I know, in these times, you cannot maintain total rate integrity without looking like an out of touch management group.  Others try to maintain their rates by laughing at their clients and just being rude, something so pompous and idiotic I need to quote it here.  CMO Scott Williams, from Morgans Hotel Group (on behalf of the Clift in SF) said it professional as can be:

““You can bury your head in the sand, discount your rooms, piss your brand away. But we are a luxury brand and we will act like a luxury brand. I’m going to look back at this recession and say ‘we didn’t just drop our pants.’

He has a way of making a point, doesn’t he?  It is a valid issue, no matter how garrish, classless, and totally out of touch he is.  (Even using that “L” word can get you in trouble.  The current “luxury” fiasco that has everyone up in arms, from groups to spas.)  Not everyone is maintaining rates with such bravado.  Choice Hotels seems to be doing a great job.

Whatever the case, the question is clear.  Where the heck are our revenue managers?

Well… after reading this article that suggests group rates are higher than transient/FIT rates (based off Star numbers), we might be able to guess where they are…out of work.

Is it possible that a significant amount of hotels pulled the plug on the pricey, but imperative, revenue manager?  I have heard of a couple properties letting them go, or restructuring so a Rez manager *becomes* a rev manager at the same payscale…. but I am starting to think they have all been fired from the hotels that actually had them, possibly due to the economic problems we are experiencing.  That’s my best guest, and it might be wrong…. but they seem to have gone *poof* and vanished.

I know the industry has been slow to grasp the concept of revenue management. As I mentioned, many still think it is a reservation manager under the Rooms Division, but that’s a majour mistake.  If this new trending information isn’t enough to help hotels realize that it is imperative to have one, I am not sure what will get the industry to really take notice.  A Revenue Manager has the final say on negotiations with the Director of Sales and Rooms… as well as reports directly to the GM so their experienced leadership can help helm the ship….but it is vital to have one, and it simply seems the concept of paying one an appropriate salary has fallen by the wayside.

In an effort to conserve on salary, it seems that more Revenue Managers have popped up with the same pay they had as a rez manager… seeming to be some off-handed consolation from archaic leadership just trying to get a grip on the new position, and blindly filling it (“doesn’t cost me a cent? sounds like the same thing to me.” mentality).  But a title does not a Revenue Manager make.  It simply means they don’t “get” what a revenue manager is, or does.  What’s more, the revenue management job is so intensive, so incredibly complex, and constantly changing in the *very* real time (the best revenue managers I know work 24 hours a day, basically)… I think a proper revenue manager should possibly be the highest paid person on a hotel team, short of the GM.  Might be a big statement, but even I don’t totally understand revenue management…. and I know these people are vital – possibly more so than the rooms manager.

So why do we know there is a problem beyond Group rates being higher than Transient/FIT rates?

Well.. No rate parity at all in majour markets (Las Vegas, Miami) and boutique markets (anyone look at rates in Monterey, CA the last couple months?).   What’s more, Revenue Management has taken a noticeable hit that has been trending since before this total economic meltdown, and polls suggest that thoughtful rate control has turned into a panic of sorts.  Ownership wants market share, even if it is out of step with the rates, often thinking “a full hotel is a happy hotel”.  This is where the pressure for Revenue Managers comes in… listening to the owners even if it is against their own best interests (lack of rate integrity kills future biz, and it will bite the person controlling it in the rump down the line).

With the economy, Rev Managers took a hit and now there is a dirth of any real control at all. It’s frustrating to see.  A lot of missed opportunities here, and a lot of smart people (like HotelSphere’s *incredible* post) are seeing that. I think this is an anomoly, and nothing more?  At least… I hope it is.  The real question is “Can our business work like this long term”?  I highly doubt it, which is why 2009 has got to be the year that Hotels cry out “PARITY!!” as a battle cry, and remain completely focused on integrity (Page 3 of this New England Hotel Mag has a great primer for Rev Management and maintaing rate integrity).

I know, as an owner and manager, you want to employ a lot of people.  What’s more, you especially don’t want to let valued staff go in this economy.  But it is what we do when times are rough, and we need to maintain rate for the longevity of your business rather than trade for occupancy for a handful of employees.  You won’t be able to employ them in the future if you drop the bottom out now, and what’s more – of the staff you do have left you won’t be able to pay a good wage.  This all degrades fairly quickly, and is obviously more complex than I could ever explain in this space (or totally understand).

