With a new year comes a new opportunity to reboot, refresh, and take stock of what needs to be done in order to keep acing it at work. Nevermind new year, new you – don’t put pressure on yourself to be perfect. It’s more about being mindful as to what small, effective changes you can make that will help make your life at work easier, and more successful, for everyone. The key to personal New Year’s resolutions that stick is being realistic – same goes for work-related ones!
January is a calmer month, sure we’re busy all year round – but take advantage of the slight dip in activity to really implement longer term changes you want to implement.
If you’re a Revenue Manager looking to excel this year, these tips will help keep you on top of your game this January, and beyond.
Make friends with your colleagues!
Decent relationship-building skills are necessary for good Revenue Managers! Developing successful, holistic strategies with sales and marketing teams is is so important, and easier when you have easy relationships established already. Make that extra effort to catch up with managers across the board, especially those who’ll be helping you implement strategies throughout the year. As well as contributing to financial success, building relationships across your teams will also make your workplace a happier place to be.
Think about what you want to achieve over the year
You probably got a good head start before Christmas with your plans for 2020, but calmer January is a great month to set aside time to really look and think about these plans before you finalise them fully. Set yourself targets and envisage all the top line achievements and changes you’d like to achieve for your hotel during the first quarter of the year, and ahead. While you’re at it, schedule in time with sales and marketing teams so you can collectively make a list of all the key dates throughout the year and begin planning for them. Planning in advance will allow you to be smarter in your decisions.
Be smart – take time to refresh your knowledge of your hotel’s markets
As a Revenue Manager you may or may not have a background in property management? Either way, your markets, and the hospitality industry as a whole, are ever-evolving. Kick-off the year with a healthy refresher. Ask your General Manager to give you the low-down on your hotel’s markets as they see them, and have a discussion on what place in the market you’d both like your hotel to have at the end of 2020.
Devise a method to quantify your success
Revenue Managers have one of the most crucial jobs for the financial success of their hotel – it’s not easy though. When your predictions and recommendations are on the mark, it’s easy for someone else to get the credit, and when you’re wrong, it’s even easier for others to finger point in your direction. Protect yourself from this by setting up a method unique to your role which measures both your successes and failures. You can then use these metrics when pitching new or improved rate plans to your peers.
Create good habits that will help to structure your week
Every Revenue Manager worth their salt will have a strict, scheduled structure to their working week. It’s important for your own mindset to review and revise this routine in January to allow for any new metrics you need to analyse or to include new or additional duties your role may have encompassed. Through routine checking and monitoring, patterns will begin to stand out organically to you within the vast sea of data you look at day in and day out. You’ll start to notice more quickly when something is slightly off so you can make rate amendments efficiently, and lessen the financial impact of those unexpected troughs in sales.
Go back to school – upskill!
As is the case in most industries now, the speed at which new concepts, tools, and technologies are launched in the travel and tourism sector is only getting quicker with each passing year. Don’t get left behind with a set of outdated skills! Take the time in January to do an audit of what’s new and relevant to you as a Revenue Manager. Create a plan to upskill yourself!
As part of this, take a look at our brand new learning academy, which currently provides courses and certification around our booking engine, but which will be updated over the coming months with a range of different courses on topics relevant for you.
Finally, try not to enter this new year feeling overwhelmed! Use it as an opportunity to look upon goals with fresh, (hopefully) rested eyes. Use all the resources available to you to aid your success – don’t be afraid to ask for help where you need it.
Want more revenue management tips? Take a look at this infographic.
Happy New Year!
