Meeting revenue management challenges: Knowledge, skills and abilities

International Journal of Hospitality Management 57 (2016) 132–142

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International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman

Meeting revenue management challenges: Knowledge, skills and abilities Gurel Cetin a,∗ , Tevfik Demirciftci b , Anil Bilgihan c a b c

Istanbul University, Fac. of Economics, Tourism Management Dept., 34452, Beyazit, Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey Ozyegin University, School of Vocational Studies, Hotel Management Dept., Cekmekoy Campus, 37794, Cekmekoy, Istanbul, Turkey Florida Atlantic University, College of Business, Department of Marketing, 777 Glades Road, FL33431, Boca Raton, FL, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 23 December 2015 Received in revised form 28 June 2016 Accepted 28 June 2016 Keywords: Revenue management Yield management Challenges KSAs Revenue managers

a b s t r a c t Hospitality industry increasingly recognizes importance of integrating revenue management into their operations and significance of their staff to do so. Yet revenue managers face major challenges from both internal and external sources. Hence revenue staff dealing with several sophisticated problems should possess various knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) to enable them effectively overcome these obstacles. However which specific capabilities are required to what extent are not clear. Therefore this study aims to match the challenges that are faced by hotel revenue managers with KSAs required in managing inventory and prices. A two step qualitative method is adopted; first 14 revenue managers were interviewed and secondly a focus group with eight participants was conducted in order to identify challenges and competencies required in improving revenue management effectiveness. Thus this study offers a typology of challenges faced by revenue managers and it also identifies KSAs that are required by revenue management staff. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Revenue management (RM) is a strategy deployed by service companies with perishable inventories to maximize their revenues. The term RM is used to describe a variety of strategies that allocates limited inventory (e.g., hotel rooms) among different customer segments (e.g., transient customers). Application of RM has been widely discussed scholarly in various service contexts such as airlines (e.g., Smith et al., 1992), hotels (e.g., Cross et al., 2009), car rental companies (e.g., Geraghty and Johnson, 1997), restaurants (e.g., Susskind et al., 2004), spas (e.g., Kimes and Singh, 2009), casinos (e.g., Hendler and Hendler, 2004), resorts (e.g., Pinchuk, 2006), bars (e.g., Bujisic et al., 2014), movie theaters (Choi et al., 2015) and entertainment events (e.g., Volpano, 2003). RM continues to attract increasing attention from both industry and academia alike due to the financial advantages it yields to organizations. Sophisticated RM techniques’ contribution on profits has been acknowledged in the literature and RM is proven successful in a range of industries (Cross et al., 2009) including hospitality (Deighton and Shoemaker, 2001). Working within a RM culture

∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (G. Cetin), tevfi[email protected] (T. Demirciftci), [email protected] (A. Bilgihan). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2016.06.008 0278-4319/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

allows hospitality organizations to develop a greater understanding of the dynamics of demand. Such discipline puts the hotel in a position to be able to take advantage of opportunities that may exist to deploy rate and inventory restrictions on rooms when demand is high. Additionally, systematic observation of booking trends and benchmarking allow hotels to make more informed decisions regarding the rates that are offered, products and the channels of business that are opened for sale. Thus hotels are able to generate incremental revenues using RM. In other words, RM has become a fundamental strategic instrument for hospitality industry managers. Despite the advantages RM offers to hotels, various obstacles prevent lodging industry to adopt and effectively use RM solutions. Some of these complications are handled by revenue management office (e.g., rate restrictions), some others need organizational involvement (e.g., business strategy) and the rest require external intervention (e.g., regional demand). The dynamic, competitive and multi-dimensional structure of the industry creates problems concerning such issues as pricing, management of distribution channels, forecasting, developments on ICT, knowledge management, integration with other systems and strategies, sheer volume of data to be processed for better decision making, price fairness, human resources, long term contracts, allocations and so on. Hence revenue managers dealing with various sophisticated problems should possess different skills (e.g., social), abilities (e.g., cogni-

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tive) and knowledge (e.g., budgeting) to enable them effectively overcome these obstacles (Yeoman and Watson, 1997). Literature on hotel RM is focused on different models (e.g., RM systems, optimization, forecasting, pricing models), implementation of RM strategies or demand side of the concept (e.g., perceptions of customers, distribution, CRM) and has so far neglected the overall perspectives of professionals involved in RM decision making process (Beck et al., 2011). Managing revenue is both a science (e.g., algorithms) and an art (e.g., intuition) (Cullen and Helsel, 2006). Despite developments in forecasting, pricing and other RM systems, human judgment is still a crucial factor in managing revenue (Chiang et al., 2006). Although the technical infra-structure and processes of RM were extensively discussed, RM as an expertise and profession received less attention (Kimes, 2011). The scope of RM is not fully understood by the management, as the RM department is most qualified to identify the correct timing for events, promotions, discounts and offers, and a lack of communication between departments and lack of understanding of RM principles lead hotel managers to make uninformed decisions (Hendler and Hendler, 2004). RM also requires technological support such as forecasting tools, optimization algorithms and data mining. Revenue managers’ roles are continuously becoming more strategic and technologically driven (Kimes, 2011). When every leading firm in an industry has access to the same technology resource (e.g., state of the art RM software package), knowledge management (Cooper, 2006) and personal skills (Bilgihan and Wang, 2016) determine competitive advantage (Hallin and Marnburg, 2008). Previous studies highlight that managerial capabilities influence the way technology used in hospitality and tourism organizations (Yuan et al., 2003). Success of RM in the lodging industry is supported by development and sharing of knowledge, and appropriate management skills. Revenue managers have a critical role in hospitality as they are responsible for ensuring the hotel prices match guests willingness to pay while minimizing consumer surplus. They need to understand concepts such as value, supply and demand, forecasting by following the trends in the marketplace. They also need organizational, strategic and leadership skills, ability to collect marketing intelligence, educate and motivate staff. Perspectives of revenue managers are important for a better design of overall revenue management process. It should also be acknowledged that for a successful deployment, RM must be integrated into all aspects of hotel management, marketing and operational activities (Mauri, 2012). Thus, the slow adoption of RM in the lodging industry is also a reflection of challenges and barriers that revenue managers face. In order to survive in an increasingly turbulent and aggressive competitive environment, hotels need to manage change by identifying potential barriers and develop strategies to overcome them (Okumus and Hemmington, 1998). Identifying potential barriers, offering solutions to challenges and developing certain KSAs would help hotels to better adopt RM strategies. Hinterhuber and Liozu, (2012) also discuss pricing power as a learned behavior rather than a destiny. In sum, while RM is important for hospitality profitability and there are forces driving hotels to implement RM strategies, on the opposite side, there are factors that hinder a hotel’s effort to adopt RM practices which this paper aims to discuss. Previous research on RM with similar objectives mostly focused on algorithms, systems, marketing and strategy and neglected the people element. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the challenges and later explore the personal competencies required for effective hotel revenue management. The flow of this paper is as follows; first, it discusses the concept of RM, and then introduces previous research on RM challenges and KSAs. That section is followed by a description of the study design and data collection. Study results are then presented and discussed. Finally, it concludes with both theoretical

