By Stowe Shoemaker, Associate Dean of Research and Donald Hubbs Professorship, Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston, and member, HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board

It is important that revenue managers understand customer loyalty because the balance of power between revenue management and customer loyalty is beginning to change. In the past, revenue management trumped customer loyalty. That is, if the choice came down to extracting the highest revenue for a room by selling the room to the first person that asked, or saving the room to sell to a loyal customer at perhaps a lower rate, the room was always sold at the highest price to the first person who asked for the room, regardless to the guest's past history with the hotel. This is the mentality that created "black-out" dates and "capacity control" restrictions that stopped loyal guests from exchanging points for rooms at times the guests would find these rooms most valuable to them. Now customer loyalty is being incorporated into the decision of who gets the room and at what price. The Starwood Preferred Guest Loyalty Program, for instance, clearly announces that there are no "black-out" dates or "capacity control."

The merging of customer loyalty and revenue management is also illustrated by two discussions I had with a senior marketing executive for a major international hotel firm at two different points in time. About 10 years ago this executive told me that while customer loyalty was indeed important, revenue management was more important as the immediate economic gains for revenue management were too large to ignore. Thus, revenue management trumped customer loyalty. However, when I recently had lunch with this same executive, I asked what kept him awake at night, the reply was "How do I ensure that I do not arbitrarily practice yield management on my best customers and as a consequence destroy the trust that we (the brand) have spent so much time trying to build."

In order to understand why customer loyalty is so important to the brand, it is necessary to remember that the business model of the major international hotel companies (e.g., how they make money) is growth through management contracts and franchise agreements. In order to gain management contracts and franchise agreements, firms must be able to offer the owner something the owner values. What the owner values most, of course, is a return on his/her investment. This return is generated, in-part, when the property has strong occupancy. One way hotel firms can help guarantee this occupancy is to have a large number of travelers in their corporate database. The firm can then discuss with the potential owner the number of loyal customers the firm has, as well as such characteristics as the frequency which members in their database stay in hotels, average revenue generated per night, demographic characteristics of the members, where they travel, etc..

Of course, for firms to have a database, customers must be willing to identify themselves so their behavior can be tracked. And, for customers to identify themselves, they must perceive that they are getting something of value. Research I have published has shown that part of this value is the belief that the firm will look after the customers' best interest. This includes the trust that the firm not practice opportunistic behavior (that is, take advantage of the customer because customers have no other options) on their best customers. Without this trust and other benefits provided to loyal customers (e.g., possible upgrades, easy check-in, etc.) there is no incentive for customers to identify themselves. If customers do not identify themselves, there is no database and with no database, there is no management contract. In other words, hotel firms pay their guests to identify themselves so they can use the guests' information to gain management contracts. Loyalty programs are then a tactic to realize their strategy.

It should now be clear that anytime the individual firm does anything that maximizes its own profit while at the same time making customers less loyal, the long term value of the brand decreases. The reader should now also understand why the senior marketing executive could not sleep at night.

The big question, of course, is how to create loyalty.

A way to think about creating customer loyalty is The Loyalty Circle, © as shown in Figure 1. The three main functions on the circle are Process, Value, and Communication. The reader will notice that at different points along the circle, there are places where the customer might exit the circle and hence the relationship. The goal of hoteliers is to keep the customer in the circle by executing equally well the three functions of the circle. Equality is the key to the loyalty circle. If hoteliers are great at creating value for instance, but do not effectively communicate with the customer, then that customer may leave the relationship.

On one side of The Loyalty Circle© is the Process, which is "how the service works." It involves all activities from both the guest's perspective and the hotelier's perspective. Ideally, there should be no gaps in this process. For the guest, the process includes everything that happens from the time s/he begins buying the service (e.g., calling to make a reservation) to the time that they leave the property (e.g., picking up their car from a valet.) All interactions with employees are part of this process.

For the hotel, the process includes all interactions between the employees and the guests, the design of the service operations, the hiring and training of service personnel, and the collection of information to understand customers' needs, wants, and expectations.

A second component of The Loyalty Circle© is value creation. Value creation is subdivided into two parts: value added and value recovery. Valued-added strategies increase loyalty by providing guests more than just the core product; that is, for hotels, offering more than just a place to sleep. Valued-added strategies increase the long-term value of the relationship with the service firm by offering greater benefits to customers than can be found at competing firms who charge a comparable price. Features that pertain to value added are of six types: financial (e.g., saving money); temporal (e.g., saving time); functional (e.g., making the process easier); experiential (e.g., enhancing the experience such as by getting an upgrade); emotional (e.g., more recognition and/or more pleasurable service experience); and/or social (e.g., interpersonal link with a service provider). Temporal value is important as business travellers have stated that they value their time at $100 per hour and anything that saves them time, saves them money.