So what do you think?  Do you, gentle readers, think they are still out there feeling constant pressure to listen to ownership, or did hotels let them go in droves when the downturn happened?  Is the industry just not getting “revenue management” yet?  I would love to know your thoughts.

Until then…. do whatever it takes to suck it up now.  Rather than panicking and having to pay a grave price in the near future (that may last longer than the downturn), do your due diligence, measure, watch, and manage.  Emotional rate management doesn’t help your business, and you don’t have the money to lose right now.  I have never been a big fan of paying with credit…. and in this situation it is just one post-dated check that your hotel shouldn’t write.  Don’t pay now with something you won’t be able to get back later.  It’s a bad move, and you need to trust your revenue manager much more than you are now.  Or better yet, hire one.

So far, after brief pontification… this is what I have:

1_ Fierce, undying, dyed in wool love for and belief in the hotel, product, brand, business, etc.

I think this is vital.  I don’t think you can sit and be part of a conversation that irks you, or that your heart is not in.  I think you might try… it could be like a relationship you want to work but you just know that can’t.  I am not sure about you, but there definitely has to be some redemption and true love for the properties I represent.  With a couple in specific, there is drive it in to the ground go to the mat love. You might be able to lose yourself in the fun that is social media, but then you may get to far from your job and positioning and maintaining your hotel’s needs (or product etc).  Too many people “play” social media.  You need someone trying to win for your hotel.. earnestly and deeply.

2_ Ability to conjure and work with words eloquently, concisely, and with precision

Concise?  Me?  Uh oh.  Managing positive and negative reviews is a daunting task.  One single property I work for (w/ outlets) has over 145 reviews in the first 9 months of operations on YELP ALONE.  This is not only overwhelming (given their 5 review response limit per day) this is incredibly frightening.  You can’t really carbon copy reviews… you have to respond individually.  They are so nuanced, and so individual… reviewers may react poorly to a “stock response”, versus not having written them at all.  Some yelpers have even ganged up on businesses that didn’t appropriately respond to their needs.  Whatever the case, when you are replying to reviews they are very nuanced, personal conversations that need to be real.  Social Media isn’t only about transparency, it’s about being honest, and providing a human face for your brand.  Someone replying with cut and paste isn’t going to, ahem, cut it.

3_ Someone able to stay focused in a relatively unstructured environment (wild west of job
responsibilities and duties)

This job is new.  It is also fairly vaguely scripted.  Often times by the time you are deep into an idea or “campaign” you realize it isn’t as relevant as you hoped and you take a different direction.  It is a long term process keeping many, many different balls in the air.  It is incredibly important to create some level of structure or you will be wayward in this e-stream of riptide currents taking you to worthless, time consuming websites, or off topic fluff and minutia that hasn’t an impact or relevancy to your task at hand.  Organization is paramount, and difficult to do with such a new world of floating job tasks and fluid long term projects.  If you can’t keep good notes, your dates in order, and target tasks by hierarchical importance, it is going to be a disaster.  Remember, your employer may trust you deeply but you have to have *something* to show them your activities.  You may have freedom, but you have to relate your importance and justify the labour expense.

4_ Ability to multitask at a dysfunctionally and depressingly high level

You need to start 15 projects, answer 40 questions, be on 2 different phones in 3 different time zones before 8am.  Maybe that’s just me… but you do need to have a terse organizational mind coupled with an ability to stay mentally organized as 75% of the stuff you are directed to do gets put on hold to do other stuff.  I feel like I am constantly coming back to projects I have been working on *forever*.  I have a “create new projects” social media side, a “maintain” social media side, “innovate” social media side, and a “catch up, catch up now!!!” side.  Between that and nap time is brainstorming time.  I need a couple house wipeboards to cover all of it.  In fact, I need to rework that because there are a lot more things to multitask.  Like there should be a Q&A hour from confused people constantly asking a statement, “I don’t get twitter?”, with a rising intonation.

You need to be on the ball, and you can’t forget what’s in the air.  When the ball drops in the conversation in social media, there is something worse than becoming irrelevant and going unnoticed… it is the negative effect it can have on your brand.  When people want to talk and you aren’t answering your door, they can think it pretty rude.

So once you start, it might be wise to notice that you can’t stop.  I mean.. you can.  Of course you can.  But there are always consequences.

