The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) recently announced a new certification. In a presentation at the HSMAI Digital Marketing Strategy Conference in New York on February 28, 2012, HSMAI Digital Marketing Council members Holly Zoba of Signature Worldwide, and Loren Gray of Ocean Properties, unveiled the new certification, which is scheduled to be available summer 2012. A copy of the presentation is available here.

The digital marketing certification program designed specifically for the hospitality industry identifies candidates who are able to leverage their knowledge of the internet marketing channel to maximize direct online channel revenues through lead generation, increase in customer engagement and loyalty, online brand awareness and positive product exposure. At the conclusion of this certification, the candidate will exhibit expertise in most tactical areas of digital marketing, be proficient in creating basic strategic initiatives, utilize the analytical and management tools necessary to communicate results and execute an effective hospitality digital marketing plan.

Click Here to view the complete syllabus.

The certification committee consists of leaders in hospitality digital marketing:

* Heny Gabay, VP of Marketing, Wyndham Hotel Group

* Loren Gray, Director of E-commerce, Ocean Properties Ltd.

* Joe Hyman, President & CEO, VIZERGY

* Max Starkov, President & CEO, HeBS Digital (Hospitality eBusiness Strategies)

* Brian Tkac, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Hostmark Hospitality Group

* Paolo Torchio, VP, E-marketing And Revenue Consulting, Sabre Hospitality Solutions

* Holly Zoba, Senior Vice President of Hospitality Sales, Signature Worldwide

Information on all HSMAI certifications programs, and the latest on the CHDM, is available at www.hsmaicertifications.org.

Today's hospitality landscape is more competitive and more complicated than ever before. With revenue management's recognized contribution to the industry, and the majority of hoteliers employing revenue management as part of their overall hotel discipline, now is the time to focus on core competencies that integrate both strategic and tactical skills and initiatives.

A company's culture, departmental structure, technology, and staff's talents all impact the potential of its revenue management initiatives. To ensure success, there are some core revenue management competencies and components you must ensure are part of your company's culture. For instance:

* The revenue expert within an organization must be strategic and tactical, understand technology, business processes, and consumer behavior, work well with colleagues, and be able to set direction and influence others.

* The right technology can allow the revenue professional to process vast amounts of information and take revenue management to a whole new level.

* Setting goals and understanding the right metrics by which to measure the hotel's performance are vital to achieving revenue and profit potential.

It is vital to the success of revenue management that the company has enthusiasm for, respect for, and understanding of the discipline. This needs to start at the top. If the General Manager of the hotel or the CEO of the company does not understand and therefore does not support the needs of revenue management, it will show in the revenues. Without proper support and respect from the most senior players, all other staff members may not adhere to the needs and approach set forward by the revenue management professional.

Unless the revenue director has a seat at the decision table and is in a position of authority, the hotel can suffer from the direction of others who may not have a solid understanding of the negative impacts of certain decisions. If goals are not aligned, and if the revenue director has limited influence in the organization, it is very possible that decisions will be made to capture more business even if that business is not in the best interest of the hotel's overall RevPAR.

Demand forecasting is critical to the success of revenue management. Laying out a hotel's demand forecast day-by-day for all days into the future is the only way to effectively optimize revenues. This is the starting point for all strategic decisions. The demand forecast must include an understanding of the anticipated demand for the hotel and what is already "on the books" for both group and transient. Once the revenue professional puts this together, the future rate strategy can then be determined. This information should be managed and updated on a regular basis to ensure optimal revenue opportunity.

Every revenue management plan must address strategic pricing. The revenue management team needs to determine the pricing in advance, considering elements such as the hotel product, service levels, competition, market demand and customer segmentation. Advance determination of pricing will allow the hotel to be proactive and avoid reactionary decisions.

Acquiring and retaining good revenue talent is one of the industry's biggest challenges today. It is imperative to find revenue professionals who can think about the big-picture, focus strategically while acting tactically, demonstrate business acumen, educate team members at all levels, persuade key executives, motivate others, provide expert analysis, make sounds decisions...just to name a few of the must-have skills and abilities.

When considering candidates for this position, keep all the above in mind and avoid focusing on how well they can use the PMS, CRS and OTAs - knowing what buttons to push in those systems is something most anyone can learn. Big picture thinking, strategic, strong communication and persuasive skills are hard to find and need to be weighed heavily in hiring.

It is important to have a strategic approach to channel management and determining channel partners. With the multitude of various distribution channels available to hoteliers, it is vital that every hotelier has a channel management strategy. Every revenue professional should have a predefined list of areas and questions to research when evaluating potential partnerships, and be certain to manage channels smartly.

The recently published Distribution Channel Analysis: A Guide for Hotels discusses the effects of channel mix on profitability and what the industry can expect in the near term in the distribution landscape. It reviews the size and structure of the hotel industry at a high level, with respect to hotel performance and its use of distribution channels. It also drills down to issues of distribution costs and benefits, price elasticity, and the evolving roles of marketing, revenue management and distribution strategy in a dynamic and volatile online environment.

One of the most common mistakes hotel professionals make is setting different goals for different individuals. In order to achieve company goals everyone must work toward and be incentivized on the same goals. This means that the group sales department should not have one goal (such as group rooms and revenue) and the transient sales department another (like corporate negotiated rooms and revenue), while the revenue director has a focus on overall RevPAR. Instead, align everyone toward the same goal - RevPAR for example.

For more details about aligning your hotel's culture to strengthen core competencies, join the February 21st HSMAI University webinar produced in partnership with the Revenue Management Advisory Board and HotelNewsNow and STR.

