Articles | HSMAI Global

Living in a World of Labor Shortages

By Timothy R. Wiersma, CRME, Founder and Principal, Revenue Generation LLC, and a member of HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Advisory Board

At this point, engaging with the recovery is like playing poker: You don’t know what cards you’re going to be dealt next. The delta variant is just the latest in a year and a half of unpredictable hands — but even before the pandemic, the hospitality industry was facing serious problems such as a chronic labor shortage. By forcing layoffs and furloughs that have pushed hospitality professionals into other industries, COVID has only exacerbated things.

Add to that the challenges of managing a post-COVID workforce — from attracting the next generation of talent with adequate wages, benefits, and telework options, to enforcing vaccine mandates and other health and safety measures — and you have a dilemma that is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. During a recent call for HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Advisory Board (ROAB), I moderated a discussion during which ROAB members discussed how their companies are addressing labor shortages, not just today but in the years ahead. Here are key insights they offered during our conversation:

The end of amenities? “Addressing a labor shortage means cutting amenities. Some of the amenities, properties are not opening, and they’re also revisiting breakfast, which is tough because in a mid-scale and a limited-service property that is what travelers expect. So that’s one thing. And then also, housekeeping. I don’t see the labor shortage easing up in the fall, so I don’t believe we’ll see amenities like that coming back anytime in the near future.”

Sign-on bonuses and other incentives: “Using Las Vegas as one example, I’ve heard about things like $1,000 sign-on bonuses for housekeeping. Companies are getting pretty creative with trying to attract new people or even get back those team members that may have left during the pandemic with some major incentives that are fairly unprecedented.”

Wages and daily pay: “We have tried a number of different things like offering daycare and improved cafeteria lunches and different stipends and sign-on and retention bonuses, and we haven’t seen traction with much of anything other than wage increases — and trying to be really proactive about that before you’re at a point where you’re pulling rooms offline or closing outlets because you can’t service them. The other thing that’s been impactful has been moving to daily pay — instead of paying out every two weeks, at the hotel level you’re paying out each day. I know that there have been tests from various brands in a number of markets where they’re looking at kind of a gig work setup, where if you’re a housekeeper, you can opt in to work on a certain day and they might allocate you to whatever hotel in that market needs the help, and then you go work and you get paid that day.”

Immigration restrictions: “One of the things that I don’t hear enough talk about is the cumulative impact of restrictions on natural legal immigration — for seasonal markets, the availability of the HB1 and L1 visas. If we get those surges in labor supply seasonally that we’ve gotten used to or that we need in some destinations, that might alleviate, especially in some resort markets. There are a lot of international markets out there that are flush with highly skilled, very qualified workers that maybe had visas before and don’t have them now.”

Work from home: “We’re looking at flexible options and hybrid options. We’ve had to offer some full-time work at home just to get revenue talent, which has been incredibly hard to find, especially for our resort destinations. We’re seeing that as more of a normal thing in the future is okay: You can work remote, and we’ll fly you out to the resorts every so often.”

Rebuilding faith in hospitality: “The pandemic has created an environment where confidence is something that needs to be rebuilt for people. There are a lot of people who say, ‘Boy, is this the right industry to be in?’ In our area of revenue optimization and data, quite frankly, every company now is doing this kind of work in every vertical, and so people are looking for areas with more stability. I think we have to do a lot more to communicate with people a level of confidence in the future, and that this is a good industry to be in.”

Realistic goals: “We also need to think about our own people this year, and how we bonus them and incent them and measure them, because with people shutting down inventory, they can’t necessarily win on the STAR Report or hit their budgets. So, what are those new measurements, and how do we make sure that we’re incenting them and rewarding them and recognizing their successes if it’s not through the numbers and the data?”

Recruiting students: “I wonder if the message that comes to hospitality students from all of our organizations has to be finetuned a little bit. If you’re looking for people in revenue management but you’re sending out talent scouts that are very focused in operations, revenue management gets very little voice. As heads of revenue strategy, are we figuring out what is our voice when we go to all of these places to recruit?”

