There are three factors that make the sales function at hotels both different from other functions and also a very interesting analytical problem

is all about negotiations

require a slightly different application of analytics. Rather than providing a single best answer, analytics to support negotiations require ranges, best and worst case scenarios, and supporting details.

The numbers need to be presented in such a way that they are flexible enough to account for all the possible permutations of terms and conditions, and also allow for a bit of _____ based on what the salesperson knows about the client and the function.

There's an old saying in sales that each piece of business is about "rates, dates, and space. An organization's ability to measure and manipulate these three factors determines whether the business will be profitable for the property or not.

does the group have a good arrival and departure pattern? Considering the day of the week and seasonal patterns, will the group fill rooms and space during a need period, or are they asking for space during a peak period? Are they willing to shift dates in exchange for a better rate?

how many rooms does the group want to book? Is there sufficient capacity? What is the group's budget? Will they be displacing any transient business or are they filling rooms when the hotel would otherwise be empty?

most sales teams look at the ratio of space to guest rooms booked and try to establish a reasonable balance.

sales teams can offer certain incentives to the groups to book, including free room upgrades for VIPS or free rooms for organizers, food and beverage packages, amenities- basically any of the products or services offered at the hotel can be included to make the hotel's or casino's offering look more attractive.

generally, hotels have a standard formula for how much catering spends they would expect depending on the amount of space requested and the time of day the function is booked.

include some of the same elements that are of interest to other functional areas.

is important to sales, as it is something that the meeting planners and corporate negotiators also look at these days.

now have access to forward-looking demand data, which can help them to benchmark their production against the performance of the market.

Sales negotiations can be quite time consuming. Clients value responsiveness

Sales always keep an eye on forecasts. Since they are incentivized to produce a certain amount of demand, sales keeps careful track of the forecast of business they expect to bring in.

would be useful for mining characteristics of groups in the same way it can be used for evaluating customers.

Can be used to predict the materialization of a group (how many rooms will actually book versus the contracted amount), which will improve planning at the property level.

an optimization for the sales function is probably best associated with the revenue management system. Sales should be able to enter the details of the group, the number of rooms, dates, rates, and ancillary revenue.

requesting a lot of space with relatively few rooms that might not be as valuable to the hotel, because they lose the opportunity to use the meeting space to fill the hotel rooms.

is contributing to this trend, but there are certainly complications to this strategy due to the organization of the industry, particularly on the hotels side

a meeting planner's request for an estimate of what the hotel could offer their group.