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and practical implications, and proposes future research directions and limitations. 2. Theory The core of RM is the concept of maximizing revenues through demand-based variable pricing (Choi and Matilla, 2004) based on forecasted demand (Emeksiz et al., 2006). It is the art and science of selling right products and/or services to the right customers, at the right prices (Cleophas and Frank, 2011), at the right time, using the right channels (Choi and Kimes, 2002). Managing pricing and availability strategies, understanding and predicting demand, achieving rate accuracy, allocating capacity (Berman, 2005), organizing rate structure effectively, employing consistent, proper reservation terms and conditions and following up with competition are considered difficult tasks (Carroll and Siguaw, 2003). The complexity of decisions and variables that need to be treated and aligned are too many, sophisticated, time consuming and usually irreversible (Vinod, 2004). Hence revenue managers are faced with various complications that prevent them from reaching the optimum pricing. RM has evolved from a focus on variable demand for those products offered for sale to a focus on how customers and channels respond to pricing and how to use that information to direct and shape consumer behavior. Different computer programs and solutions have been developed to assist revenue managers in their demanding decisions. Yet these software still need constant attention and are far from resolving problems on auto-pilot. Staff involvement is also required to overcome most of these challenges. Despite complex RM software, heuristic tools still impact RM decision (Berman, 2005) and hotels might improve RM effectiveness by investing on specific KSAs of RM staff. Bergen et al. (2002) also refer to human capital as a required asset for effective pricing. RM cannot be run only by the systems and it demands well-trained, skilled and competent staff with expertise on products, services, customers, competitors, suppliers and the overall macro environment. These challenges and required competencies are discussed below. 2.1. Challenges with revenue management Various authors have explored challenges with RM and their resolution. Some of these challenges are handled by the revenue department such as reducing customer’s surplus, achieving rate accuracy and availability (Carrol and Siguaw, 2003), collecting and analyzing marketing intelligence, data analytics, forecasting and budgeting (Kimes, 2011), designing and employing rate restrictions (Guillet et al., 2014), managing distribution channels and rate parity, preventing cannibalization, bundling (Bergen et al., 2002), communicating pricing strategy, allocating capacity and overbooking, monitoring performance of different markets, educating and motivating various actors, managing RM systems and their integration with other processes, integrating ancillary spending with pricing (Noone et al., 2011), opportunity cost (Baker and Collier, 1999) and insufficient time in doing all these (Yeoman and Watson, 1997). Mainzer (2004) discusses several organizational pitfalls to effective RM, these are factors that RM has less power to change. Yet the impact of these obstacles can be modified indirectly to some extend by the RM because they are usually rooted in organizational structure and strategies. These are internal politics and conflict (Bergen et al., 2002), ownership structure of the industry (Mainzer, 2004), numerous ICT systems, systems integration issues, data integrity (Baker and Collier, 1999), lack of RM expertise in HR market, guest confusion and dissatisfaction (Choi and Mattila, 2004), lack of skills,

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organizational culture, budget and technical difficulties (Noone et al., 2011), integrating pricing with marketing and CRM (Kimes, 2011), performance measurement and reporting (Vinod, 2004). There are also some external threats that are well beyond the control of the revenue manager and which apply to hospitality industry in general. Naturally ability to manipulate these macro-environmental challenges is limited and RM is better to try adjusting to them. These are volatile global economy, dramatic big events (Kimes, 2008), changing booking windows (Enz et al., 2009), declining forecast accuracy, developments in communication technology (Kimes, 2011), advances in electronic distribution, effectively segmenting the market (Bergen et al., 2002), increasing dependency on OTAs, transparency and commodization of hospitality services (Carrol and Siguaw, 2003), changes in supply (Kimes, 2011), and competitor actions (Chiang et al., 2006). Thus there are various departmental, organizational and environmental challenges already mentioned in the literature. Yet, RM environment is very dynamic and new types of challenges are emerging such as online auctions, alliances and collaborations, name your price models, stealth competition (e.g., sharing economy), opaque distribution and so on. Thus RM needs to continuously be on alert, track market trends and competitors, adopt different evolving systems and channels of distribution, control different variables, analyze data and convert all these information into meaningful tactics and strategies to be implemented by all stakeholders. In order to adjust to changes effectively and with optimum long term profits, hospitality industry requires well-trained, skilled and competent staff. Hence revenue managers should posses several KSAs to effectively do their jobs.

stress understanding of economic theory; supply and demand, opportunity cost, competition and price elasticity as important knowledge in order to effectively manage revenue (Viglia et al., 2016). Decision making abilities are also considered critical (Ingold et al., 2000) as revenue managers make myriad of decisions everyday with serious impacts on revenue. Because these decisions have major implications, Lancaster (2003) argues that risk management knowledge and processes impact RM success. Knowledge of statistics is also considered important (Hallin and Marnburg, 2008) because RM systems use various models and methods (e.g., regression, time series, moving average) to calculate forecast and recommend price. Kimes (2011) argues that besides the analytical skills; communication, negotiation and leadership skills are also important for RM. Thus the social competencies of RM staff also matter. Beck et al. (2011) found communicating effectively, professionalism, leading the revenue team, time management, and strategy development as important skills for success of the property. Revenue managers control a key marketing element (i.e. price) which cannot be overlooked and should be managed by competent experts. Knowledge management (Hallin and Marnburg, 2008) and ability to use information technology effectively (Bilgihan et al., 2014) are also recognized as important flairs. Without capable staff, organizations would end-up with low priced and underused inventory, hence systems and data are wasted without essential KSAs. Although literature agrees on the importance of qualified revenue managers, personal characteristics and KSAs that should be possessed by revenue managers are not discussed extensively.