More positive messaging: “I was going to comment on messaging as well, but externally. If you’re thinking about entering the industry or you’re making a change, or you’re just an adult looking for a position and you think hotels could be good because you could grow — we have a PR problem, right? The news is still about how much hotels are struggling, so when people are evaluating a job at XYZ or a job at the front desk, they’re probably going to go for XYZ, just because it seems maybe more stable and not like an industry on the verge of collapse. Figuring out a way to reframe that message could be very important from a recruiting perspective.”

Industries to Scout for Hospitality Sales Talent

While the war on talent is nothing new for the hospitality industry, the pandemic has made this an even bigger challenge. What other professions and industries can you target for talent and explore for new business development opportunities?

Here are suggestions from the HSMAI Sales Advisory Board’s Talent Workgroup:

Property management: From proactively reaching out and scheduling site tours, to contracting and closing the deal, property management is a good match for hospitality sales. While there is upward mobility in property management, hospitality has more options for one to grow. Get started with this list of the top commercial property management companies.

Assisted living: You may be able to lure assisted living sales professional to the hospitality industry with the promise of a more upbeat, positive, and future-focused working and sales environment. There is also a good skills match — especially when it comes to consultative selling and understanding clients’ short- and long-term needs. The average salary for sales managers in this sector is $58,000 to $70,000 plus bonuses. DOS compensation in this area is broad — from $65,000 to $302,000 plus bonuses. Get started by looking at the top 10 senior care organizations in the United States, listed here by company size:

Brookdale Senior Living
Genesis HealthCare
HCR ManorCare
Holiday Retirement
Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society
Golden Living
Sunrise Senior Living
Five Star Quality Care
Life Care Centers of America
Atria

Luxury sales: People in luxury sales are taught the value of brand, presentation of product, and personalized service. They are also experienced with customers who can be demanding. Most luxury brands have sales training programs to ensure they build consistency with their brands. Targets include luxury jewelry sales professionals (e.g., Tiffany & Co. and Cartier), luxury cruise lines such as Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Viking, luxury apartment community rental agents, and luxury car and private aviation sales. Salaries for these roles with the commission model range from $45,000 to $100,000.

Additional areas to target: Other professions and industries to consider include airline group sales (average salary of $72,000), OTA market managers ($70,000), ad salespeople and/or salespeople who represent hospitality vendors as Cvent and TravelClick ($65,000 to $80,000), promotional gifts salespeople ($55,000), third-party planners and travel advisers ($85,000), salespeople for freestanding catering facilities ($65,000 to $80,000), rental car group sales or corporate sales ($30,000 to $38,000), and people in sponsorship or fundraising, who understand how to overcome objections and often plan events and build relationships ($80,000 to $115,000).

The list goes on, from golf courses and professional sports teams to conference centers and chambers of commerce. For some hospitality companies, recruiting has already begun and there have been success stories in hiring, productivity, and retention.

HSMAI Top 25 Profile: Cesar Wurm, IHG

HSMAI recently honored the 2020 Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization — recognizing leaders from hospitality, travel, and tourism organizations for their accomplishments in the preceding 18 months. We’re profiling all of them in an HSMAI Special Report that we’re previewing with excerpts, including Cesar Wurm, Vice President of Commercial and Revenue Management IHG.

Cesar Wurm provides strategic direction, oversight, and leadership across all commercial and revenue optimization aspects of company-managed hotels at IHG. He has an extensive background in sales and marketing across brand segments and business models. Wurm has led high-stakes commercial efforts for Starwood, IHG, Trust Hospitality, and most recently, Hotel Equities. He graduated from Washington State University and Cesar Ritz College in Brig, Switzerland, and currently serves on the Customer Experience Executive Program Advisory Council at the George Washington University School of Business. Outside of work, Cesar can be found spending as much time as possible with his wife, Laura, and daughter, Gabby.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: As the pandemic’s impact was becoming clearer, Wurm put together a strategy to address the needs of a portfolio of hotels in various rampup stages across geographies. This initiative was successful, and he has since taken on complete accountability for the commercial and revenue optimization performance of IHG’s company-managed hotels across the Americas.