Consider for instance, the check-in process of a hotel. Research reveals that many frequent business travelers want to go immediately to their room and do not want to wait in line to check-in. If they have to wait in line for 15 minutes, they mentally figure they have spent $25 to check-in. Waiting in line is especially annoying if the guest is a member of the hotel's frequent guest program and all guest's information is already stored on file. Certain technologies (e.g., blue-tooth software that works with one's PDA) allow guests to check-in, receive their room number, unlock their room, and have charges automatically billed to their credit card without having to check-in with the front desk. Moving these guests to this form of check-in would have the benefit of shortening the line for those guests who want to speak with a front desk clerk. This new check-in procedure speeds up and improves the process (functional value) and adds value because it saves the guests' time (temporal value).

The importance of value-added strategies in creating customer loyalty is illustrated in a study conducted by this author of business travelers who both spend more than $120 per night for a hotel room and take six or more business trips per year. The study revealed that 28% of the 344 who spend more than 75 nights per year in hotels (38% of the total sample) claimed that the feature "is a good value for the price paid" is important in the decision to stay in the same hotel chain when traveling on business. A similar percentage rated the features "collects your preferences and uses that information to customize your current and future stays" and "accommodates early morning check-in and late afternoon checkout" important in the decision to stay with the same chain. Both these tactics are examples of features that add value to the core product offering.

Value-recovery strategies are designed to rectify a lapse in service delivery. The goal is to insure that the guest's needs are taken care of without further inconveniences. Empowering employees to solve problems and offering 100% guarantee are examples of value recovery strategies. The key to value recovery strategies is that the complaints be taken seriously by the hotel and that processes be put in place so that the same mistakes do not happen over and over again.

The final component of The Loyalty Circle© is communication. This side of the circle incorporates database marketing, newsletters, and general advertising. It involves all areas of how the hotel communicates with its customers. When communicating with guests, it is critical that external communications do not over promise what the service can deliver. It is also critical that the communiqué reflect the needs of the customer and that s/he does not receive offers in which the customer has no interest.

If marketers can focus the organization on these components they will create loyal customers who will return over and over again. And most importantly, if they do not focus on the components of the circle, they will be forced to focus on getting more and more customers to replace those who have left the circle and more importantly, left the database.

By Stowe Shoemaker
Associate Dean of Research and Donald Hubbs Professorship
Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management
University of Houston
229 C. N. Hilton Hotel & College
Houston, Texas 77204-3028
sshoemaker@uh.edu

About the HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board
The Revenue Management Advisory Board is responsible for providing leadership for HSMAI's Revenue Management Special Interest Group (SIG). The SIG is advancing the revenue management discipline by being its leading source for education, best practices exchange, thought leadership and networking for revenue management professionals, other sales and marketing professionals, and senior management in the hospitality industry. www.revmanagement.org

Members include:
* Chair: Warren Jahn, Ph.D., Revenue Management Training Consultant, InterContinental Hotels Group
* Vice-Chair: Scott Roby, Vice President, Revenue Management, Tarsadia Hotels
* Immediate Past Chair: Timothy Coleman, CRME, President, The Coleman Company
* Christopher Crenshaw, CRME, Director of Marketing Intelligence, Loews Hotels
* Jack Easdale, Corporate Director of Revenue Management, Gaylord Hotels
* Jon Eliot, CHA, CRME, Director, Revenue Optimization, Carlson Hotels Worldwide
* Bernard Ellis, CRME, Managing Director-Americas, IDeaS - A SAS COMPANY
* Tammy Farley, Principal, The Rainmaker Group
* Fred Heintz, CRME, Director of Group Strategy, Marriott & Renaissance Hotels of New York City
* Jay Hubbs, Director-Hotel Supplier Relations, Hotwire
* Burl Hutchison, CRME, Manager of Revenue Optimization, Sabre Hospitality Solutions
* Dan Kowalewski, Vice President Revenue Management Services, Wyndham Hotel Group
* Stowe Shoemaker, Associate Dean of Research, University of Houston/Conrad N. Hilton College
* Miguel Solis, CHA, CRME, VP Sr. Director Revenue Management, Hospitality Resource Group
* Trevor Stuart-Hill, CRME, President, Revenue Matters
* Paul Wood, CRME, CHBA, Senior Account Director, Sceptre Hospitality

Want to Learn More?
Topics like this one will be addressed as part of the 10-part Revenue Management Webinar Series produced by the HSMAI University, HotelNewsNow, andSTR. Begun February 23, 2010, 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 theHSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board. If you're not able to attend a live program or the date has passed, archives are available.

