On this roundtable: Brett Armitage, vice president sales, Atlantis The Palm;Â Partha Chatterjee
director & chief marketing officer, Berggruen hotels; Vikas Bangera, Director of Sales & Marketing, the Westin Mumbai Garden City
What new marketing techniques are you undertaking? What tools are you using to measure their effectiveness?
Brett Armitage: I don’t think that the fundamentals have changed in recent times. We communicate with our clients through our CRM and through technology. That said, we’ve developed the technology in-house so that it gives us relevant guest data and exhaustive visitor data to help us measure the effectiveness of campaigns. We’re developing ‘affinity-partners’ and work with niche markets through this technique. So far it’s been largely bank centric cross marketing but we plan to take it to the next level soon. Partha Chatterjee: Social media is the newest and the most cost-effective. There is a higher focus on measuring RoI which has resulted in lots of surrogate marketing strategies. So if an OTA is doing a big campaign, as hotels we can invest in banners on the OTAs home page in addition to being present on their hotels page. It is interesting to note that while 40% of domestic bookings happen online, only 6% of domestic hotel bookings happen online. The customer is still not confident about rate parity and will check out the hotel online but call reservations to book.
This also means that we need to allow them to see more of our hotels online. We’ve invested in searches. We measure the effectiveness of such tie-ups by prompting calls to our toll-free number or visits to the hotel website. Mobile is becoming more significant. At a recent conference I heard that while 350million Indians use toothbrushes today, about 450million will use mobile phones by the end of this year.
Vikas Bangera: Social media and partnerships with OTAs are the new flavour of marketing campaigns today. It is interactive and measurable. In terms of revenue areas, other than rooms, we’re selling F&B, spa, meetings and weddings.
Social media is obviously top priority – what is being done?
Brett Armitage: We have a dedicated team of about six who look after social media. On Facebook, we have developed different groups for different areas of our business. On Twitter, we have celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton tweeting for us.
Partha Chatterjee: That is because it is the most effective and delivers the highest RoI. A huge step is to invest in languages other than English, such as Hindi and Gujarati, on social media .
Vikas Bangera: There are lots of social channels to monitor and track. We have a centralised unit at the Starwood regional corporate office that looks
into this.
How much do you alter international marketing campaigns to suit different markets?
Brett Armitage: We treat India as distinct. We follow its seasons and develop rates according to the monsoon and for the Diwali, Christmas and summer school breaks. Since India is interested in the Dubai Shopping Festival, we also target the market at that time. Then, we work with Indian celebrities. We have so far worked with filmstars Priyanka Chopra and Shahrukh Khan. The reason we’ve gone very celebrity heavy for India is because the market looks at Atlantis as aspirational and glamorous – the same tags associated with Bollywood. Our B2B relationships in India are also different. Since it is a fragmented market with many travel agents enjoying popularity in various parts, we work with key agencies in different cities – like Mercury Travels for Mumbai.
Partha Chatterjee: We’ve realised that to tap international markets, going to trade fairs and touching base with advertising agencies there, running roadshows works the best.
What are the challenges in hotel sales and marketing today? And how do you solve them?
Brett Armitage: There is convergence of technology so we have to keep in mind that we’re working in a transparent market – the rates you offer will be visible and available to customers elsewhere and on different channels. To tackle any economic instability that may or may not arise, we tap a variety of markets. We have a strong focus on our neighbouring countries; we will also maintain our focus on Europe and India, we’re looking at China now and next, we will add East Europe and the CIS countries into our market mix.
Partha Chatterjee: Everyone is fighting for a space in the consumer’s mind. So consistency is key. The trick is to having the customer remember you is to have sustained marketing rather than one-offs. When Maggi thought it had established a footing in India they reduced advertising to 1/10th which resulted in a 50% plummet in sales.
For hotels, a large part of your business is related to a 5km radius so one must get creative within this diameter.
When the Taj Bengal opened its La Patisserie, for instance, a buggy was decorated in French style and girls in costume drove the buggy to the city centre and distributed cookies and cakes to people in the buildings there, resulting in immense brand recall and popularity.