NOMINATED BY: Brian Hicks, IHG — “Cesar has shown great leadership through the crisis; he has remained calm, positive, and focused. He kept the team motivated through the most challenging of times. He is a true professional and is held in high esteem by his colleagues and anyone that has the privilege to interact with him.”

CESAR WURM ON STAYING MOTIVATED IN 2020: “Having wonderful people in my life — both personally and professionally. It allowed me to be grateful, stay healthy, and stay focused. As a result, it unleashed my intrinsic motivation and the ability to collaborate and perform at my best.”

How COVID Has Changed Travel Behavior

Of all the things that the pandemic disrupted around the hospitality business, nothing has been affected so deeply as guest behavior. From how guests book and travel to hotels, to what they expect in terms of service and amenities, to how they define value or approach loyalty — everything is not just different, but different for each individual guest.

In analyzing travel and booking patterns throughout the pandemic, experts in hospitality sales, marketing, and loyalty identified several key developments — some of which have long-term implications for hotel companies, especially as it relates to the importance of adapting quickly to changing guest behavior:

Leisure first: “A much higher percentage of our guests are leisure guests,” said Elizabeth Schultz, vice president of guest experience, strategy, and innovation for Hyatt Hotels Corporation. “They’re just a different makeup as it relates to not only what they’re looking for but also how they find us. They’re looking for value and they’re staying closer to home, so they’re more likely to drive. We did a survey asking people how far they were willing to drive pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. Pre-pandemic, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of two to four hours. Post-pandemic, guests were saying that they were willing to drive up to eight hours to go on a trip.”

Tighter booking: “We’ve seen a pretty significant shortening of the booking window,” said Eliot Hamlisch, executive vice president of loyalty and revenue optimization for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. “Whereas customers used to be more interested in booking further out, just given the uncertainty of COVID spikes and pandemic-related trends more broadly, that booking window has shortened to a pretty great extent.”

Suburbs vs. cities: “The drive markets have continued to see more business than the markets that are dependent on airlift,” said David Fleuck, senior vice president of loyalty for Marriott International. “And it’s also changed a little bit by brand tier. It’s not quite one size fits all, but typically, your suburban hotels are seeing more guests than your typical big box. Your big-box urban centers are most severely impacted.”

Cautious and savvy: “It was one thing before COVID-19 struck that maybe something was outdated or something was inaccurate on the website, but now, accuracy is key because the traveler really needs to trust in the hotel and what they’re providing,” said Valerie Castillo, vice president of marketing for TrustYou. “They need to know exactly what amenities will be open, what will be closed, what their COVID-19 procedures are. We were always dealing with savvy travelers in the past, but now this particular traveler is even more attuned to being careful and to carefully selecting their accommodations. I think we’ll see that not just during the pandemic but immediately afterward, too.”

Added Sabrina Lillew, vice president of loyalty programs – North and Central America for Accor: “While health, safety, and wellbeing have always been important to guests, it’s something that they are placing further emphasis on. Guests are looking for assurances that the necessary cleaning and hygiene protocols are in place.”

Excerpted from Do You Know Your Guests?, a white paper from HSMAI and Trust You.

Where the Staffing Crisis Lives

Is the talent shortage hitting hardest at the unit or corporate level? Hospitality executives across functions — sales, marketing, revenue, digital, and assets — says it’s a little bit of both. Or in some cases, a lot.

The talent shortage was a major focus of HSMAI’s most recent series of virtual Executive Roundtable programs, with participants talking at length about the challenges of staffing back up after widespread furloughs and layoffs and the departure of hospitality veterans for other industries. We shared some of their insights in articles about the roundtables, which focused on chief sales officers, chief marketing officers, sales and marketing executives for hotel management companies, chief revenue officers for brands and HMCs, and chief digital officers for brands and HMCs, as well as for hotel asset managers.

In addition, we asked participants to further zero in on this problem by telling us: Where is staffing an issue for you and your company? The options for every group but one were the same: at the unit level, at the corporate level, at both the unit and corporate levels, and at neither level. For asset managers, the options were at the unit level, at the brand corporate level, at the HMC corporate level, and not an issue.