2.2. Knowledge, skills and abilities required for revenue management

3. Methodology

Most hotels employ dedicated staff responsible for revenue and pricing (e.g., revenue manager, revenue analyst), either at the property or at a central office depending on the portfolio (Upchurch et al., 2004). Yeoman and Watson (1997) stressing the role of the employees, describe RM as a human activity system. Where revenue positions are not available the responsibility usually lies with the GM or Sales and Marketing. Revenue staff plays a crucial role in designing and executing the revenue strategy (Chiang et al., 2006). Improving competencies of RM staff is considered to correlate with a better pricing (Hinterhuber and Liozu, 2012). Even if the property has a superior RM system, it should be managed by talented revenue managers. Personal qualities of revenue staff might contribute to significant increases in revenues (Skugge, 2004). Analyzing behaviors of customers, their price sensitivity and actions of competitors is strongly tied to skills, abilities, knowledge and experience (Hinterhuber and Liozu, 2012) of executives. Matching requirements of the job with KSAs of the staff is vital in hospitality industry (Tepeci and Bartlett, 2002). Knowledge is defined as a theoretical understanding of subject (e.g., education), skills are referred to as proficiency in doing something (e.g., training, experience) and abilities are qualities of being able to execute a task (e.g., handling uncertainty). Education, training, experiences and personality are factors that influence these qualities and all three are considered important for career development (Birdir and Pearson, 2000; Lee et al., 2015). Because without one, others are dysfunctional; for example even if a prospect had a complete understanding of RM at college, without necessary skills and abilities, failure is likely. Commodization and decline in prices are perceived as major threats in hospitality (Carrol and Siguaw, 2003). Yet majority of the players in the industry lack the knowledge, skills and abilities to alter price based competition. Thus marketing knowledge and related qualifications are considered important. Chiang et al. (2006)

This study aims to match the challenges that are faced by hotel revenue managers with KSAs required in managing inventory and prices. In order to identify various sources of challenges and types of KSAs required for RM and exploratory research was needed. Perspectives of revenue managers as experts are important in identifying various challenges and associate them to their training, career development and formal education. The need for qualitative studies to enrich RM knowledge has also been urged by Denizci Guillet and Mohammed (2015). Since the study is exploratory in nature, a two step qualitative method is adopted. First revenue managers of international brand affiliated hotels in Istanbul were interviewed one-on-one concerning their interpretations of challenges with RM. In-depth interviews can be used to collect rich empirical data about feelings, intentions, behaviors and thoughts of participants (Chen, 2010). After identifying a typology of challenges based on content analysis of 14 interview transcriptions, a focus group with eight revenue managers was arranged. During this second stage of data collection, challenges were collectively discussed in order to identify resources and KSAs required in overcoming these problems and improving RM effectiveness. Hospitality industry in Istanbul can be considered as a good domain to analyze these challenges because there are hundreds of hotels (499) within a very condensed geographical area serving more than 12 million international tourists per year (TurkStat, 2015). Although the annual hotel room demand in the city is increasing, demand also fluctuates to extremes during different periods. Hence RM strategies become crucial for effective financial hotel operations considering large fixed costs (e.g., land) in Istanbul. Despite the suitability of the market in Istanbul, hospitality industry in the city might be considered slow in adopting RM into their operations (Emeksiz et al., 2006). Hence the sample is limited with revenue managers of brand affiliated hotels because these chains are usually the only active users of RM systems in the city (Table 1). Qualitative data collected from experts can reveal key challenges of

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Table 1 Respondent characteristics. Respondenta

Gender

Industry Experience

Revenue Experience

Hotel Management Type

Focus Group

R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14

M M M M M M M F M F F F F M

27 11 18 17 12 16 17 17 17 8 21 22 14 13

14 6 11 6 7 10 11 7 8 4 14 13 6 5

Management Franchise Management/Cluster Franchise/Cluster Franchise Management Management Management Management/Cluster Management/Cluster Management/Cluster Management/Cluster Management Franchise

Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes

a

To protect their anonymity, numbers were used to categorize respondents (R).

RM as well as insights on required KSAs derived from their personal thoughts and experiences (Zikmund et al., 2012). 14 revenue managers in Istanbul were interviewed between Jan.–Feb. 2015 for a period of six weeks to identify challenges that prevent reaching optimum revenue. Interviews were conducted in respondent offices and hotel lobbies, were electronically recorded and transcribed before the next interview was conducted. Although three of them postponed their appointments, experts were keen on talking about their challenges, none of them declined interview request. Interviews took 97 min on the average. Researchers also took notes during interviews concerning non-verbal clues and included these into transcriptions. According to Glaser and Strauss (1967) interviews should continue until data saturation is reached. After conducting 14 interviews and reading the transcribed data several times independently; authors agreed data started to repeat itself and additional interviews would not reveal major new findings. 157 pages of text data were created at the end of this process. Transcriptions were then re-read multiple times word by word by each author, highlighting text that describe RM challenges, significant common themes were color coded and classified under hierarchical higher order dimensions. At the next phase researchers discussed their key words, clusters and groupings extracted from data (interrater reliability). A total of 131 items were assigned by the authors. Although preliminary keywords identified independently were similar to each other (with 82% consensus); there were two different groupings for the initial categories with only 40% interclass agreement. This was expected as there was no initial coding scheme imposed on judges because of the exploratory nature of the study and to ensure its validity. For example one typology was; structure of the market/technology/personal challenges/RM culture/volume of data. Another suggested list of themes included; economy/technology/HR/personal challenges/organizational challenges. After discussions and collective revision of clusters; authors resolved their disagreements and a consensus was reached on personal/internal/external challenges as the major themes. The coding was repeated and categories were reorganized. This iterative procedure for consensus is also referred to as phenomenology by Creswell (2007). After a typology of challenges was identified, a focus group of eight revenue managers was organized on 5th March 2015 in Istanbul. All previous interviewees were invited; although nine revenue managers confirmed their participation, one of them canceled last minute. There were several objectives of the focus group. During the first half (two h) the validity of typology of challenges that were put together by researchers was discussed with participants to triangulate (member check) findings. Some modifications have been made on challenges based on expert views such as increasing

supply. Experts described this challenge as both an industrial (e.g. investments) and an external (e.g. government incentives) problem. RM managers’ comments and suggestions on challenges have been reflected on the final categorization of items. Thus participants were regarded as co-researchers rather than subjects. Although some probing questions were asked, leading and structuring the feedback was avoided (Mehmetoglu and Altinay, 2006). During the second session of the focus group, solutions to these challenges, essential KSAs in overcoming these obstacles and how to adopt them to educational curriculum and career development were debated. Four hours of group discussion with one coffee break was also electronically recorded and transcribed. The same procedure of content analysis applied to interviews was utilized on focus group data, only this time authors after reading the transcript independently, came together several times to map and match the RM challenges with KSAs. The KSAs also evolved from six themes (conceptual, technical, social, educational, personal and cognitive) down to four as shown on Fig. 1. Some new codes that did not directly fit in an existing category were introduced (i.e. ethical) and some others were divided and merged. For example social KSAs were moved under personal KSAs and personal KSAs were split into analytical and social KSAs. The interdependency of the KSAs should also be acknowledged. For example the generic knowledge about finance and economy would be useless without analytical skills. Thus the themes suggested should be interpreted as related than exclusive and independent. The categorization and matching process were finalized during the fourth discussion. 4. Results All RM respondents obviously confirmed the critical role of their position. RM is defined as central to hotel operations, responsible for the survival of the hotel, even the staff and their families. Findings of the study are grouped under two sections. Typology of RM challenges found after content analysis of interviews is discussed on the first section. KSAs required in coping with these challenges emerged following the focus group are presented in the second section. 4.1. Revenue management challenges During expert interviews on RM challenges some demographic and professional information were also requested. Nine of the interviewees were male, the average duration of hospitality experience was 16 years and RM specific experience was nine years. Four of them were employed by franchise hotels, the rest were working for management agreement hotels. All respondents were directly responsible for RM except one revenue analyst. Based on 14 inter-

