things changed in a week or two weeks,” he said. “Now, things change in five minutes [after] an announcement from the government. You need to change, your business needs to change what you do.”

It’s been necessary to keep staff who know the revenue-management profession and don’t just do what the system tells them to do, he said. The revenue management staff should be willing to test new things.

People need to be more agile today, a skill they learned over the last year along with being able to do much more with a lot less, said Kelly Andrews, director of revenue management, United Kingdom and Ireland, at Hilton.

“That's actually been really powerful, and I think it's a lot of loyalty as well from the team that’s remaining," she said. "That's been very important to us."

The hotel industry is a people industry, Cynthia Paynter, vice president of pricing and revenue management at Accor, said, noting relationship management is what will take hotels through this crisis.

“Data is the tool we use, but people will be where we excel,” she said.

Hoteliers need to adapt to the demand in their markets, said Jaume Vidal, chief of revenue and artificial intelligence and commercial planning, Barceló Hotel Group. Hoteliers shouldn’t lower prices when there isn’t extra demand in the market, he said.

Where there is more demand, hoteliers have the ability to push average daily rate, but that also means maximizing the value for guests, he said.

“We have to be very, very careful about the service that we are offering, and indeed with the different segment, we have to be aware that the people are expecting to go on holidays, so they want the right price for that the right experience,” he said.

In Northern Europe, many corporate clients have previously pushed back against setting dynamic rates in agreements, Augustsson said. Now, many are changing their agreements to include dynamic rates because they see where they can save.

“Now companies that never wanted to talk about dynamic rates actually have been at least starting the discussion about that,” he said. “That could be really good for the future.”

This is an opportunity to talk with clients about dynamic rates, because the fixed contracted rates might be higher than the actual best available rate or discounts that hotels are selling at the moment, said Daniella Boeken, group vice president of commercial at Ruby GmbH. It’s an advantage for the corporate clients, but in the long run, it will benefit hotels as it provides more flexibility.

“It would be a win-win for both,” she said. “Take that opportunity now to change your fixed rates to dynamic.”

Regular conference and meeting clients who typically book the same week each year have found it’s much easier to be flexible when scheduling now, said Jonathon Liu, director of revenue and marketing strategy at GLH Hotels.

“We’ve been able to give them dates that perhaps they can get a better value,” he said.

That’s opened up other conversations about moving some business coming in during high-demand times to periods where the hotels are experiencing lower demand, he said. It evens out the books for the hotels while saving the clients money without cutting back on any services.

Many of the experienced meeting planners are realizing the importance of the terms and conditions of the contracts, Paynter said, noting price isn’t necessarily the most important topic during conversations right now.

This flexibility allows for better management of demand peaks and troughs, allowing hotels and their clients to find the right fit for both their calendars, she said.

“We're all being a bit more creative,” she said. “There's more important things now than just the price when we're talking about getting the business.”