After interviewing 15 candidates for an entry-level position last week, I realized that people kept asking me this question. I received 40+ resumes, met with 15 candidates, narrowed it down to a top five for my sales team to screen, then down to 3 for human resources to vet. Finally, my General Manager met the final "one".

Why did I hire her? Well, to start with, her resume was flawless. Her GPA of 4.0 jumped off the page. The lay-out, content and even the paper she used were all Class A. Also, she dressed the part. In hiring a sales coordinator for a fashion-themed hotel, I was impressed by her interview suit and the care she obviously took in getting ready for our meeting. You would be surprised how many people showed up in business casual clothing for an interview.

Also, she did her research. She studied our website, our social media pages, she even read up on me on Linked In. She let it slip to a member of the team that she even staked out the hotel the night prior to her interview - impressive undercover work.

I asked the top 5 to do a bit of homework for me to see samples of their writing and marketing prowess. She was the first to reply and take this assignment seriously.

Our new hire may not have had the most sales and marketing experience, but this is an entry-level role, so she didn't really need it. She simply took the interview very seriously, did her homework, primped and polished herself, her resume, and her conversation topics - voila she started yesterday.

During this process, I came across quite a few candidates looking for start in hotel sales, but with no experience (other than "loving hotels"). The best way to break into our industry is to take class or 2, show your interest more deeply than just words. Take a continuing education class to show your commitment at the same time invest in yourself.

I also came across some real faux pas:

•Gentlemen without a tie or jacket. This is the hotel industry, business casual may be okay once you are hired, but take the interview seriously.
•Forgetting a clean resume for the in-person interview. Regardless of an electronic application process, bring a nice printed version on good stock paper.
•Be on time, do not ask to reschedule an interview, and if you are hoping to relocate, be available to meet in person in a timely manner.
•Smile, be positive, have some good conversation starters, preferably about the hotel or neighborhood. This is the hospitality industry - full of fun, genuine, warm individuals.
•Lack of Follow up - a handwritten note, an email, even a phone call the next day will show your genuine interest.

Final word of advice; take yourself seriously, dress the part, smile, and bring you're a game. Good luck!

Deirdre Yack, Director of Sales & Marketing, Fashion 26 | A Wyndham Hotel
HSMAI HDOSM Special Interest Group Advisory Board member

HSMAI University presented this webinar on June 24, 2010, featuring Allan Kane, President of Broadfield Marketing, as moderator and panelists Kristen Gutierrez, CCTE, U.S. Travel/Fleet/Meetings Manager, with Zurich Insurance Group (representing the buyer's point of view); Michael Fegley, Vice President, Global Sales, The Americas, InterContinental Hotels Group (representing the hotel point of view); and Michael Boult, Chief Commercial Officer, Lanyon R.F.P., Inc.

Kane reminded viewers that over 5,000 companies conduct annual RFPs for corporate programs. The RFP market is worth over $30 billion annually, Kane said, and encompasses 200 million room nights.

There are three top priorities from the buyers' perspective, Gutierrez offered: competitive pricing, ongoing communications, and accurate and timely administrative follow through. The key driver is, of course, pricing. The buyer expects to leverage company loyalty to the chain, and to see the price reflect the market, not just the property's policy. Buyers require accurate and timely RFP response, standardized amenities across the board, and meaningful last room availability policies.

"Everything relies on communications," Gutierrez stressed. There must be a central point of contact for negotiations and information, and communication must be timely, accurate, and ongoing throughout the process. Additionally, administrative support is important. "Use standard formatted RFP tools," Gutierrez advised, "and monitor rate loading to ensure timely and accurate display of rates across the distribution platform."