There’s no clear consensus among the answers we received, except that no one isn’t experiencing staffing issues at the unit level. Beyond that, the extent to which talent issues are being felt at the corporate level varies widely — although they deniably are being felt.

Progress Toward Gender-Balanced Hospitality Leadership

A new report offers encouraging news about women in leadership positions in hotel sales, marketing, and revenue management.

By Peggy Berg, Chair, Castell Project

With the HSMAI Foundation’s mission focused on driving talent and leadership development in the hospitality industry, it’s important to evaluate progress according to a variety of metrics, including diversity in the C-suite. Women in Hospitality Industry Leadership, a new report from the Castell Project, offers some encouraging news when it comes to gender diversity among sales, marketing, and revenue leadership.

Presenting the results of a survey of 5,525 executives at 802 hotel companies, including 536 sales and marketing and 229 revenue management executives, the report finds that —from vice president to chief marketing officer and chief revenue officer — men and women are nearly equally balanced in sales and marketing as well as revenue management in corporate offices. In fact, women are now gaining a majority share, leading most other hospitality fields in gender diversity:

Add in the director level, and the mix skews toward women. This indicates that women soon will become a substantial majority of higher-level roles in these fields:

The mix is very different in other fields. Human resources is by far the field where women have been accepted as leaders for the longest and have taken a strong majority. Sales and marketing along with revenue management are next, while fields like investment/development and technology/information are still doing poorly at attracting, developing, and retaining female talent.

In addition, industry leadership overall is still strongly skewed toward men. This suggests that women have trouble moving from sales and marketing or revenue management into broader top leadership. The goal is representation across the entire industry. If HR and sales and marketing are perceived as “women’s fields,” then the influence — and compensation — awarded in those fields will diminish.

Gaining balanced representation for women as well as men in leadership across all fields is a challenge on two fronts. On one front, corporate culture has to change. This has been inching along for 40 years or more, and lately it’s been moving at a faster pace, with McKinsey reporting “a substantial performance differential — 48 percent — between the most and least gender-diverse companies.” As companies benefit from the larger talent pool that includes women, performance improves, meaning that results like these are accelerating change.

On another front, women have to adapt to compete in this new corporate environment. That change has also been happening for more than 40 years — nearly two generations. However, as the statistics indicate, there is still room to grow.

It’s an exciting time to be building a career in the hospitality industry, which is filled with change and therefore opportunity. Whether you are a woman building a career, a leader developing talent for your company, or both, developing diverse talent to deepen a company’s resources is a challenge and an opportunity. And sales and marketing and revenue management are leading the way.

Peggy Berg chairs the Castell Project, a nonprofit organization advancing women in leadership in the hospitality industry. Under her guidance, Castell delivers leadership development for women, benchmarks the status of women in the hospitality industry, encourages women in university hospitality programs, and promotes women on the podium. Fortuna’s Table, Castell’s initiative to advance women in hotel ownership, just launched.

Travel Recovery Promises More Surprises Ahead

In a preview of their general session at HSMAI’s upcoming Marketing Strategy Conference, MMGY Global’s Clayton Reid and Katie Briscoe explain why they’re so optimistic about the outlook for hospitality and travel.

By Christopher Durso, Vice President of Content Development, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

Throughout the pandemic, MMGY Global has been optimistic about the outlook for recovery. From the first HSMAI Customer Insight that MMGY shared in May 2020, the marketing communications and technology company has carefully but consistently made the case that hospitality and travel would return — sooner and better than many other analysts thought.

“Traditional economists hedged conservative, and I think some of the travel researchers relied too heavily on traveler sentiment of the moment,” said MMGY CEO Clayton Reid. “Where there are flaws in both of those was, one, economists were using models of past recessions, most notably ’09, where they looked at analysis that predicted a recovery on metrics that they’ve seen in the past. We never believed that that was the case, given the nature of the recession. It was not necessarily an economic recession. It was a recession of confidence and opportunity.