So that is why I think this is going to build and grow, and eventually end up property level for most majour chains or properties.  Just my two cents.  But if it is true….

Add your own thoughts!.  I wouldn’t mind to know what you think?  We are going to have to give HR a job description at some point, aren’t we?  =)

I just sent this to some local hotel people, but I think this is important to all hoteliers:

Some articles should be sent around to your internal management team.

It is funny though… finance and tech employees do have this problem. But hotels are so different… and anyone that is at the position we are at (hotel management/operators), we ground it out for years working harder than most humans will ever imagine.

Managing Facebook Generation:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=12853955

Gen Y go to work:

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12863573&fsrc=rss

This is interesting…. Managing Feedback Junkies:

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12863565&source=hptextfeature

talking about the below site:

http://www.rypple.com/index.shtml

]]> http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/01/16/operational-management-for-hotels-and-the-facebook-generation/feed/ 0 http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/01/07/hey-grumpy-reviewer-yeah-you/ http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/01/07/hey-grumpy-reviewer-yeah-you/#comments Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:23:15 +0000 Michael Hraba http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/01/07/hey-grumpy-reviewer-yeah-you/ Social Media is not a place to complain.  It is a place to resolve problems.

Oh wait.

I just had a guest that we caught mid experience through her online review… resolved and righted the entire experience on site so that the latter half of the stay was perfect.  This woman decided to go on and review it based off the first half, suggesting “had I not complained” it would have remained that way the entire stay.

Oooooh… that is so unfair.

News flash to the grumpy reviewers… *WE WANT YOU TO COMPLAIN*.  Of course we do… while you are on site, or even if we catch your review during your stay, and we see you unhappy, dissatisfied, or angry… we are going to attempt to do something about it.  It is sort of in our interest to have you pleasured, versus consternated while gritting one’s teeth.

Typically, as hoteliers, we all dream and hope of the day there is nothing to complain about.  But that day won’t come, and if we think it has it means we aren’t listening.

SO… if there *are* issues, it is our business model and in our self respecting interests to want to resolve that situation.  To have a business dialed in enough to recognize the issues with one’s experience and resolve them seems to me to be a rolemodel of a business; catering to consumers, and listening to demand. 

For someone to go home after the experience and pretend nothing had actually happened but a miserable stay seems short shrift and unfair.  Of course, I am a skeptic enough to suggest we may have failed miserably, or the gaffe was insurmountable.  I am also a realist enough to simply suggest there are some miserable people out there that don’t feel they have a voice.

But that would be wildly unfair in favour of the consumer.  The client is always right as the adage has gone from century to century.

In regards to reviews… we love them.  I am not saying they are worthless by any means.  Of course, review us!  Don’t hold back!  We take anything and everything *ANYONE* writes straight to the heart.  We think about it, talk about it, and learn from it.  We have made changes because of it.  So it is effective.

But just remember business is a two sided affair, and for it to work most efficiently we would love to know what you are having problems with, instead of waiting and venting your frustrations through a stoic keyboard.

If you do the latter, there is no guarantee that your review will ever reach us with the depth of space that is the online reviewing portal world.  Even if we do see your placid words on a lonely page, we are ill prepared to relate to the depth of sentiment or for those words to properly intone your experience.

We will try.  No doubt about it.  I am scouring the internet for people’s experiences as we speak.

But if you want a sure fire way to alert a business to a problem, get someone to listen, and resolve professional issues to your satisfaction… don’t hesitate to actually talk to a human while you are there.

Completely novel concept, to be sure.

Hell I have fun being employed to do what I do… but actually fixing the problem seems a better outcome than us retroactively realizing we had a chance to make someone happy and missing it.

It works for both sides a lot better in every possible way….

Let us know of any issues, inconveniences, thoughts, comments, etc while *AT* a property…. instead of waiting to vent your disappointment through tapping out idle words into a machine lacking listening skills.

Just a thought.

We want to be the best, and if we aren’t we want to get better.  Alerting us to problems long since passed doesn’t seem like the most efficient way of helping us to get there.

Again… some react in favour of the brand.  Others react in favour of the consumer.  This online reviewing world gets some heated opinions.

But what happened to the old days where people in business actually dealt with issues and talked face to face about things?  I am as modern as the next guy… but dammit we need professional consumers again.

Just the odd rant now and again.  Thanks for pondering along with me.  I felt those eyes shifting over the lines.  Cheers to you!