A hotel’s primary business objective is to sell hotel rooms. 

Individual room bookings are handled by the reservations team, which is often part of the front desk team. The sales function focuses more on building long-term relationships with customers and nurturing those relationships, so they result in incremental business for the hotel.  

Hotel sales management is an area that overlaps between the marketing and reservations teams. But at the end of the day, all the departments in a hotel work toward the same goal — keep occupancy levels high and foster long-term customer loyalty.

In this article, we’ll review what hotel sales management teams handle and how Prosper Hotels supports hotel sales managers to optimize occupancy and maximize profitability. 

What Do Hotel Sales Teams Do?

Along with revenue management, hotel sales management teams are also responsible for maximizing revenue, but in a slightly different way.

The sales team creates strategic business plans and measurable direct sales initiatives to drive incremental revenue. Often this is in the form of accounts, contracts, and groups that help fill the hotel with a base of business so that the remaining rooms can be sold more profitably to retail customers.

Hotel sales teams develop business opportunities through various channels and sources. They proactively foster direct sales, collaborate with the hotel marketing team to acquire new business, and explore opportunities with event organizers, corporate entities, online travel agencies (OTAs), restaurants, and tour operators. 

They set goals and work to meet targets to increase bookings while maintaining healthy profit margins. In doing so, they keep a sharp eye on metrics such as room occupancy, revenue per available room (RevPAR), the average length of stay (ALOS), the average daily rate (ADR), and total revenue.

Hotel sales management covers all of the following aspects: 

• Identifying key demand generators and exploring new business opportunities
• Working to shift share from competitors by offering guests more value and a better experience
• Promptly responding to all inquiries and managing requests for proposals (RFPs) for large deals
• Nurturing marketing-acquired leads and working to secure business from preferred accounts
• Negotiating room rates such that hotel revenue is maximized without hurting profitability 
• Maintaining consistent relationships with guests, corporate clients, service providers, and partners 
• Ensuring a superior guest experience to keep guests coming back and ensuring repeat business
• Reviewing revenue performance, updating action plans, and tracking financial objectives regularly

Prosper’s revenue reporting services are a benefit to any hotel sales management team. We work with your sales team to understand and unlock your hotel’s true revenue potential.

What Does Hotel Sales Management Handle?

It is evident that while all departments in a hotel are focused on maximizing revenue, the hotel sales management team carries specific targets for key business metrics.

Sales activities must span across several aspects of the business, collaborating with the front desk, hotel operations, reservations, marketing, revenue, and channel management teams to meet their revenue objectives.

Let’s take a deeper look at the activities that hotel sales teams handle. 

Prospect Business

The sales team’s fundamental task is understanding their target market. They must be 100% clear about the profile of guests your hotel wants to attract.

Furthermore, the hotel sales teams prospect for new local and corporate business accounts, group events, and contract businesses to expand the hotel’s guest base. They extend your hotel’s visibility and reach out to potential partners and customers in various ways.

For example, they may reach out to individual business guests who visit your hotel’s location frequently and book extended stays for business. They may prospect large groups who travel for business or leisure. 

An important aspect of hotel sales management is to develop relationships with local service providers to sell hotel rooms to customers who book flight tickets, plan tours, or attend conferences. 

Sales teams may work with OTAs, group booking sites, airlines, or car rental companies to reach a broader guest base.

Hotel sales representatives also attend hospitality industry events and trade shows, promoting your hotel and its unique selling proposition. 

Nurture Leads

Sales teams may generate leads from their prospecting activities or work on leads that the marketing department generates through the hotel’s website, social media channels, ad campaigns, and other lead-generation activities.

Salespeople engage prospective customers based on the lead information. Nurturing leads toward conversion is a process that takes skill and patience. Sales reps may use marketing collaterals, testimonials, and hotel reviews to bring prospects to the point of confirming a booking. In the process, they answer questions the prospects may have about your hotel’s location and its amenities and may even hand out discounts to close a sale.

In addition, they may sometimes offer enhanced packages, including food and beverages, spa treatments, or related services like car rentals or airport transfers.

Regular follow-up and consistent nurturing ultimately drive conversion for sales teams.

Sign Contracts

A primary goal of any sales team is to close deals. When building relationships in your market and sourcing new opportunities, the key role of each salesperson is to help that prospect see their hotel’s unique value and commit to bringing their piece of business to you.

And while nurturing leads and building relationships are important, it’s critical that your sales process leads to new contracts that grow your base business. Having a strong relationship only goes so far if the prospect won’t commit. 

A sales team is a key component in finalizing deals and maintaining strong relationships that welcome continued business. 

Collaborate with Marketing 

Sales teams often coordinate with the marketing department to create targeted campaigns to acquire leads that will convert to bookings. 

For example, when there is an upcoming event in your hotel’s area, sales teams will have information on the ground about what features of your hotel’s location, amenities, or facilities will attract bookings if they are highlighted in marketing strategies for campaigns.

They rely on marketing to supply them with sales collateral, content, and creative ads to attract guests and capture leads.

On their part, sales teams can support marketing with consistent and personalized follow-up with leads acquired via marketing campaigns. Personal reach outs and nurturing by sales reps can help nudge leads to the conversion point and result in bookings.

Maintain Relationships

In sales, it always comes down to building strong relationships with clients. 

Sales reps focus on building relationships with OTAs, event organizers, corporate clients, related service providers, and more. They represent the interests of the hotel and work to secure large deals, group sales, and individual guest bookings. 

They also reach out to regular guests, upsell to existing customers and work to secure ongoing business with clients and guests, making them loyal customers for your hotel.

Sales reps handle regular communication with existing guests to ensure they’re happy with your hotel’s services and that your hotel brand becomes their favorite accommodation option.

Partner with Prosper Hotels for Hotel Sales Management

Prosper has years of experience in revenue management for the hotel industry.

We have helped hotels of all sizes and from various market segments to unlock thousands of dollars in revenue. 

We work with your sales team, revenue manager, general manager, and channel manager to grow your revenue streams and maximize profitability. 

We’ll review and remix the OTA, discount, and retail channels (if required) to ensure that you meet your sales goals and revenue targets.

We help hoteliers manage and expand revenue potential using industry benchmarks, market analytics, and much more.

Our daily revenue reporting service ensures that the most crucial reports are in your email box every morning before you get to work.

Partner with us, and we’ll complement your sales efforts and empower your hotel sales management team with effective pricing and sales strategies and an optimal channel mix. 

Schedule a consultation call with our revenue management experts today.