Current Commercialization and Marketing: The missing link in the hospitality business
For years, marketing in hotels, resorts, and golf courses has been focused on very specific job profiles, specialized in direct negotiation with national and international agencies and tour operators. The entire business has revolved around generating collaboration and commercialization contracts between the properties of the holiday complexes and intermediaries, who are leaders in the promotion of destinations and tourist products.
Now, what is happening today with the information and technological revolution?
There are profiles in large companies that have not evolved at the pace of the technological circumstances of the market and, much less, to customer demands. This has generated a great abyss between the offline business and the online business.
Although we find commercial and marketing directors with extensive experience in their segments, as well as information and technology professionals (e-commerce managers, social media managers, online marketing experts, etc.), there is still no truly hybrid profile that combines both specialties.
A social media manager or online manager knows how to reach customers and what digital strategy to implement, but if they do not know the market or have experience in hospitality, luxury, resorts, or golf, how do we know if they are really executing a successful campaign?
The same goes for commercial and marketing managers. If their focus has always been the offline business, how can they evaluate if the online actions they are implementing are correct? They lack previous experience in applying these techniques.
Let’s apply common sense. This is something that headhunters and human resources professionals have understood very well. For example, in the hospitality business, how can someone become a sales director without previously having held executive commercial and operational positions? Or, how can an e-commerce manager run a hotel or a golf course without even knowing how to sell a room or a tee time?
Why not apply this logic to revenue management in the golf world? In hotel chains, the hybrid profile of “reservation agent – sales agent” has already been successfully implemented, obtaining excellent results.
It’s simple: we are looking for the missing link.
We live in an era of transformation, in which customers no longer consume what we offer, but rather we offer what they want to consume. Before buying, customers try, enjoy, compare, and consult opinions. Why don’t we do the same before selling?
This is not a criticism of the great professionals we have in our country. On the contrary, today there are highly proactive profiles with an exceptional capacity for transformation. However, at the business level, we are losing efficiency.
We are losing the direct connection with the customer in increasingly complex organizations, which prevents us from:
Knowing what customers are really looking for.
Interacting with their concerns.
Evaluating market trends.
Prioritizing practicality.
Strengthening “face-to-face” contact in our commercial and marketing actions.
Experience tells us, and we live it every day, that although there are professionals with numerous master’s degrees, specializations, and MBAs, we have not yet managed to find the missing link between Marketing, Commercialization, and Information & Technology.
It is essential to close the gap between the offline business and the online business, achieving an effective and strategic integration to improve business efficiency and customer satisfaction.