Michael Fegley with IHG spoke about building value through preferred corporate rate programs. "A good corporate hotel program is more than just negotiating rates," Fegley said. Hotel expense is usually the second largest expense for corporations, after airfares. Corporations need hotel programs that support compliance with their travel policies, include risk management, and have a strategic balance between price, proximity, and traveler preference. "The first step is finding the right match between client needs and potential preferred hotels," Fegley said. Hotels need to understand their clients' needs, timelines, and data; match the needs with the hotel portfolio; and focus on value propositions to make it a "win-win negotiation."

"Becoming preferred takes both an effective communication plan and strong process management," Fegley told the audience. This includes internal communication and understanding the clients' viewpoint. Fegley also reminded viewers that "what gets measured gets managed...review key success metrics and conduct periodic account reviews with the client."

Michael Boult with Lanyon R.F.P., Inc., said that hotel spend represents, on average, 39 percent of total travel. Boult said that it may be time for a "re-think."

"We've been doing online RFPs for about 15 years, and it's time to look at the problems in the traditional 'managed' hotel program," Boult warned. These include -- on the travelers side -- travelers booking outside the program, travelers booking in non-preferred hotels, rates incorrectly loading or not loading, and -- on the hotel side - lower rates being available online, unauthorized hotels loading rates, and preferred hotels selling the wrong rates.

"Most corporate hotel bookings are made by travelers contacting hotels directly, although the proportion made through TMC booking channels is growing," Boult said. Travel managers and travelers give a variety of reasons for booking outside the preferred hotel program, including personal preference, lack of awareness, preferred hotel data incorrectly loaded into GDS, and often, that the hotel "did not meet the traveler's need." So it's good to be in a program, "but it's not enough," Boult said. "The job doesn't end there; it starts there."

Remember the covenant with buyers, Boult advised. In an audit of five companies' programs, only 50 percent of negotiated rates were loaded correctly into the GDS, and in an analysis of one company's program, poor GDS rate loading added more than five percent to hotel program costs. In another audit, a company received its negotiated rate or lower for only between 53-96 percent of room nights across a selection of seven hotels.

Boult suggested that it is "time for a new covenant." Buyers need to be sure they are managing all spending, focus on committed suppliers, measure performance, and hold suppliers accountable. Suppliers, on the other hand, need to provide real value, focus on committed clients, measure performance, and hold buyers accountable. With such a new covenant, we might expect "long term relationships, trust and integrity governing those relationships, mutual value creation, efficiency, and accountability," Boult assured the viewers.

To register for upcoming HSMAI University webinars or order recorded copies of previous programs, go to www.hsmaiuniversity.org.

By Jon Eliot, CHA, CRME, Director, Revenue Optimization, Carlson Hotels, and member, HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board

From HSMAI's Revenue Management Advisory Board -- It has been said that revenue management is part art and part science. All too often the practice of managing revenues, setting prices, and using rate and inventory controls is done based primarily on intuition, gut instinct, and "knowing" the hotel and market. These methods, the art, have validity but should be backed up with data and facts, the science. With the ever evolving distribution landscape, more dynamic pricing, changes to the competitive environment, and changes in guest behaviors, it is more important than ever to make data driven, fact based decisions in the practice of revenue management.

Part of the revenue management professional's role is to use historical and forward looking data to mold and support their strategies and tactics. Data driven decisions also serve to remove much of the emotion and conflict involved with determining long- and short-term revenue strategies. The use of data around history, demand, booking pace, segmentation, and competitive intelligence will help move revenue management decisions from "I think we should do ..." to "We need to do ...."

Making data-driven revenue decisions is not as simple as printing a stack of reports from the property management system. It also goes beyond having a number of subscription based reports and tools as well as a mass of spreadsheets the revenue manager spends a large percentage of their time updating. It is really about how you utilize the wealth of available information.

To bring more of the science of revenue management into the mix it is important to evaluate where you are now. A first step is to understand how many of your revenue team's decisions are made based on facts versus how many are made based solely on intuition and instinct. Take a step back and look at the process behind recent choices made. Were these choices the result of analysis, instinct, or a combination of both? This will give you a baseline of where your team is currently.

A next step would be to take a critical look at the tools and reports you are currently pulling together on a regular basis. It is important to understand the value of these reports. It is not uncommon for a revenue manager to spend a great deal of their time updating spreadsheets and pulling reports from various systems. Which of these reports are actually being used in the decision making process? Ideally a revenue manager should be spending more time analyzing data than compiling data. Efficiencies can be found when it is determined what is truly needed for the business as opposed to what is being done because it has always been done.