“Two, I think our competitors in travel research relied too heavily on surveys where travelers at that very moment were very negative on travel and couldn’t see that once things opened up, they would really want to get back at it,” Reid said. “So, we weren’t necessarily following the data exactly. We were applying our own lens of how we thought behaviors would play out.”

Reid and MMGY President Katie Briscoe will apply that same lens to a general session presentation at HMSAI’s Marketing Strategy Conference in Dallas on Sept. 28, 2021. Focused on the topic “Travel Recovery Promises More Surprises Ahead,” Reid and Briscoe will explain why they’re so optimistic about both leisure and business travel over the next 12 to 18 months, discuss some of the surprises waiting down the road, and explore what needs to change about how hotel companies talk to travelers. In a recent interview with HSMAI, they offered a preview of their session.

Can you share one of the reasons why you feel so optimistic about the outlook for hospitality and travel?

Clayton Reid: Well, this shouldn’t be a surprise to our industry, but it’s still the second-highest discretionary spend item for anybody who makes over $50,000 of household income a year. Second, most destinations and economies have put a premium on using travel as a recovery tool for jobs and economic recovery, so there’s a lot of money being put into encouraging travel, both domestically and internationally. And the industry is bringing back supply as quickly as they can to provide the labor to support it, so there’s going to be plenty of opportunities for people to travel again, whereas they maybe didn’t believe that six months ago.

Katie Briscoe: On the softer side, we have some data points and are excited to share those around the fact that consumers’ mindsets have changed. That’s part of the headwind for labor recovery — people have reevaluated how they’re spending their time in their lives and the idea of travel and togetherness is a sought-after experience. And we have to be there to meet that as an industry.

What is one of the surprises ahead that people should be thinking about?

CR: This notion that cruises are suddenly out of favor, that people would never get on a cruise ship again because the flu virus and/or COVID exists there more than anywhere else — it’s just not supported in the data. It’s not supported in intent data; it’s not supported in r-booking pace. There are things like that — patterns in travel that are not consistent with the narrative today — and we’ll highlight some of those things.

KB: That’s even an industry that’s mandating vaccination to board. The thought is that’s going to be a headwind for people returning to a type of travel, but the thing that we’re seeing broadly among consumers is that mandating is one thing, but taking something away from them that they enjoy, that coveted life experience — they’re willing to go that extra mile and potentially get vaccinated if that’s a requirement of the cruise ship.

How should hospitality marketing professionals be thinking about what they do within the context of recovery?

CR: There are other things we need to be thinking about around brand purpose — specifically, a sense of purpose, not only coming out of COVID but coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement, coming out of what we think is a social awakening. Brands have to put more emphasis on what their values are and live those values, especially in the travel industry. That’s incredibly important now on a go-forward basis from a marketing standpoint.

KB: We’ve been through a traumatic experience over the last 18 months. We’ve seen colleagues leave the industry, some not to return. There’s been a fear factor in marketing product, and now with labor shortage issues that fear factor has extended, but we see that as an opportunity for better brand alignment with consumers that drives loyalty for future decision making. What we’re excited about is that there is extraordinary opportunity out of this life experience we’ve all shared to do work in a better way, to connect with travelers in a more meaningful way that then will pay dividends in our business recovery and the growth of our businesses in the future.

Learn more about the 2021 Marketing Strategy Conference: An HSMAI Commercial Strategy Event, being held in Dallas on Sept. 28, 2021.

HSMAI PERSPECTIVE: Helping Students Help You

New insights from the HSMAI Foundation suggest how to encourage careers in hospitality sales, marketing, and revenue.

By Robert A. Gilbert, CHME, CHBA, President and CEO, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

A few months ago, I offered a cautionary outlook for the hospitality talent pipeline as the industry moves through recovery, noting that “hotel companies may not be sufficiently staffed with sales, marketing, and revenue professionals at the property and above-property levels to meet the return — now or in the years ahead.” That was based on insights we collected during a series of academic forums for hospitality deans, directors, and faculty that the HSMAI Foundation hosted this past spring.

