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For approximately 10 years leading up to the recent pandemic era, budgets were increased each year, divvied up, and turned into individual sales goals that were then tied to bonuses. With the seemingly endless string of years of an up market, sales bonuses became an expected part of the compensation. Were these sales bonuses truly justified based on performance? Or were they achieved mostly due to good fortune?

The return of corporate travel means the return of corporate travelers. How has the experience changed — and how hasn’t it — for our customers?

Global hotel performance is improving month by month. That’s the good news. The more pressing concern is if it will remain that way. The hotel industry remains fragile, dodging each and every new impediment thrown its way. Still, the hotel industry presses forward.

For probably a decade now, I have almost daily been reading articles and blog posts about how today’s hotel guests prefer to interact with technology rather than humans. Of course, it is not by coincidence that most of these are authored by executives who are peddling the latest “essential” guest technology. Often these articles and blogs are accompanied by survey results to supposedly support the theme. Yet when I look for details on sample size and methodology, I usually find there is no mention of these, or I find that the survey was conducted “online” with a very small, self-selected sample size.

In order for hotelier’s to drive revenue growth through 2021, it’s time to zero in on domestic demand. We’ll show you the stats that support this move, what you can do to understand demand and how to capture this critical market.

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.

Gauging the global hotel industry’s recovery is a lot like poker: you play the hand you’re dealt as best you can and you never know what the next one will bring. Just when we thought we might be out of the woods, an uptick in new cases, the Delta variant and fervent discussion over the vaccinated and unvaccinated have conspired, resulting in the return of masks in some jurisdictions and worry around the globe that this pandemic has still a ways to go.

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.

As COVID-19 roiled the globe, hoteliers, like 9/11 and the Global Recession before it, found online travel agencies (OTAs) throwing them a lifeline. Through extensive TV and online advertising, booking engines pull in heaps of business, but at typically high commission costs that eat into profit margins.

Guest writer Jackie Douglas, President, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) shares her insights and practices which the hospitality industry has learnt from COVID.