Current Commercialization and Marketing: The missing link in the hospitality business.

For years, the marketing of hotels, resorts and golf courses has always been focused on very specific job profiles, and on recruiters who are experts in direct negotiation with national and international agencies and tour operators. The entire business has revolved around the generation of collaboration and marketing contracts between the properties of the vacation complexes and the intermediaries, leaders in the promotion of destinations and tourist products.

Well, what is happening today with the information and technological revolution that we are experiencing?

There are profiles in large companies that have not evolved to the level of the technological circumstances of the market, much less to the circumstances and demand of customers, there being a wide abyss between the offline business and the online business.

Although we can find commercial and marketing directors with extensive experience in their segments and fields, as well as information and technology professionals, whether e-commerce managers, social media managers, online managers, etc. with knowledge in application development and programming, there is still no such “hybrid” profile between these two specialties on the market. A social media or online manager knows how to reach his clients and what plan to carry out, but if he does not know the market, he does not have previous experience in hospitality or rather in this case the luxury business, vacation, resorts, golf, etc. How do we know if he is running a successful campaign?

The same thing happens with commercial and marketing managers. If his usual task has been the offline business, how do they know if the online actions they are carrying out are correct? Not having previous experience in the application of these techniques.

Let’s apply common sense, and I think this is done very well by headhunters and human resources professionals. For example, in the hospitality business, how can someone become a sales director without having previously held commercial and operational executive positions. How can an e-commerce manager manage to develop her work in a hotel or golf course, when he doesn’t even know how to sell a room or tee time.

Why is it not applied to revenue management in the world of golf? When there are already professionals in all hotel chains and the hybrid “reservation agent – commercial” has been established with excellent results. Very easy, because we are in search of the missing link, we are immersed in a time of transformation, in which customers do not consume what we offer but rather we offer what they want to consume. Before buying, I try, enjoy, compare, consult opinions, why don’t we do that before selling?

It is not a criticism of the great professionals that exist in our country, quite the contrary, today there are pro-active profiles with a capacity for brutal transformation, but it is true that at the business level we are losing efficiency. We are losing the sense of direct contact with the client in increasingly complex organizations, knowing what they are looking for, interacting with their concerns, assessing the market situation, practicality, and above all, being more in touch “face to face” with the commercial and marketing actions we carry out.

Experience tells us, and we live this day by day, that even though we have profiles in the market with a large number of master’s degrees, specializations, MBAs, etc… we have not been able to find the missing link between Marketing, Marketing and Information and Technology.

There are profiles in large companies that have not evolved to the level of the technological circumstances of the market, much less to the circumstances and demand of clients, there being a wide abyss between the offline business and the online business.

Although we can find commercial and marketing directors with extensive experience in their segments and fields, as well as information and technology professionals, whether e-commerce managers, social media managers, online managers, etc. with knowledge in application development and programming, there is still no such “hybrid” profile between these two specialties on the market. A social media or online manager knows how to reach his clients and what plan to carry out, but if he does not know the market, he does not have previous experience in hospitality or rather in this case the luxury business, vacation, resorts, golf, etc. How do we know if he is running a successful campaign?

The same thing happens with commercial and marketing managers. If his usual task has been the offline business, how do they know if the online actions they are carrying out are correct? Not having previous experience in the application of these techniques.