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Fig. 1. Revenue management challenges and KSAs.

views and research notes during interviews various challenges that impact RM success were identified. These were grouped under five themes; personal, internal, organizational, industrial and external challenges.

reservations department, other times the budget is also under your responsibility. But you do not have the authority and time that all your responsibilities require.”

4.1.1. Personal challenges These challenges apply to individual problems faced by RM staff. They are usually related to stress, anxiety and the demanding characteristics of the profession. Work-life balance, being on the alert 7/24 and limited career growth opportunities after being a revenue director are mentioned under this category. Although RM systems and efficiency they create is well recognized, some revenue managers expressed their concerns about becoming too dependent on these systems which in the long term are believed to create apathy and impair strategic revenue decisions. R2 put it as “Your single move might mean ±100.000 USD. You should be able to handle the responsibility and commit yourself, watch the market, competition, economy and anything that can affect the demand. Sometimes yesterdays’ info is useless; you need to act real time and tomorrow is so late. It is so complicated and risky that you cannot trust anyone with it and you are never away. The timing of price change is one of the most important decisions. It is like a stock exchange, if it is late, it is always wrong.” R12 also surmised: “Yet some of these tools make RMs impotent, after a while, they forget how to calculate displacement analysis. Systems are there to support your decisions, they cannot make them for you, we are not there yet. There are revenue staff that do not know how to calculate RevPAR, even ADR, because the system supplies it with a click. This also delimits the analytic and strategic thinking because you lose the logic of all these, you become a slave of the system.”

4.1.3. Organizational challenges Organizational challenges included most frequently mentioned items. Inter-departmental conflicts (particularly with sales), internal politics, unbalanced responsibility and authority, organizational structure and strategy, sources of business, pricing different segments, dependence on specific markets, brand image and product positioning, human resources activities on motivation and training, upsell/cross-sell incentives, owner pressure on budgets and prices, flawed feasibility decisions, communicating and implementing the revenue strategy, structuring RM across all departments, seamless integration of different systems used in RM and their costs, data integrity and validation were frequently indicated organizational challenges. For cluster revenue managers (six for this sample) fairness, when distributing RM efforts between different properties was also described as difficult. R12 described the central role of RM for a successful operation when she said; “RM shows everyone in the hotel how they have done, are doing and will do in the future. We suggest targets for sales, FO, F&B, Banquet, Spa, laundry even parking. We are responsible to guide them to do better.” Most respondents perceived the conflict with sales as a healthy challenge as long as it stays professional. R1 illustrated the relationship between these two departments; “Sales office is our most important business partner. The discussion between RM and sales is important to achieve the optimum rate. They usually wish to sell as much as possible as soon as possible, and concentrate on volume; we on the other hand consider price as well. Sales tell us about the importance of their accounts, their future potential etc. We tell them the optimum price and show the account’s contribution. It is easy to reach sales targets with discounts, the real challenge is doing that with respectable ADR. We decide together but it is important to follow up the account’s performance ‘Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’.” Owner pressure on prices and budget were also frequently mentioned particularly with franchise hotels. R9 remarked “I remember revising the budget for 16 times three years ago during the first year of operation. The owners in general have high expectations. Especially if the owner is not familiar with hotel operations, he can easily be deceived. Feasibility analysis are conducted by international consultants who do not really know the market and location, the brands also offer success stories around the world and incredible projections, trying to convince the owner to choose their brand...Then it becomes a challenge for RM to tell the bitter truth about possible ADR, occupancy and ROI, which sometimes disappoints the owner because the feasibility was flawed from the beginning. . . The budget targets are so critical that they need to be accurate, if it is unrealistic and target is set too high the motivation is already lost in the first three months and no one pushes anymore.”

4.1.2. Internal challenges These relate to departmental challenges that RM staff encounter, including having to be responsible with various tasks that are not directly related to managing revenue. Some RM representatives declared E-commerce and marketing, monitoring and maintaining the brand.com web site and reservations were considered under their responsibility and these prevent them focusing solely on RM and improve revenue performance. They also complained about information overload, lack of authority and qualified prospects to be employed at RM department. Integrating other revenue streams (e.g., F&B, spa, banquet) besides the room, moving into total hotel RM and displacement analysis were also perceived difficult. For example talking about the time she allocates to reservations R8 mentioned “In Turkey most Revenue Managers, have reservation background and are responsible for the reservation as well. It is important to monitor reservations department but RM is not about creating reports or updating online rates, RM is more about strategy, decision making, consulting and leadership. . . When you have too much areas of responsibility you lose the focus and cannot see the real picture.” R13 also referred to lack of job descriptions of RM when he said “Job descriptions are not defined well, sometimes it also includes management of OTAs, sometimes it includes

