Three decades of revenue management: What's next?

This paper discusses future trends in revenue management (RM) in the hotel industry based on interviews with industry leaders. The integration of customer behaviour and preferences into marketing and pricing strategies appears to be a major future trend. Examples of this trend are the increased attention given to the analysis of total customer value both in the short and long term. Group RM is also receiving considerable attention from hoteliers. Many of the participants interviewed identified a need to improve the accuracy of forecasting, given the increased complexity of group business. To reap the benefits of these new strategies, companies will need to invest in technological as well as human support. In the past RM has been driven by the search for technological solutions to improve RM techniques. In the future, it is foreseen that the customer will be the driving force of all RM efforts.