Vikas Bangera: Growing competition and mainitaing ADR and RevPAR amidst it is a challenge. We have defined our competitive set carefully rather than putting all the hotels in the city into it.
Sales and marketing is said to be a clear route to becoming GM and then CEO – what would be an ideal career path (in terms of how long etc) from sales manager to GM?
Brett Armitage: The GM is increasingly a business manager. Yet, he needs a rounded approach and must know everything from technology to revenue management and operations. I think 10 years is the minimum experience he would need but cookie-cutter hotels are easier to manage, as are smaller hotels and perhaps limited service hotels and properties managed tightly at the corporate level. With autonomy comes more responsibility. I’d say 10 years for a luxury hotel. It also takes some amount of seniority to give the hotel owner confidence that one can manage his asset.
Partha Chatterjee: I spent a good part of my career – 30 years – working with the Taj group so I think I can offer the best examples from there. Take for instance Ravi Dubey who spent six years as a sales executive, followed by a year in a senior sales position to become general manager at the Taj Mahal in New Delhi. After three years of that, he became general manager of the northern region. So I think it should be around 10 to 12 years to move to senior corporate positions. One needs a mix of sales and operations experience.
Vikas Bangera: I think putting in 12 to 16 years makes sense as one would need a grasp over sales and marketing plus operations. I think that it takes a good amount to time to master the key skill to being a GM – handling people.
Many say that hotels rethink filtering strategies. Any advice you would like to offer?
Brett Armitage: Staff must be commercial and entrepreneurial and function as independent business units – as mini Bretts!
Partha Chatterjee: We must look at how people present themselves, how knowledgeable they are and whether they can make general conversation. If all he can talk about is keys, the client might meet him twice but will get bored and won’t entertain him again. He should be able to make conversation and drive a sales call as a part of it.
Vikas Bangera: We need to look beyond educational qualifications and eye creativity. Often it is just about creatively juggling the permutations and combinations of what you have to offer.
What do you do to retain sales & marketing talent or to recognise extraordinary talent?
Partha Chatterjee: It works to divide the salary into fixed and variable components. We’ve made assessment foolproof and opinion proof by using systems to measure performance, monitored by an outside agency. Targets are not daunting. For instance, a unit manager is obviously responsible for his unit meeting its targets but we tell him that 40% is his responsibility, 60% is his subordinates’ responsibility.
Vikas Bangera: Today the shelf life of sales people is only about two years.
To retain them longer, we try to give them a new segment to handle at the end of two years or have people reporting to them to help them see that growth is around the corner. The idea is to give them the feeling that they’re starting a new chapter without the actual job-shift.
What is your take on the eternal tussle between revenue management and sales and marketing?
Brett Armitage: I think that they were designed to be frictional roles that will maintain a balance. Revenue management and sales teams meet at the daily morning meeting which is often quite tense. Both must report to one head above them.
Partha Chatterjee: I think that it shouldn’t be a principle but rather a support to sales teams. If the revenue manager reports to the GM, then the revenue manager’s advice could sometimes be used as a ‘stick’ for the sales team.
Vikas Bangera: Both should report to the general manager. Discussion is imperative to balance – our sales and revenue teams meet on a daily basis. We ensure that corporate rates offered are a joint decision.
What is your favourite philosophy, borrowed from elswhere or hospitality-centric?
Brett Armitage: Try lots of different things! We’ve got branded trams in Venice and Rome and I’ve got ‘Atlantis Express’ charter from Russia where charters usually ensure a mix of guests.
Partha Chatterjee: Tata used to have diversified sales and marketing meetings to share ideas across sectors. Borrowing of ideas works. Segmenting is a marketing strategy I would always uphold.
Vikas Bangera: From my years at SITA travels I’ve observed that travel agents initially focused on transactional business. But they evolved gradually, to become consultants, offering value-adds and thus savings to their customers while ensuring profits for their companies.
We need this to enter the hospitality landscape. Rather than just quoting rates, we can increase our share of business by being consultants and ensuring that there is a
two-way benefit.
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