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4.1.4. Industrial challenges Structure of the market, competitor actions, unstable demand, seasonality, negative attitude towards dynamic pricing, increasing supply to match demand, price wars and commodization of hospitality, decreasing reference prices in the market, short-term focus, concentrating on tactics rather than strategies, determining the competition set to benchmark, length of stay, volatility, shorter booking windows and pick-ups, calendar effect, estimating the impact of yearly scheduled special events with changing dates (e.g., Ramadan), insufficient local demand, long term fixed rate allocations, maintaining rate parity, working with millennials as employees, staff commitment, career planning and turnover, ownership structure were grouped under industrial challenges. These micro environmental challenges usually are not organization specific but apply to hospitality industry in general. RM is perceived as a long term strategy rather than sudden changes in prices. R1 surmised “...You can easily make a discount but low price is very sticky, once the low price is associated with your property increasing the rate becomes very hard. Entering price wars is like digging your own grave. A low price results in lower price. You need to carefully determine your place in the market among the competition. Besides we do not really know the real impact of a discount. Maybe discount was meaningless and you only charged less to clients who were going to reserve with the higher rate. Usually the incremental revenue you receive from heavy discounts is less than what you would make without it.” RM departments closely watch competitors’ rates and they base their rate tactics on benchmark. Some of the rates uploaded to STR and other benchmark tools were considered incorrect. R3 stated the importance of data integrity “Some hotels choose to manipulate STR data, which decreases RM effectiveness of all hotels. We as RM must act based on the assumption that customers and competitors make rational decisions. . .. When competition has a strong and professional RM that makes our jobs easier, than we can better compare our pricing and performance . . ..and create better strategies.” Another important industrial obstacle was employee turnover. R11 surmised “. . .because of the circulation it takes months for new comers to understand the systems, the strategy and importance of data integrity. At least, a year is required for them to become competent. Because of the turnover we are continuously working with people who are strangers to the systems and to the strategy.” 4.1.5. External challenges Political, economic, technological, environmental and legislation related macro environmental issues are also believed to affect RM success. Executives are expected to constantly monitor external factors and predict their impact on demand. Elections, civil protests, terrorism, exchange rates, incentives on hotel investments, airports working with full capacity creating a ceiling for additional demand, weather (e.g., volcanic ash clouds), GDP and growth rates, consumer protection laws (inability to charge no-shows), noise created by useless information are among factors mentioned. Developments in technology particularly ICT and distribution channels were also listed. These external challenges are particularly hard to influence and might have serious consequences on RM. “Best to predict the impact and react on them timely” (R11). A common major challenge was referred to as increasing supply which was also mentioned under industrial challenges before however increase in the supply is also related to government legislations and incentives as well as technological developments and substitute products that are considered as macro environmental factors. R6 mentioned this trend “There are currently 150.000 beds under construction in Istanbul. The supply is increasing well above demand. . .” R13 referred to sharing economy when she said: “Increasing supply is a problem not only concerning hotels but Airbnb and other business models are also entering into the

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market.” Regarding OTAs respondents acknowledged increasing dependency and commission rates. Though so, they see OTAs as business partners; “OTAs not only sell the rooms but also promote the hotel and supply important marketing intelligence” R2. Some also see OTAs as an opportunity like R13, “OTAs supply us new business, they are able to reach a larger population. . . we become more visible with OTAs. We are not able to reach their (OTAs’) marketing budget, their speed, and content management expertise but the guests stay here, that is our advantage. And we are able to convert them to loyal clients.” 4.2. KSAs required for revenue management KSAs required for RM were explored during a four hours focus group. In the first half of the meeting the challenges were discussed collectively and through second session experts have debated on KSAs and resources that are required to overcome challenges of RM. Among eight revenue managers two of them were female, they had 18 years of hospitality experience and ten years of RM experience. All were directly responsible for hotel RM. Two of them were representing franchise hotels and the rest were from management agreement chain hotels. All respondents confirmed competency of RM staff is a major factor for success and these qualities are usually more important than the tangible elements of RM such as the computer systems. After analysis KSAs were merged under personal (social and cognitive), generic, technical, and ethical competencies. Emphasizing importance of personal qualities R6 mentioned “RM is not about the systems it is more about your skills, when to change the prices when to override the system is crucial. The quality of RM very much depends on people and how they treat the system.” R7 also referred to personal KSAs: “Systems suggest rates based on history, current forecast, the competition and requests. But they are rarely accurate; they are designed for hotels that operate in stable markets. Istanbul is a on-day demand market and it does not have a reliable historical pattern. We have ‘habibi’ business (unprofessional), the rates you see on corporate web pages or OTAs are not real, even STR data is not accurate. You would not believe the difference if you see corporate and group rates in the market. The customers are different as well they call 10 hotels and negotiate with all of them at the same time. Computers cannot smell the market, listen to the gossip, know the needs of specific customers. You certainly need additional skills and expertise to manage revenue at optimum prices. . ..” 4.2.1. Personal KSAs Personal competencies refer to individual qualities of ideal RM staff and were divided under two subgroups as analytical KSAs and social KSAs. Analytical KSAs include such items as; effective reasoning, seeing real causes of things and the big picture, ability to adopt change, being curious and pro-active, analyze and integrate different variables and find novel solutions, learning from experience, self development, time management, ability to make quick decisions, being able to prioritize, flexibility, analytical and numerical intelligence, coping with stress, tolerance for ambiguity, patience, ability to handle responsibility, attention to detail, possessing fluid intelligence and outcome orientation. Social KSAs were listed as ability to educate, consult and motivate, interpersonal communication, networking, ability to convincingly present and support claims, objectivity, recognizing performance and supporting employees, empowerment, empathy, team work, concern for staff, leadership, mentoring and handling conflict. Some revenue managers referred especially to personal KSAs that cannot be easily altered such as R12; “. . .teaching how to use the system is easy, but how to interpret the reports, ability to create a strategy based on data that is a gift, you are born with it. It is like arts everyone cannot do it.” One of the most common used phrases

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Table 2 RM challenges and required KSAs. Challenges

Definition

KSAs

Personal

Individual problems faced by RM staff. They are usually related to stress, anxiety and the demanding characteristics of the profession.

Internal

Departmental challenges that RM staff encounter. Responsibilities, authority and job descriptions etc.

Organizational

Inter-departmental conflicts within the specific organization; organizational structure and strategy, owner pressure on budgets and prices, data integrity etc.

Industrial

Structure of the market, competitor actions, unstable demand, shorter booking windows and pick-ups, turnover and ownership structure etc.

External

Political, economic, technological, environmental and legislation related issues etc.

