They’re the front-line soldiers in the war against the hotel downturn. To fight this war, sales and marketing professionals in hotel management companies must juggle direct sales, advertising, promotions, public relations, owner relations and rate setting as part of their daily routine. To tap into this considerable expertise, Lodging Hospitality last fall conducted a roundtable among eight of these executives. Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International organized the roundtable as part of an all-day meeting of the group, which was sponsored by Newmarket International. LH Editor Ed Watkins conducted the roundtable with:

• Maureen Callahan, vice president of marketing, Destination Hotels & Resorts
• Joel Carver, vice president-sales & marketing, CSM Lodging
• Elizabeth Cimino, corporate director of sales & marketing, Growth Properties
• Rose Genovese, vice president of sales & marketing, Denihan Hospitality
• Bob Gilbert, president & CEO, HSMAI
• Alison Rubin, vice president-sales & marketing, BF Saul Co. Hotel Division
• Brian Tkac, vice president-marketing & revenue, Hostmark
• Hector Torres, vice president, Capital Hotels & Suites

Lodging Hospitality: How do you convince an owner or asset manager not to cut sales and marketing resources during these difficult times?

Maureen Callahan, Destination Hotels & Resorts: It’s all about education, all about communicating and sharing how we guide our decisions. It comes back to what their expectations were and that we understand what they are.

Joel Carver, CSM Lodging: It’s also important to be able to speak clearly and concisely to the ROI, whether it’s a marketing expense or a direct sales expense.

Hector Torres, Capital Hotels & Suites: Oftentimes, that question can be dealt with simply by the relationship you have created. If you have a relationship where you’ve kept owners abreast and informed during all times, it won’t be an issue. It all depends on how adept they are in understanding what you do and what they can expect from you. It’s more important to convey what you’re doing differently.

Bob Gilbert, HSMAI: There’s also an element of fear in this and that must be communicated. You must show how the performance of the assets would be hindered by changing or reducing the sales and marketing spend. If you’re not spending at the current or a higher level, it can be difficult to sustain revenues and profitability.

Brian Tkac, Hostmark: It’s extremely important to lay out for the executives where the risks lie and how you as the expert can minimize those risks.

Q: How can you be more efficient with sales and marketing resources in these difficult times?

Rose Genovese, Denihan Hospitality: A lot of it has to do with the structure, so when the market is changing you’re deploying the resources a little differently. Perhaps you’re reducing some support roles. You need to maintain an org chart and show (owners) what the evolution is of the department, so even if you still have the same number of bodies you’re deploying them differently and putting more resources into revenue-producing positions. And you need to put the resources into areas you already agreed are going to generate additional revenues.

Callahan: A lot of efficiencies are evolving because of the potential to share certain sales and marketing functions. For example, we created a shared services position for our public relations functions. Instead of each property having their own manager or contracting out, we now have one person for several properties.

Alison Rubin, BF Saul: Bad times are not the time to cut salespeople. If anything this the time to increase your sales force. There is a much smaller pie, and more people going after it.

Tkac: We explain to our owners and asset managers that we use a tailored approach, not one that is cookie cutter. We have a very diverse portfolio with properties in different places and situations, and it wouldn’t work if we applied a blanket approach to how we operate or market or sell.

Q: How difficult is it to keep up with trends in social media?

Tkac: One of the most difficult things with social media is the loss of control of the message to your audience. There is now a huge amount of media that is beyond control.

Carver: We hire people who understand the media in which we need to communicate, and the reality is as long as we are good stewards of our resources and hire appropriate resources we can remain cutting edge. When we fail to do that, we’ll fail to perform.

Callahan: People now buy because they get referrals from someone in their communities. It’s been a very explosive channel, and we’re all trying to figure out what to do. It’s one thing to manage Trip Advisor and other user-generated content, but you also need to manage blogs and things you’re doing to create content and to communicate with your customers. If you’re not paying attention to it or only doing it once a month, your customer is aware of it.

Elizabeth Cimino, Growth Properties: We all must keep ourselves current and do what we can to educate ourselves about social media.

Carver: If you can track revenue back to Twitter and Facebook and other social mediums, it’s easy to show an ROI. If you don’t embrace the emerging markets, they’ll emerge without us. Some of the easiest wins for us in the last 12 months have come from emerging and non-traditional markets.

Callahan: The viral marketing effect of social media is just extraordinary, so managing that little Twitter feed can lead to so many other customers.

Carver: We can have direct contact with 5,000 consumers using Twitter in less than three hours. It can’t be just a special offer; it needs to be attached to some demand generator or event if you hope to generate viral communications.

Tkac: Staying ahead of the curve on social media also means staying in touch with what successes other industries are having with social media.