Another area of tools and reports to evaluate would be those purchased from a data services vendor. There are some excellent tools available from a variety of sources that provide a great deal of competitive and market intelligence, both historical and forward looking. These tools can be complex and are not always used to their potential. In evaluating the tools you currently subscribe to, ask yourself if you fully understand them and feel you are using all of the features. If you are not completely comfortable with the tool and all of its features, contact the vendor to get more information and additional training. These can be very powerful tools to aid in setting your property up for success. Make sure you are getting as much benefit from them as possible.

Once you have evaluated both your team's use of data in making revenue decisions and the data you have, it is time to bring it all together. Go back to the decisions you are typically making based on instinct, intuition, and just "knowing." Consider how you can use the data available to you to support these decisions. Do you have the right data? Do these decisions make sense when filtered by history, trend, market conditions, competitive response, etc.? This is not to say these instinctual decisions are wrong, but having the facts to back them up adds credibility to your decisions. The revenue manager should not only use data to support what they bring to the table, they should also challenge others to back up their assumptions with data.

Utilizing the data to make decisions will also aid in determining success factors. Whatever strategic or tactical choices are made, there should be an end result in mind. Without a sense of what your expectations are you will not be able to determine if the decisions made were effective or not. This is another place where the use of data comes into play, measuring results. By measuring results you can enable better future decisions by understanding what works well and what doesn't. To analyze your performance, ask yourself what you expected to happen, what did happen, what worked, what didn't work, and what you could do differently next time. This should all be backed up with data.

Bringing the science of revenue management into the forefront of decision making is vital. There are many systems and tools available to aid in decision making that are all data based. Embrace the use of data and the science of revenue management to make effective, revenue-positive decisions.

About the Author
Jon Eliot brings 20 years of hospitality industry experience to his role as Director of Revenue Optimization with Carlson Hotels. In this role, Jon is responsible for the development and delivery of hotel revenue programs. Jon joined Carlson Hotels Worldwide in 2001 and has been with the revenue optimization team since 2006.

Prior to joining Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Jon built progressive experience in front office, reservations, sales, and revenue management roles at hotels under the Hilton, Omni, Westin, Radisson, and Crowne Plaza brands as well as the Albany (NY) County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In addition to earning the CHA and CRME designations, he has completed a Certificate in Revenue Management through the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. Jon graduated from Penn State University with a BA in History.

About the HSMAI Revenue Management Advisory Board
The Revenue Management Advisory Board is responsible for providing leadership for HSMAI's Revenue Management Special Interest Group (SIG). The SIG is advancing the revenue management discipline by being its leading source for education, best practices exchange, thought leadership and networking for revenue management professionals, other sales and marketing professionals, and senior management in the hospitality industry. www.revmanagement.org

Members include:
•Chair: Warren Jahn, Ph.D., Manager, Revenue Systems Training AMER, IHG
•Vice-Chair: Scott Roby, Vice President, Revenue Management, Tarsadia Hotels
•Immediate Past Chair: Timothy Coleman, CRME, President, The Coleman Company
•Christopher Crenshaw, CRME, Director of Marketing Intelligence, Loews Hotels
•Jack Easdale, Corporate Director of Revenue Management, Gaylord Hotels
•Jon Eliot, CHA, CRME, Director, Revenue Optimization, Carlson Hotels Worldwide
•Bernard Ellis, CRME, Managing Director-Americas, IDeaS - A SAS COMPANY
•Tammy Farley, Principal, The Rainmaker Group
•Fred Heintz, CRME, Director of Group Strategy, Marriott & Renaissance Hotels of New York City
•Jay Hubbs, Director-Hotel Supplier Relations, Hotwire
•Burl Hutchison, CRME, Manager of Revenue Optimization, Sabre Hospitality Solutions
•Dan Kowalewski, Vice President Revenue Management Services, Wyndham Hotel Group
•Stowe Shoemaker, Associate Dean of Research, University of Houston/Conrad N. Hilton College
•Miguel Solis, CHA, CRME, VP Sr. Director Revenue Management, Hospitality Resource Group
•Trevor Stuart-Hill, CRME, President, Revenue Matters
•Paul Wood, CRME, CHBA, Senior Account Director, Sceptre Hospitality

Want to Learn More?
Topics like this one are being addressed as part of the 10-part Revenue Management Webinar Series produced by the HSMAI University, HotelNewsNow, and STR. Begun in February 2010, 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 or the date has passed, archives are available.