Analytical: Effective reasoning, seeing real causes of things and the big picture, ability to adopt change, being curious and pro-active, analyze and integrate different variables and find novel solutions, learning from experience, self-development, time management, ability to make quick decisions, being able to prioritize, flexibility, analytical and numerical intelligence, coping with stress, tolerance for ambiguity, patience, ability to handle responsibility, attention to detail, possessing fluid intelligence and outcome orientation. Technical: Knowledge of various RM software, their logic and how they operate, market intelligence, positioning, products and services, competition, segmentation, pricing, inventory management, budgeting, distribution channels, sources of business, consumer behavior, knowledge about RM fundamentals (occupancy, ADR, STR, GDS, EDS, business on the book, RevPAR, TRevPAR, GOPPAR, pick-up, indicators and trends, forecasting), ability to use spreadsheet and word processing programs effectively, ability to speak and understand English, having a commercial mindset, decision making skills, managerial skills, knowledge of overall facility operations, ability to create a vision and business objectives. Social: Ability to educate, consult and motivate, interpersonal communication, networking, ability to convincingly present and support claims, objectivity, recognizing performance and supporting employees, empowerment, empathy, team work, concern for staff, leadership, mentoring and handling conflict. Generic: Managerial disciplines; marketing, human resources, strategic management, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, as well as behavioral sciences such as psychology and sociology. Knowledge on local legislation, information technology, hotel operations, professional experience in tourism and hospitality in different properties serving different markets and understanding market indicators and trends. Ethical: Professionalism, integrity, a sense of responsibility to the organization and staff, fair competition, being credible and trustworthy, teaching and developing staff, respecting profession and communicating accurate data instead of manipulating values, and altruistic behavior. Analytical: Effective reasoning, seeing real causes of things and the big picture, ability to adopt change, being curious and pro-active, analyze and integrate different variables and find novel solutions, learning from experience, self-development, time management, ability to make quick decisions, being able to prioritize, flexibility, analytical and numerical intelligence, coping with stress, tolerance for ambiguity, patience, ability to handle responsibility, attention to detail, possessing fluid intelligence and outcome orientation. Generic: Managerial disciplines; marketing, human resources, strategic management, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, as well as behavioral sciences such as psychology and sociology. Knowledge on local legislation, information technology, hotel operations, professional experience in tourism and hospitality in different properties serving different markets and understanding market indicators and trends.

used by respondents was “at the end of the day” which also reflects their results orientation. There are no excuses in RM. Being objective was also summarized by the statement “. . .we let the numbers talk; there is no ‘but’ or a grey zone in what we do, it is either black or white. There is always a proof, if you can communicate it well and the other person has the capacity to understand, there are no questions.” (R1). R4 referred to importance of social skills, “. . .if the data is not entered correct by the staff, the forecast would not be accurate, ‘garbage in, garbage out’. For example if reservations are not uploaded on time, the system calculates a different booking pace, if the source market is not entered correct we have flawed segment projections. RM systems are dependent systems. Even if your strategy is very strong, it is worthless if it is not implemented well.

Communicating the strategy, convincing people about the importance of RM and their roles, educating and motivating employees are very important. . . .if only RM understands and commits to the strategy it will not work.”

4.2.2. Generic KSAs Generic qualities include items that support a better decision making and create the background for effective use of technical competencies. For example an ideal RM staff was characterized to be good with numbers; mathematics, economics, game theory, risk management, finance, cost-benefit analysis, feasibility and statistical knowledge are considered an advantage. Managerial disciplines; marketing, human resources, strategic management, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, as well as behavioral

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sciences such as psychology and sociology were also mentioned. Knowledge on local legislation, information technology, hotel operations, professional experience in tourism and hospitality in different properties serving different markets and understanding market indicators and trends were also considered important assets. Importance of macro economics knowledge for example was mentioned by R14 “The exchange rates fluctuate too much. We sell in Euro, report in USD and charge in TL. Your room rate would increase by 10% overnight without you touching anything. You need basic knowledge about economics to be able to read those numbers, the growth, inflation, consumer confidence index etc. you need to track and continuously adopt”. When talking about the systems R3 supported this view “. . .revenue managers are becoming system dependent and they do not want to change their comfort zone. You cannot blame the system if you are not performing well. You are there to make the right decisions and override the system when needed. That is why intellectual knowledge, formal education, and experience with applying these on different properties at different locations make a better revenue manager.” 4.2.3. Technical KSAs These competencies include items that directly relate to operations of RM department and how it functions. Knowledge of various RM software, their logic and how they operate, market intelligence, positioning, products and services, competition, segmentation, pricing, inventory management, budgeting, distribution channels, sources of business, consumer behavior, knowledge about RM fundamentals (occupancy, ADR, STR, GDS, EDS, business on the book, RevPAR, TRevPAR, GOPPAR, pick-up, indicators and trends, forecasting), ability to use spreadsheet and word processing programs effectively, ability to speak and understand English, having a commercial mindset, decision making skills, managerial skills, knowledge of overall facility operations, ability to create a vision and business objectives were grouped under this category. Executives believe the technical skills are vital. Although most of these can be developed, hospitality schools were perceived to be inadequate in offering these operational knowledge. R8 stated “...The graduates do not have any idea about ADR, RevPAR, pick-up etc. . ..even if they (students) would not be revenue managers, they need a notion of RM...RM is everywhere; if there is sale, there is RM. Teaching RM is important not only for RM career but to have a vision of entrepreneurship and how things work in business.” Although every hospitality school is believed to teach at least some of the RM concepts, RM managers as hospitality graduates themselves still believe there are problems with learning and retaining of RM related knowledge at school based on their personal experiences which also suggest implications for how these issues are covered in curricula. R7 also referred to the issue. “The schools are not able to teach these modern management concepts such as RM because of the quality and quantity of the lecturers. There are problems with the new generation as well, it is harder to satisfy them, most quit the industry within a year and do something else. They are restless, demanding and inpatient. Teaching them RM at school would also be a challenge. . .” 4.2.4. Ethical KSAs Revenue managers also mentioned some virtues and moral principles such as; professionalism, integrity, a sense of responsibility to the organization, fair competition, being credible and trustworthy, teaching and developing staff, respecting profession and communicating accurate data instead of manipulating values. Manipulating STR data was for example considered unethical. Professional and altruistic behavior is believed as a requirement for a better RM. R12 referred; “All hotels need to play the game by the rules which would benefit everyone in the game. Intentionally

