Revenue Management (RM) is about a different way of managing business based on a very old idea. Every seller in human history has faced RM-type decisions. What price to ask? Which offers to accept? When to offer a lower price? And when to simply “pack up one’s tent” as it were and try selling at a later point in time, or in a different market?

Value adding is a key driver in today‘s hospitality and restaurant business. Besides satisfying customers and having happy employees, a hotel manager must add value to the bottom line of its operation. The owners expect a return on investment and a certain level of profitability and this can only be achieved if managers know how to monitor their operations and control costs. Managers must be experts and acrobats in taking financial decisions, very often with only limited information and resources, and still be able to forecast the consequences of their choices. Mastering figures will give managers the competitive advantage and will put them in a position to influence the bottom line of their operations.

In these turbulent times, political, economic and social, companies must be drivers in change within their competitive business environment.  On the assumption that it is better to lead than follow, strategy can be viewed as the ability of leaders to see their future ahead of others to create products and services, which will take advantage of this foresight.  With these products and services identified, the strategist must also insist upon the proper allocation of resources to them as they are elements of a firm's competitive arsenal.

The other indispensable element in this equation for success is the ability to add value for all the stakeholders of the firm: for the investors, a return which satisfies their needs for growth in wealth over time and compensation for the risk associated with the investment; for the customers, a recognition that in a knowledge-based global economy where instant access to information have made products and services transparent, it is they who now control the purchase decision; and finally, for the employees, who seek value in the work done and the way they are compensated.

Through a series of lecture-discussions, group work and daily individual assignments, participants will apply the above concepts to their properties.  The Module culminates in a final-day presentation of strategy plans of each participant's individual hotel or chain.