In the Who Is Who In Hospitality (wiwih.com) forum, there is a group called Hotel Department Group that is meant for hoteliers in the various departments. There are groups like General Managers Group, and Sales & Marketing Managers Group. There is one group is called eCommerce & Revenue Managers Group.
My first thought (and I have posted most of the below in this forum) was "Why was eCommerce & Revenue Management placed in the same group?"
At Millennium & Copthorne Corporate, both teams fall under Global Distribution & Revenue Management, which in turn comes under Global Sales & Marketing. eCommerce is categorized as a sales channel. I think in Hilton both fall under a larger group of Revenue Management and Distribution as well. Marriott seems to put eCommerce under Sales & Marketing and includes "Reservations, Inventory, and Distribution" under eCommerce too. So there does not seem to be a right or wrong way.
It is not uncommon that Revenue Managers have moved into eCommerce or have taken that additional responsibility/role - not unlike the move of Reservations Management into Revenue Management. But the move from Reservations into Revenue Management seems to be more complementary...
Reservations managers have:
- Familiarity with the tools and interfaces to control rates
- An idea of the business mix and seasonality of a property
- One could argue that this is the natural evolution, or career progression for Reservations Managers.
However eCommerce role requires three competencies that are not necessary found in Revenue Managers:
- General understanding of technology platform (hardware/software - which is IT's domain)
- General understanding of web technologies (which is more web development domain)
- Good knowledge of the online marketplace (which is a sales/marketing domain)
What is complementary is the fact that Revenue Management are numerate and analytical. Something that is extremely important in the eCommerce field and a mindset that is not always found in Reservations Managers.
I am curious to find out:
- How many people have made the move from Revenue Management into eCommerce?
- How many people are doing two roles at the same time?
- Since Revenue Managers tend to report directly to the General Manager, how has that helped push out eCommerce initiatives?
- What difficulties you have encountered moving into this role and how have they been overcome? (that's a big question, but hey you might be helping someone else!)
- And lastly, does anyone disagree with anything that I have mentioned above? What are other views?
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The above only generated one reply which is why I am posting this in the greater marketplace as wiwih.com is members only and the Hotel Departments Groups are only for hoteliers.
The reply that did come in was by an Area Revenue Manager of a very large hotel group and he pointed out:
"What you pictured is an example of how the role of Revenue Managers can be seen from different perspectives and how often the position of a Revenue Mangers might be confused with a yield/distribution manager... Room revenue is impacted more and more by on-line distribution but should a revenue manager stop at room revenue? As you know total hotel revenue is the optimal/most profitable combination of Room, Conference & Banqueting and Food & Beverage revenue. The role of a revenue manager is much more complex and in my view must covering all hotel's revenue generating area's."
What he says is very valid and also points out that the role of a Revenue Manager is already quite complex. And there is an overlap as explained in this article? But can you realistically place the additional role of eCommerce onto these people's shoulder?
If successful, would you end up with something like this?
Here's one for the Revenue Managers reading this: Will Your Next CEO Be A Revenue Manager?