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playing with numbers; increasing rate by including breakfast or inflating occupancy by counting no-shows and trying to steal others confirmed businesses are harming the industry.” R14 mentioned the situation as follows; “STR reports are not designed to watch the competition they are designed to evaluating yourself by comparing your position among other hotels. Some hotels try to use it as a tool of deception. If you deceive STR you deceive yourself as well.” Moral principles are also exhibited in R14’s statement: “There are more than 300 people working in this hotel, you are also responsible for their income and families. You are obliged to perform well.” 5. Conclusions RM effectiveness is important for hospitality profitability; the challenges suggested in this study might offer some insights on how to improve revenue performance. Most literature on RM with similar objectives converged on algorithms, systems, marketing and strategy and neglected the people element (Emeksiz et al., 2006). Personal qualities of staff responsible for managing revenue are also central to RM (Yeoman and Watson, 1997). Previous studies have also looked into challenges and skills yet the focus was different and they used pre-determined sets of items to quantitatively verify challenges and skills (e.g., Kimes, 2011). The characteristics of a qualified revenue staff, their KSAs have not been covered extensively by an exploratory study in the literature. The qualifications suggested in this study provide implications for revenue managers, recruiters, educators and trainers. Knowledge on challenges associated with RM and competencies, might improve career advancement, professional training, education and selection of RM staff in hospitality. This study being exploratory in nature offers a typology of RM challenges and a list of competencies required for effective hotel RM. Challenges can also be minimized by focusing on certain KSAs required to overcome them. Table 2 suggests a list of challenges paired with primary KSAs to reduce their impact. However a holistic approach is needed as most challenges are related with more than one KSAs. For example social skills (e.g. communication) are useful not only overcome negative impacts of organizational challenges (e.g. inter-departmental conflicts) but also personal (e.g. job stress), internal (e.g. team work) and industrial (e.g. cooperation with competition) challenges. Thus these competencies should be approached as an integrated whole rather than independent factors. Merely having social skills is not meaningful if a RM staff is deficient in analytical, generic, technical and ethical KSAs or generic knowledge about finance and economy would be useless without analytical skills. Some challenges were stressed more important than others and require a further attention. Particularly challenges related to technology, human resources, structure of the market and RM culture were emphasized. 5.1. Technology Continuous improvement based on developments in RM and other developments in ICT, amount of data to be analyzed, the “noise” crated by useless information, systems used in the facility and their seamless integration with RM software, displacement analysis, total hotel RM, benchmarking technology and rate shoppers used by the industry and their data integrity, user friendliness of these systems were placed under various groups as personal, internal, organizational and industrial challenges. 5.2. Human resources HR also emerged as an internal challenge in the case of lack of qualified RM staff, on the organizational level challenges related

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to motivation, high turnover and training of employees in other departments, up-sell and cross-sell incentives were frequently mentioned. HR also seems to be an industrial problem as income, career opportunities and millennials as employees have been listed as common difficulties in hospitality by respondents. 5.3. Structure of the market The characteristics of demand, different segments and their behaviors also fall into different categories. Organizational challenges related to structure of the market included brand image of the chain, sources of business; industrial market related challenges are seasonality, shorter booking windows, calendar effect, insufficient local demand; external issues that impact the market are inability to increase short term demand, increasing bed capacity which has both industrial and legislative components. 5.4. RM culture Understanding of RM by different players is also mentioned as an important difficulty. Job specifications of RM and its responsibilities, communicating the RM strategy are considered internal, owner pressure and interdepartmental and intra-departmental conflicts are organizational; data integrity and price wars are industrial; price fairness perceptions and legislation as in the case of consumer protection laws and price ceilings are considered under external challenges. 5.5. Theoretical contributions Matching RM challenges with KSAs has various implications for practitioners, educational institutions and students. Recruitment of RM staff would be based on these skills, educators might focus on knowledge required to effectively manage revenue in designing curricula and students who desire to be future revenue managers would concentrate on developing their abilities accordingly. Most KSAs take time to build and require a long term investment. Knowledge on these KSAs are essential for the career development as well. Birdir and Pearson (2000) also discuss understanding specific KSAs for different hospitality positions is at the heart of HR activities. Candidates possessing sophisticated personal, technical, ethical and generic KSAs suggested in this study are scarce, considering the education curriculum. Recruiters would be in a better position to spot RM talent and design training programs using data provided in this study. It was also realized during the data collection that the main concern when setting up prices is the competition. Cost based pricing was not mentioned at all; which might be attributed to the profile of the hotels (i.e. upscale) participants represent. Yet value based pricing was not mentioned either, few managers discussed the value they offer to their guests even then they usually compared their facilities with competition. The reasons to this might be twofold; first it is harder to base the pricing on customer value (e.g., estimating price elasticity and customer preferences, creating and communicating value) and second RM performance is usually measured through competitors’ performance particularly through STR ratings. Competition based pricing is particularly risky when applied by all players and would result in continuous discounting and reduction in reference prices (Viglia et al., 2016). Managers also complained about declining prices and commoditization. Competing solely based on price is also one of the main reasons of commoditization in hospitality. Without creating value and differentiating services and products, the gap between willingness to pay and list prices are there to stay (Hinterhuber and Liozu, 2012). Another important finding was concerning total hotel RM; RM executives declared that they would rather improve rev-

enue generating performance of all departments. However because of integration and time management issues, they are currently focused on room revenue as the product with highest profit margin potential. Yet room revenue is only a part of the equation and can be misleading; non-room revenue (e.g., F&B, banquet) is also considered important (Kim et al., 2013) however RevPAR is still used as the main benchmark to measure the success of hotel RM. Using total revenue (TRevPAR) or gross operating profit (GOPPAR) instead of rooms revenue would be better measures of performance (Kimes, 2008). This study by identifying what constitutes as KSAs for RM also contributes to the professional standing of RM as an expertise. In order to be acknowledged as a profession; recognizing of a list of attributes concerning RM KSAs is a required initial step. Standardization of RM positions and their roles, job descriptions and specifications, ethical codes, certification, licensing, assessment and performance measurement of RM in hospitality certainly require more knowledge on challenges faced by and competencies required for RM. Current research also offers valuable theoretical implications for the broader context of human resource management, information management, organizational learning, and knowledge management. The research findings demonstrate that hospitality management literature does not adequately identify or understand the challenges to RM. Therefore, we suggest researchers to conduct multidisciplinary studies by borrowing theories from various disciplines such as strategic management, human resources management, information management, and knowledge management. In theory, RM offers many advantages to hotels, however, it comes with some challenges that requires certain KSAs to overcome. IT related challenges, knowledge management and system integration are still significant issues. This finding is similar to Bilgihan and Wang (2016)’s recent study which highlighted the importance of system integration in the lodging industry. Technology-induced competitive advantage requires hotels to integrate all the possible technologies (e.g., RM software, PMS, CRM, social media comments) in the organization with a harmony that creates synergy. Another technology related challenge is the information overload, therefore, data should be turned into information that enables revenue management to make well informed business decisions. This finding suggests that data-mining practices may lead hoteliers to reduce information noise by providing summarized, timely, important information. HR was found to be a significant challenge due to the lack of qualified RM staff. This issue suggests that internal recruitment might play an important role for RM leadership. Millennials as employees has been also listed as a common difficulty by the respondents. It is known that millennials exhibit different attitudes, values, beliefs, and aspirations in the workplace compared to other generations (Chou, 2012). Kelley’s theory of followership suggests that exemplary followers play a critical role in determining organizational success because they are independent, innovative, and willing to question leadership (Kelley, 1992). Millennials tend to express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions freely and frequently (Myers and Sadaghiani, 2010), thus, managers can turn this difficulty into an opportunity with proper training. Another issue that seems to be emerging from our findings that offer theoretical implications is that of the collaborative and team-based nature of RM. Increasingly, hospitality professionals are expected to work with each other. Canina et al. (2005) also refer to significance of knowledge transfer between competing organizations in order to generate continuous learning and competitive advantage. Some of the barriers might be minimized if executives collaborate rather than compete. This has implications for professionals, professional associations, and academic programs.

