Evolution of Hotel Digital Strategy

Digital Strategy, also known as digital marketing, is beginning to see glimpses of the same challenges the revenue management discipline faced over the last 20 years. Revenue management transformed how hotels manage inventories, price guest rooms, and work with multiple booking channels.  The discipline went from implementing other’s ideas of strategy to driving the strategy themselves. I have been fortunate to be a part of the innovative progression in revenue management from the beginning and what a ride it has been. 

While revenue management, for the most part, has found stabilized footing, the newer discipline of digital strategy is making waves in the hotel business in how they manage their business. However, there is an identity crisis in this discipline. Where does digital belong? Some say marketing.  Some say revenue management. Most will tell you both or even separate from marketing and revenue management.  This may be the biggest question facing the industry regarding the digital role. 

In the last couple of years, leaders in the industry have altered the “marketing” tag to “strategy” simply to ensure the discipline doesn’t get defined as marketing only. However, there is a deeper value to digital and the role this position plays in how a hotel builds strategy across channels, pricing, guest communication, and inventory control. This reasoning has helped our organization move the digital platform in a more strategic direction for our portfolio of hotels, collaborating closely with our revenue management team.

The constantly evolving technology within the hotel industry makes it difficult for the leaders to fully understand the digital position and the needs within the discipline. Similar to revenue management, the changes in the digital role, and what leaders believe that role should be have caused constant movement and re-defining the digital role.  Over time, industry leaders became engaged in the revenue management discipline, understood the need for change and helped catapult this discipline forward. Digital will likely follow the same trajectory. However, at the speed business is moving in the industry and the need for solid strategic direction, identifying this more quickly than the revenue management role is imperative to the overall growth and success of hotels.

Some believe the two disciplines, revenue management and digital, will become one position.  After all, both are strategy driving positions and cross over each other in many areas, including channel management, promotion offers and reputation management.  Hotel management companies have already taken steps for leaders in the revenue management discipline to take over digital responsibilities as well. 

Separating and defining the marketing role outside of digital is also occurring in the industry.  Although digital crosses over into areas of marketing, it is easier to define these two roles with fewer crossovers in marketing than in the revenue management discipline.

One thing is for certain.  The need to define and align the digital role has taken on an urgent nature as guests continue to prefer to use various digital tools to book their travel.  The technological advancements will only make it easier for guests to use digital tools in the years to come.