It is 2021 and the hotel industry is still struggling. In today’s economic circumstances hotels are clearly in need of new ways to diversify their revenue base beyond room bookings. Doing what they have always done is not an option for hotels that are determined to survive. So how can operators act on potential opportunities when conditions are fierce and budgets remain strained? This is a job for revenue managers.

The role of revenue manager hasn’t changed too much in the last decade. Most revenue management decisions have had the objective of setting room rates and maximizing RevPAR based on unconstrained demand. Cue a pandemic and the pressure on revenue managers has been raised exponentially. But at a time when occupancy levels are aberrantly reduced, no other role in hospitality has the opportunity to help drive the increased health of a property. Their job is to explore all potential opportunities that might create cash flow, no matter how big or small.

With cloud, investing in software can now be less of unwieldy decision-making process. Cloud and SaaS technologies combine to create a dramatic reduction in hardware management, software updates that don’t involve ground-level IT staff. There is simply less financial and technical risk involved.

Revenue Managers are now free to innovate and experiment with the new generation of cloud-based revenue tools in the marketplace. An easy start would be to begin with automating and optimizing the room upgrade/upsell process with an application such as ROOMDEX. Follow that by adding an RMS. Many SaaS solution purchases are no longer viewed as an IT infrastructure decision as much as a revenue channel decision – kind of like the way GDS or OTA decisions are handled. Think OpEx versus CapEx. And the pandemic has only underlined urgency in trying new tools to generate new revenue.

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