What Hotel Sales and Marketing Executives Should Know Before Investing Dollars in Sales Technology

Abstract

Today's hotel salesperson has many technological tools. They are intended to make his/her job easier and more effective with customer relationships and produce better results. This study compares members of a professional organization with a major company's sales force on where they stand relative to technology. It also compares where they place the tools available to them to build relationships with meeting professionals. Using importance-performance analysis, 20 technological tools were analyzed to determine if there were differences between the groups. Both groups had similar feelings on most technology tools. Both considered technology tools to be doing their job. However, it was determined that hotel sales and marketing operations need to concentrate more on investments. These investments include software and/or training in property management, database management, and sales force automation. A low priority was given to investment in meeting room diagramming software by both groups. This is a possible concern to the meeting professionals.

Key Words:

• Hotel
• sales
• technology
• professional organization
• customer relations