The Foundation’s mission is focused on talent and leadership development, meaning it’s not enough for us to diagnose a problem; we’re also looking for solutions. As part of those forums, we asked participants to rank various resources that would help hospitality students pursue careers in sales, marketing, and/or revenue — meaning any or all of those career paths for the deans and directors and the specific disciplines for those respective faculty. While each group participated in its own separate forums, there was a great deal of overlap for the top-ranked resources:

We also asked participants to rank a list of resources that would be helpful when it comes to developing and enhancing hospitality curriculums. Deans and directors as well as sales, marketing, and revenue faculty all agreed on the top three:

Digital assets — videos, interviews, podcasts, etc., especially in two-to-three-minute segments.
Case studies and supplemental materials — especially current issues that demonstrate industry innovation.
Faculty development opportunities — including certifications.

That said, the order varied slightly from group to group:

This is a lot of actional intelligence that all of us can use to continue developing the talent pipeline. Note how highly everyone ranks internships and career-planning resources, and how the disruption caused by the pandemic has created opportunities to rethink things. Here are a few possibilities:

Get creative with staffing solutions. Internships don’t have to be a summer-only program. Can your hotel or hotel company craft a semester-long internship for a student or group of students in partnership with a class at a local hospitality school?

Get creative with student roles. How can students be productive for you? Where can they play a role? With telemarketing? Research? Lead review and proposal follow-up? Prospecting? Ecommerce and channel management assistance? Website content review and edits? The list goes on and on.

Get creative from here on out. Hospitality talent may not exist in the form it used to for the foreseeable future. How can you find a way to get someone with a predetermined passion for hospitality to join you now — and keep them with you?

This is just one part of the conversation around talent. Check out two additional new articles about where hotel companies are experiencing the staffing crisis and how the industry is closing the gender gap at the executive level. And look for additional resources from the HSMAI Foundation in the coming months.

Let’s keep talking about talent and leadership development, both for and with our students. The future of our industry depends on it.

HSMAI Top 25 Profile: Dana Cariss, CoralTree Hospitality

HSMAI recently honored the 2020 Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization — recognizing leaders from hospitality, travel, and tourism organizations for their accomplishments in the preceding 18 months. We’re profiling all of them in an HSMAI Special Report that we’re previewing with excerpts, including Dana Cariss, CHDM, Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Distribution, CoralTree Hospitality.

Dana Cariss is responsible for implementing the revenue strategy, distribution, and ecommerce objectives for CoralTree Hospitality. He works closely with property revenue optimization community teams and helps support each in their pricing, distribution, channel management, and marketing strategies to drive revenue and profit across all segments. Before joining CoralTree, Cariss worked for Destination Hotels in several revenue optimization roles before expanding to corporate director and then regional vice president for the company’s West Coast properties. He has also held management positions with Handlery Hotels, Loews Hotels, Evolution Hospitality, and Open Hospitality. He currently sits on HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Advisory Board and is immediate past president of the HSMAI San Diego Chapter. Cariss is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, with a double major in mathematics and economics.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Cariss has been instrumental in shifting CoralTree’s distribution and channel mix by creating a “book direct” mantra among the company’s independent hotels, leading to significant pre-pandemic increases in rooms profit, profit per occupied room, and profit per stay.

NOMINATED BY: Nancy Kern, CoralTree Hospitality — “Dana is a true asset to HSMAI and the hospitality community. He has the unique ability to mix the science of revenue management and analytics and bring them to life through creativity and innovation. He is a true partner to the home-office team, and his talent in the marketing arena complements the convergence of revenue and marketing online. Even through this year, Dana has continued to see the positive and think beyond the current crisis to build the foundation for CoralTree to continue into the future.”