Kathleen Cullen has more than 20 years of experience throughout the multi-faceted hospitality industry ranging from working on property to varying positions in the corporate office of a dynamic, faced-paced, global hotel company. She is the author of the HSMAI Foundation Special Report, "Evolving Dynamics of Revenue Management: A Comprehensive Roadmap for Hotel Owners, Operators and Practitioners," and currently serves on the HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board. Today she is the corporate director of revenue strategy for Heritage Hotels & Resorts headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Revenue Management Advisory Board leverages insights, emerging trends, and industry innovations to guide the development of products and programs that optimize revenue for hotels. www.revmanagement.org

Members include:

* Chris K. Anderson, Ph.D., Professor, Cornell University

* Bonnie Buckhiester, Principal, Buckhiester Management USA

* Shelia Cosgrove, Director, Revenue Management Ops & Planning, Intercontinental Hotels Group

* Kathleen Cullen, CRME, Corporate Director of Revenue Strategies, Heritage Hotels and Resorts

* Sloan Dean, CRME, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Interstate Hotels & Resorts

* Kent Duncan, CRME, Vice President, Sales and Revenue Strategy, Marcus Hotels & Resorts

* Jon Eliot, CRME, CHA and co-chair of the HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board

* Tammy Farley, Principal, The Rainmaker Group

* Neal Fegan, Executive Director of Revenue Management, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International

* Rhett Hirko, CRME, Director of Revenue Analytics, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts International Operations

* Jay Hubbs, Director Hotel Supplier Relations, Expedia Partner Services Group / Hotwire

* Burl Hutchison, CRME, Director of Revenue Optimization, Sabre Hospitality Solutions

* Klaus Kohlmayr, Senior Director, Consulting, IDeaS Revenue Optimization

* John LeCoz, CRME, Regional Director of Revenue Management, Loews Hotels

* Mark Molinari, CRME, Corporate Vice President of Revenue Management and Distribution, Las Vegas Sands

* Orly Ripmaster, CRME, Senior Analyst, STR Analytics

* Scott Roby, CRME, Vice President, Revenue Management, Evolution Hospitality

* Chinmai Sharma, Vice President, Revenue Management, Wyndham Hotel Group

* Susan Spencer, Market Director - N. America, ChannelRUSH

* Trevor Stuart-Hill, CRME, President, Revenue Matters

* Paul Wood, CRME, CHBA, Vice President of Revenue Management, Greenwood Hospitality Group

This topic will be addressed as part of the 10-part Revenue Management Webinar Series produced by the HSMAI University in partnership with HotelNewsNow and STR. Beginning February 21, 2012, and going through December, each month a webinar will cover various aspects of cutting edge revenue management in today's economy in conjunction with articles written by members of the HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board. If you're not able to attend a live program, archives are available. Also, these and other timely revenue management topics will be the focus of the HSMAI Revenue Optimization Conference, co-located with HITEC, June 25 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Randy Dean, MBA, who is an expert at time and email management, delivered a highenergy presentation for HSMAI University on "Taming the Email Beast."

In our "need it now" society, where access to email is accessible 24/7, Dean encourages participants to take control of how and how often they check and respond to emails.

According to Dean, the average travel-related professional spends 4 to 6 hours a day reading, responding and administering emails; yet only 1 to 3% have had strategic email management training.

He admits taming the email beast is difficult but offers several strategies to make the job easier.

"People are afraid that if they delete the emails they'll need them or if they file them they won't be able to find them," he says. "Cleaning out your email is a secondary goal. The key is to figure out what's important and needs to be acted on quickly and what's not."

Strategy 1: Divide and conquer. Dean suggests multiple email accounts to manage the different types of mail-a professional email for work only, a personal email (which should never be used at work) and an Internet account for any web-based transactions. Doing so will help keep work and personal life separate and cut down on spam infiltration. "Your work and personal emails should almost act like unlisted phone numbers," he said.

Strategy 2: Establish a three-minute, one-touch rule. Dean has followed this rule for 20 years and says it's a great clutter buster. Each email you receive, he says, you should touch one time. "Decide what you're going to do with it. It doesn't mean you have to do it then but you are deciding what will be done." He walked participants through a primer on efficient use of Microsoft Outlook's calendar, contacts and tasks folders to help manage the appropriate responses to email.

Strategy 3: Don't be a "blinger." Like Pavlov's dogs, people are conditioned to check email as soon as they hear their new mail alert. Dean encourages people to not be constantly connected, instead checking at set points throughout the day. "If you are attending to email in real?time, you are in a state of never?ending distraction and will be spinning your wheels all day," he says. "Resist that temptation by turning off sound notifications. You need some blocks of time to actually get work done while still responding appropriately to clients, co?workers and your boss. Learn to balance productivity with responsiveness."

Strategy 4: Build a sensible file structure. It's easier to manage email, Dean says, if you have a file structure that is easy to manage and organize. The more complicated you make it, the harder time you'll have finding things when you need them.

Strategy 5: Empty your inbox every day. "Do it, task it, delete it," he says.

Strategy 6: Manage CCs, forwards and replies. Save yourself and the recipient of your email time and energy by being precise and specific about the action you are expecting. "At the top of every email you forward, tell the person why they are getting, it, what they need to do and when they need to do it."

To purchase a recording of this webinar or any previous HSMAI University webinar, please go to http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/hsmai/index.php.

For information on upcoming HSMAI University programs, visit www.hsmaiuniversity.org