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The
increases in demand in the first half of 2004 appear to have flattened in July
and August. While demand grew at approximately 4% in quarters 1 and 2 according
to Smith Travel, the gains in REVPAR in July and August to date have come from
increases in ADR. This is in alignment with a slowing of economic growth in the
country in the third quarter.
Will demand increase through the rest of the
year? That is anyone's guess as the consumer-spending engine may be running out
of steam. Will corporate travel demand increase sufficiently to continue the
lodging industry recovery in the last half of the year?
All of this adds up to a continuing challenge
for the sales departments of most hotels. It will continue to be necessary to
cultivate demand rather than depend on normal increasing demand to make the phones
ring.
A recent report also indicated that hotels are
again spending money on new technology. Most of this increased spending is in
the areas of revenue management and front office. How much has been invested in
providing the sales department with state of the art technology in order to
increase sales?
The processes and procedures of most hotel sales
operations have lagged behind in the availability and use of technology to
efficiently penetrate their markets. This affects the entire process of hotel
sales from locating new business, to qualifying and closing, fulfillment
collateral and modes of efficient, effective communication with prospects and
clients.
It is not a matter of simply providing new
software for contact management. It goes far beyond that to a paradigm or
mindset that embraces these changes in the sales process, both on the part of
the corporate office and management who evaluate the sales staff and make the
spending decisions and at the implementation level within the department
itself.
What the heck am I talking about? I am referring
to how the sales staff sorts through the vast universe of prospects, qualifies
them as to their potential for the property right down to how they present the
hotel, send proposals and follow-up communication. Let me cite a few examples:
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Contact Management:
Is your contact management system organized by market segments to facilitate
e-marketing campaigns that are market segment specific? Do you have e-stationary
that the staff can use to differentiate their emails from the hundreds of others
that come into a client's Inbox? A seminar participant recently sent me an email
indicating that he had never used email extensively in the past until he
attended my program. He was given a list of exhibitors for a trade show that was
coming into his area. He developed an email postcard campaign to them and his
hotel filled for the event. He was turning them away! His is an independent
property and he is the only sales person -- awesome use of resources!
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Web Site Fulfillment:
Does your web site lend itself to virtual tours? Does it sell and not just tell?
Does it provide functionality for group leads as well as individual
reservations? This is especially important for independent hotels and resorts.
It is also important for franchises. I always hear that the web site and its
management is maintained by the franchisor -- when was the last time you
received a viable group lead through the franchise web site?
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Databases:
Does your sales department have access to databases that will assist them in
prospecting and qualifying? Is the sales hardware sufficiently up to date that
the speed of their ability to use the Internet for these processes adequate?
We put high-speed Internet access in the guest rooms and often the sales
department is still on dial-up!
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Collateral:
The most basic example is having your hotel's stationary on the computer so that
professional correspondence can be sent electronically. Do you have an
e-brochure? Is your hotel's photography on the hard drive so that sales people
can send them to a prospect with an interest in a specific feature of the hotel
that may not be part of the web site? I had a seminar participant who would
email a picture of the property or a feature of their destination to a prospect
while she was on the phone with them. It allowed her to answer questions and
close on the spot.
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This only scratches the surface of
the potential. An owner recently said to me that his revenue from online
sources, including the distribution channels, had increased by over 30% but
revenue booked by his sales department was flat. Guess where he was putting his
budget resources (hint: it wasn't the sales department).
The above are just a few examples
of the ideas that come with a change in attitude about the ways we think about
doing not just hotel sales, but "sales," period. The processes can be
implemented by any size organization, from a small independent hotel to a hotel
management company that wants to give its hotel a competitive edge. CVBs or Chambers of
Commerce, in even the smallest destinations, can implement this transformational
change quickly and cost effectively.
The most precious resource is sales
time and the competitive environment coupled with the plethora of prospective
clients makes it imperative that we implement efficiencies in the way we do
business -- the number of hours in a day hasn't changed. As Jennings and Naughton
said in the title of their book "It's not the BIG that eat the SMALL … it's the
FAST that eat the SLOW!"
Log on to the
Carol Verret & Associates
Consulting and Training new web site to see more about The New Realities of
Sales seminars and Transforming the Sales Organization consultation. |
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Carol
Verret Consulting and Training is a full service company offering consulting,
training and other services to the hospitality industry in the areas of sales,
marketing, customer service and human resources. Included in their suite of
services are programs on Revenue Management, Leadership and Conflict Management.
Please direct any feedback directly to Carol Verret at
, or by phone (303)
618-4065 or visit the web site, www.carolverret.com.
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