DANA CARISS ON STAYING MOTIVATED IN 2020: “I think I was able to find comfort in the uncomfortable rather quickly. Many of the traditional expectations and job functions of a DORM were immediately upended, so we had to adapt quickly and develop new approaches to old questions. It was kind of exciting in a way

Hotel Owners and Asset Managers Focus on Profitability, Talent, and More

By Kaitlin Dunn, Writer, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI)

Hotel asset managers and ownership groups have faced unique challenges over the past year and a half. With that in mind, HSMAI hosted its first-ever virtual Hotel Ownership Group Commercial Executive Roundtable on June 29. Asset managers from participating companies including Apple Hospitality REIT, Ashford, BRE, and Noble came together to share their thoughts on recovery and how they’re moving forward. Here are key takeaways from their discussion:

ON PROFITABILITY:

Participants pointed out that, among other changes post-COVID, there is a greater focus on profitability for managed assets than there was before. This has caused ownership groups to change their behavior. Here’s what participants said on the topic:

“The environment has really surfaced the difference in priorities between an owner and a manager. A manager is incentivized off of total revenue and owners care more about profitability. And so, we see countless instances where there’s tension there. We’ve talked about that tension in the past, but it’s really come into light in this new environment.”
“We’re finding it’s far more profitable to sell less rooms right now. So, we’ve really got a very different focus, and managing that balance between operator and owner and having everyone on the same page with their day-to-day tactics is so critical right now. In the past, we’ve been primarily motivated by driving occupancy and altering our behavior to increase those numbers, but we have to think differently.”

ON TALENT ACQUISITION AND RETENTION:

Securing and retaining high-quality talent is a priority not only for owners but for managers at every level of the industry. Here’s what participants had to say about successful talent acquisition and retention strategies:

“Regarding the GMs that can pull together teams, it’s because they know a large number of individuals in the market and worked with them at other hotels. That also tracks on a corporate level. Our relationships have become much more important these past several months.”
“We’ve always seen our workforce as a given, and it truly is a luxury right now to have an organization that is fully staffed, where staff come to work on time and are excited to be there. So, we’ve got to put a different level of value in our teams and make sure that we are managing our management companies to really do that, to promote the fact that they have high satisfaction within their organization.”
“Retention is a result of the culture. The managers with the highest retention rates are the ones who have always held employee satisfaction at the highest level.”

ON SUPPORT FROM BRANDS AND MANAGEMENT COMPANIES:

Hotel ownership groups have received varying levels of support from management companies and brands over the past year. Here’s what participants said about both:

“I think some brands were incredibly receptive to change revenue management systems at some point following the onset of the pandemic. It took some STR reports to materialize for them to understand that maybe the same strategy we’d always had was not the right strategy, but at some point, they caught up and I truly believe that that’s going to help us, even in a far post-pandemic environment.”
“I think I found some management companies more willing to do certain things that brands haven’t, especially as it relates to brand standards and things like closing down. Where a brand may really care about customer sentiment, management companies care more about the brand value. Local management companies have been more focused on ownership bottom line whereas the brands would care a little bit more about certain other things.”
“I think some brands cut marketing departments and haven’t quite figured out the right structure. They’ve added them back, but to really have a great discussion around marketing strategy is getting harder and harder post-pandemic. We’re hard-pressed to get good data and qualified feedback on marketing specifications.”
“With some brands reducing a lot of their bandwidth, we’ve had to rely on ourselves more to help our management companies. We feel more comfortable now than we have been, and that’s because we’ve had to struggle through it. But I think as a result we’ve made ourselves better and I truly believe our managers would say that we’ve made them better as well.”

ON MARKETING AND MEDIA SPEND:

It’s up to owners to direct marketing and media spend, which participants said has been difficult recently due to multiple factors. Here are takeaways on that topic:

“When it comes to spend, a challenge that we’re finding is that the visibility on sites like Expedia and the disconnect with inventory is creating an issue where if the hotel shuts down because they can’t clean a room, the ads still continue.”
“We’ve all experienced the pullback of the resources at the brand levels and some management company levels. The optimization within the platforms that these campaigns are running is new and uncertain, and there’s not a lot of transparency into how the algorithms are determining recommendations on how much you should spend, so there’s a lot of just uncertainly on what’s the right budget.”
“Some of the brands have had to pull back and/or shut down from a marketing standpoint. And as they’ve layered that back in, there still isn’t a clear line of sight into how much are we spending now? How much coverage are we getting? What do we need to do to supplement that?”