After years of cost focus, it is time for the general manager to focus on the top line to ensure that the hotel captures at least its fair share of the market. General managers that put more effort into the commercial work in the hotel will likely steal market share from the competition. Here are three things that are the top priorities in 2023 for hotel general managers.
Commercial team
On top of the list is to get organized to maximize productivity in all commercial work attracting guests and selling more to each guest. Hotels can no longer afford to let people work in silos in individual bubbles with conflicting goals with the others in the team. The old way of organizing commercial work does not maximize total revenue and is too expensive to maintain. The general manager's job is to break down the silos and reorganize all the commercial roles in a team.
An excellent place to start is to appoint a commercial team leader. Hotels need a strong commercial leader that can take full responsibility for bringing in the total revenue to the hotel. It is about something other than coordinating marketing, sales, and revenue. It is about leading and ensuring that the team has one overall goal with aligned individual goals. The general manager must support new commission- and bonus schemes without any built-in conflicts within the group.
Commercial strategy
Once the commercial team has been set up, the next step is to create a commercial strategy for the next twelve months with the head of the commercial team and the marketing, sales, and revenue roles. The general manager should be heavily involved in the process, using all the knowledge and experiences to contribute to the strategy and plans to show the team that commercial work is the highest priority for 2023. The general manager will also continuously monitor and follow up on the commercial strategy and how the commercial team executes the strategy. Finally, the general manager and the commercial team must agree on the plan and how to measure progress. Once the strategy and the plan have been decided, the general manager should support the commercial leader without interfering in all the details.
Commercial systems
It is only possible to execute a strategy with the right resources. If the commercial team gets the needed resources, they will be able to reach the goals, and the hotel will not miss the overall objectives. The vital resources include providing systems, tools, other resources, and cash for ads and other campaigns. All necessary resources should be listed in the plan and approved by the general manager.
Hotels are moving toward total revenue management, focusing more on selling more products and services to each guest or customer. Hotels need systems that support a total revenue management approach. Increasing customer acquisition costs (CAC) must be managed, and hotels need to tightly follow up on how much it costs to acquire the revenue. Calculating CAC manually takes too much time, so hotels need automated monitoring processes for CAC.
Please ensure that the team is highly productive and has the right resources; otherwise, the competition will steal market share from the hotel.