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5.6. Practical contributions RM is embedded in hotel’s day-to-day operations protocol and procedures. Nowadays, almost every hotel operating team, third-party management company, or franchisor, has RM staff professional on property or working for a group of properties. These professionals are committed making proper rate decisions in a timely manner that directly affect a hotel’s bottom line. The presence of a revenue manager is becoming universal in today’s lodging world. It is important to have revenue managers who are competent, capable, and proficient. Yet, revenue managers face major challenges from both internal and external sources. This paper aimed to provide practical implications to the lodging industry by highlighting such challenges and pinpoint the KSAs to overcome these obstacles. Creating, communicating and adopting an organization wide RM strategy is only possible with cooperation among departments. The organizational structure should be designed in such a way that balances RM responsibilities and authority. For example an independent RM post to report directly to either GM or headquarters is considered healthier rather than RM position under DOSM. Organizational strategies might also be better designed to fit with RM objectives. Feasibility studies, management contracts, HR activities should also welcome contribution from RM. Local RM executives might be consulted on their thoughts about projected demand and ADR during the feasibility process before the actual investment so that a possibly flawed decision might be prevented before the point of no return. Some of the RM challenges provided in the study might also be useful for different stakeholders. For example system integration issues, seamless data flow might be tackled by hospitality ERP organizations. CRM techniques can focus on turning guests reserving through OTAs into loyal customers. Quotas and incentives for sales department might be designed not only based on volume but also RevPAR of their accounts. STR and other benchmarking tools would also try standardizing and monitoring the data entered by their members into their systems to prevent any manipulation. They would also offer additional benchmarking measures such as TRevPAR and GOPPAR or separate data on group and transient business. Educational curriculum and shortage of qualified RM staff have also been central concerns which also corroborates with Kimes (2011). RM and pricing knowledge are considered important for hospitality graduates during higher education and technical knowledge should be provided in specific RM related courses. Tourism and hospitality students would also benefit from compulsory and elective courses including marketing, economics, finance, human resources, entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, strategy, and statistics in order to develop competencies mentioned under generic KSAs. Although personal qualities in RM has significant effect on profitability, pricing currently receives little share in educational curriculum (Hinterhuber and Liozu, 2012). None of the respondents believed that they acquired sufficient knowledge from their formal education and all had their RM training from international professional sources. It is worth to mention that despite their hectic schedule all focus group members also volunteered to teach the RM course. Some of the obstacles particularly the challenges related to the structure of the industry might be minimized if executives collaborate rather than compete. The system would produce better results if revenue executives cooperate for data integrity and marketing intelligence in order to minimize the negative effects of fluctuating demand and role of competitor manipulation. R6 mentioned; “. . .that is why revenue directors should also communicate and cooperate, I know it is not legal to set prices however we can correspond on occupancies and market intelligence. If the overall aim

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is to minimize customer surplus honest collaboration can work.” R3 also stated; “There also needs to be a local platform that unites revenue managers and facilitates communication; regular meetings, sharing of knowledge, cooperation, characteristics of certain periods, collective action and so on might create good results for everyone.” 5.7. Limitations and future research One of the limitations of the study is the research site. Although Istanbul as a popular tourist destination is suitable for RM because of high fixed costs, intense competition and fluctuating demand, it might reflect different market characteristics concerning booking window and volume of local demand. Moreover being an initial exploratory study, this paper aims to understand the phenomena rather than draw mutually exclusive, universal and transferable conclusions. Nevertheless it offers insights on various contextual factors that might be used to quantify the importance of various challenges and KSAs that hospitality RM faces in prospective research. For example, future studies using challenges and KSAs offered in this study conducted in various international settings would determine the factors and measure the actual impact of these variables on RM success by using quantitative data. Importance performance analysis might also reveal the gaps that need special attention. Exploring the impact of personality and leadership style on successful RM would also identify further personal virtues. Another important area of research might be the relationship between sales and RM departments. Although these are interdependent stakeholders, they frequently conflict particularly for B2B and group rates. Their responsibilities, roles, authority and how to improve the cooperation among these functions would also be explored. Integrating these KSAs into curriculum, training, recruitment and career development still remains to be dealt with. Future studies in this area might look into current situation with curriculum in hospitality schools and compare it with the ideal. How to measure these KSAs, particularly personal, generic and ethical characteristics are also challenging issues that needs additional attention. Acknowledgement This study is funded by Istanbul University Research Council. Project Code: BYP-54809. References Baker, T.K., Collier, D.A., 1999. A comparative revenue analysis of hotel yield management heuristics. Decis. Sci. 30 (1), 239–263. Beck, J., Knutson, B., Cha, J., Kim, S., 2011. Developing revenue managers for the lodging industry. J. Hum. Resour. Hosp. Tour. 10 (2), 182–194. Bergen, M., Dutta, S., Ritson, M., Zbaracki, M., 2002. Pricing as a strategic capability. Sloan Manage. Rev. 43 (3), 61–66. Berman, B., 2005. Applying yield management pricing to your service business. Bus. Horiz. 48 (2), 169–179. Bilgihan, A., Wang, Y., 2016. Technology induced competitive advantage: a case of US lodging industry. J. Hosp. Tour. Technol. 7 (1), 37–59. Bilgihan, A., Berezina, K., Cobanoglu, C., Okumus, F., 2014. The information technology (IT) skills of hospitality school graduates as perceived by hospitality professionals. J. Teach. Travel Tour. 14 (4), 321–342. Birdir, K., Pearson, T.E., 2000. Research chefs’ competencies: a delphi approach. Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manage. 12 (3), 205–209. Bujisic, M., Hutchinson, J., Bilgihan, A., 2014. The application of revenue management in beverage operations. J. Foodserv. Bus. Res. 17 (4), 336–352. Canina, L., Enz, C.A., Harrison, J.S., 2005. Agglomeration efects and strategic orientations: evidence from the US lodging industry. Acad. Manage. J. 48 (4), 565–581. Carroll, B., Siguaw, J., 2003. The evolution of electronic distribution: effects on hotels and intermediaries. Cornell Hotel Restaur. Adm. Q. 44 (4), 38–50. Chen, P.J., 2010. Differences between male and female sport event tourists: a qualitative study. Int. J. Hosp. Manage. 29 (2), 277–290. Chiang, W.C., Chen, J.C., Xu, X., 2006. An overview of research on revenue management: current issues and future research. IJRM 1 (1), 97–128.

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