On June 1, 2010, HSMAI University presented this webinar about what to do when your property owner calls a meeting with your leadership and, just to add to your stress, your numbers may be "underperforming." John Parke, President and CEO of Leadership Synergies, LLC, moderated the panel, which included two leading industry professionals with more than 30 years experience combined dealing with owners from multiple hospitality companies:

**Cherylanne Thomas has worked with LeMeridien, Hyatt, Swissotel, Wyndham, and Seaport Hotel, and is currently a National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Examiner with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), contributing to the national effort to recognize hospitality for-profit and non-profit organizations to promote performance excellence.

**Bruce Mainzer, founder of the Mainzer Consulting Group, which assists hotel owners and asset managers in the evaluation of hotel revenue management, Web e-commerce, marketing, and sales strategies, is a pioneer in the industry. In 1986, he developed United Airlines' revenue management system, including the airline industry's first origin and destination inventory control system. He has served as VP of Marketing for Norwegian Cruise Line and Hyatt Hotels Corporation, and was Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Vail Resorts.

Thomas advised participants to instill owner trust and confidence by leveraging brand power and not being afraid to think wide and deep in finding and accessing new market mixes. "Be innovative," she adjured the audience, and that includes employing innovative ideas for cost efficiency "without sacrificing the guest experience." That fearless attitude must include embracing change and "staying dynamic - don't regress," she cautioned.

"You have to invest in team management training and evaluate your deployment," she offered, "and know your competitor as well as you know yourself."

Thomas' advice included "weave in the essence of value to increase sales opportunities - merchandise accommodations and services in inventive and individual ways." Finally, said Thomas, "the bottom line has become the yardstick, not kudos in travel magazines." Know what your owners are looking for: profitability and asset appreciation. You will succeed by holding these as imperatives and by transparent and frequent communication - be up front, own your results, and deliver no surprises to your owners. "They want and need to be educated and involved."

Bruce Mainzer reminded attendees of the times when owners were "intimidated" by the "Revenue Management Black Box." Before the downturn, he said, "owners preferred not to dive into the details regarding revenue management marketing. But today's economy has brought the end of the "Black Box." Owners today are "focused on the net operating income of their assets," stressed Mainzer. "Cash is King!" And, he warned, owners are more likely to challenge their teams' decisions, and they will be staying much more involved in day-to-day operations.

So...what should we do? Mainzer offered the practical advice: "Embrace owner involvement!" Your owner can help to free up resources to allow staffs to achieve greater efficiencies and unlock more revenue. "Discuss challenges, what has worked, and what has not worked," he offered, "and be open to the owner's ideas and questions. Don't shy away from an open and frank discussion."

Mainzer echoed the theme of the value of innovative approaches. Think about "how existing policies and procedures can be changed to unlock more revenue potential," he advised. Citing his friend Bill Carroll of Cornell University, Mainzer discussed moving up the demand funnel - "pursue opportunities to garner more room nights and revenues." It's also important to think about "how revenue management tools and processes can make a contribution beyond just setting rates and availability."

"Think like an owner," Mainzer told the audience. Consider how different channels can be managed to increase net revenue, how you can open up to more channels, and remember that forecasts and customer mix information are key for operations to streamline and reduce costs.

John Parke concluded the webinar with information to be presented at the upcoming 32nd Annual NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference this month in New York City. "Your owners will be there," he told the viewers, "and here's what they'll be learning." The supply change is the lowest it has been since 1968, said Parke, and he reminded the audience that in 1991, the first segment of the industry to recover was luxury and the last to recover was mid-scale, but after 2001, the first to recover was mid-size and the last was the upper upscale. So, bottom line, we can't say for certain what it will be now. But there are some predictions we can feel confident about, Parke said, including:

* Occupancy will precede rate;
* RevPar is not expected to be back to 2007 levels until 2013;
* Top 25 markets will see earlier and stronger demand;
* Group will rebound following corporate sector recovery; and
* "Frugal fatigue" will fuel this summer's rebound.

"Act like a consultant," Parke advised. "Provide your owners with three scenarios: good, better, and best. And prepare your team to change their mindset from defensive to offensive. Change your language - start pushing value vs. discounts. If you are pushing discounts, you're just offering a commodity. And lastly, be sure to verify the data you're giving your owners."

A recording of this webinar can be purchased from HSMAI University at http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/hsmai/index.php. To learn more about HSMAI University and register for upcoming webinars, go to www.hsmaiuniversity.org.