Hospitality Demand is Returning: Now What? – HSMAI

ZS Associates and Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) recently collaborated with 16 chief sales officers from the world’s leading hospitality brands to reflect on how they managed through the COVID-19 crisis and how they’re charting a path forward as travel demand returns.

Perspectives on the recovery from sales leaders across travel brands

While COVID-19 disrupted every organization, the impact was not uniform and was driven significantly by chain scale and segment mix. A few common themes emerged across brands that the travel industry can learn from.

Be the willow tree, not the oak tree

As the adage about the benefits of being the flexible willow tree in the face of strong winds goes, the organizations that best navigated COVID-19 kept their sales and support teams agile. This approach took several forms, including:

• Focus on the top of the funnel: Increased effort was directed toward lead generation and qualification to uncover active traveling segments, sometimes requiring working with new industries.
• Growth of generalists: Teams previously aligned to specific segments started taking on active accounts with revenue opportunity which could change day-to-day. Support teams moved to shared service pods to assist a broader part of the organization.
• Evolved engagement model: Virtual or hybrid engagement models represented a major change for most sales teams. They launched new tools and trainings and shared best practices, leveraging inside sales teams that already were highly proficient.
• Transformative technology: From upgrading on-property conferencing technology for hybrid group events to using robotic process automation for mundane, repetitive tasks, technology solutions closed gaps on and above property.

With smaller team sizes, close collaboration across the organization was critical. Facing reduced bandwidth, organizations had to prioritize where to expend effort and work cross-functionally. Pivoting in a coordinated fashion allowed them to support understaffed properties and quickly deliver new offerings.

Finally, competition across chain scales has been and will continue to be fierce. Newly identified segments are actively being served, and brands aren’t going to simply walk away from them just because they weren’t historically targeted. Cost-effective roles and tailored engagement processes will instead be created to codify how to profitably engage these segments and drive incremental traffic to properties, increasing competition up and down chain scales.

The market has changed, and brands should not blindly revert to old ways. Rather, focus on ensuring you have a well-defined recovery go-to-market strategy and on retaining the flexibility that sustained your business during COVID-19. This combination will allow you to continue to adapt as new travel patterns emerge.

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