Building a Culture of Data-Driven Hospitality: Commercial Strategy Teams

With mounting pressure on profit margins, leaders across hotel companies are forced to make critical labor, pricing, and guest-experience decisions that will affect long-term asset value.  

Fortunately, there is more data available today than ever before to ensure each department is empowered to make smarter, profit-focused decisions. The real challenge isn’t a lack of data – it’s that most organizations are drowning in it.  

This blog series was built to help each department identify the data that matters most to them. When hoteliers work from role-specific, trusted insights, they can make decisions faster with greater confidence. Earlier in this series, we explored aligning data and metrics in the Operations and Finance Departments: 

• Building a Culture of Data-Driven Hospitality: Operations Department 
• Building a Culture of Data-Driven Hospitality: Accounting & Finance Departments 

Today, we turn our attention to the Revenue department, or what’s more commonly referred to as Commercial Strategy, where today’s leaders are taking a more holistic approach that includes revenue, sales, and marketing objectives. 

Commercial Team: Optimizing Total Revenue 

For years, commercial teams – revenue management, sales, and marketing – have been measured largely on top-line performance: RevPAR, ADR, occupancy, group production, and campaign-driven bookings. In a world of rising costs and changing demand patterns, that’s no longer enough. 

Today’s commercial leaders are shifting from revenue management to total profit optimization. That means looking beyond room revenue to consider every revenue stream (rooms, F&B, spa, golf, retail, parking, fees), and understanding how demand, pricing, and distribution decisions affect both revenue and profit. 

Modern revenue and commercial platforms combine on-the-books data, market intelligence, rate shopping, guest feedback, and CRM insights to give commercial teams a multidimensional view of demand and guest behavior. 

The opportunity is to connect these data sets to cost and profit data, so commercial strategies are judged not only on demand and rate, but on how much profit actually flows through to the bottom line. 

What Data is Most Important for the Commercial Team? 

For the commercial team, the most important data is anything that helps answer: 

1. Where is demand coming from, and at what cost? 
2. Which guests and segments are most profitable? 
3. How do our strategies impact both top-line revenue and bottom-line profit? 

Key data sources include: 

• On-the-books occupancy, ADR, and pickup by segment and channel 
• Forecasts and unconstrained demand estimates 
• Group and transient pace, wash, and displacement 

• Rate shopping and market pricing  
• Future occupancy and demand indicators  
• Benchmarking data for performance vs. comp set 

• Production by channel  
• Net revenue after commissions and fees 
• Conversion metrics across digital channels 

• Guest profiles and past stay behavior 
• Campaign performance by audience segment 
• Guest satisfaction scores and feedback themes 

• Restaurant, spa, golf, and retail revenue by guest and segment 
• Package performance 
• Event and meeting space utilization 

Shifting toward profit management requires a deep understanding of the correlation between demand, revenue, and profit, starting in the commercial department. That means looking at customer acquisition costs, channel costs, and ancillary spend alongside traditional RevPAR metrics. 

How Commercial Teams Use Data for Smarter Decisions 

Optimize channel mix and customer acquisition costs. 
Not all bookings are created equal. A high-paying room from an expensive OTA or wholesaler may be less profitable than a slightly lower rate booked direct. By combining PMS and distribution data with net revenue and commission details, commercial teams can: 

• Identify channels with strong net ADR and contribution to profit 
• Shift inventory toward more cost-effective channels during high demand periods 
• Use targeted marketing to convert OTA bookers into direct repeat guests 

Even small shifts in mix – such as moving 5-10% of volume from high-cost to lower-cost channels – can significantly improve GOPPAR across a year. 

Measure marketing effectiveness in terms of revenue and profit. 
Marketing efforts should be tied directly to incremental revenue and, ideally, incremental profit. With CRM and marketing platforms, combined with PMS and accounting data, hotels can: 

• Track reservations and revenue attributable to campaigns 
• Segment campaigns by guest value (e.g., high lifetime value vs. deal seekers) 
• Evaluate whether promotional offers and packages are diluting rate or driving profitable upsell 

Identify and monetize upsell and ancillary opportunities. 
When commercial teams have access to POS and booking data from F&B, spa, and golf, they can design upsell strategies and packages that maximize revenue and profit. For example: 

• Offering breakfast packages where the incremental cost is low but perceived value is high 
• Creating spa or golf add-ons targeted to guests with a high propensity to buy based on past behaviors 
• Using alerts for front desk or contact center teams when a guest profile indicates a strong likelihood of upgrading room type or adding services 

Dynamic package testing – combined with profit analysis – helps identify which inclusions genuinely improve margins versus those that simply add complexity. 

Understand the value of group and contract business vs. transient. 
Displacement analysis should not only look at RevPAR but total profit and ancillary spend. With data on event spend, banquet F&B, and outlet usage by event guests, sales teams can: 

• Evaluate whether contracted group rates are truly accretive to profit 
• Identify segments or event types that bring strong ancillary revenue and loyalty value 
• Prioritize sales efforts toward business that maximizes long-term profitability 

Connect guest satisfaction to revenue outcomes. 
Guest feedback platforms and review analytics help commercial teams understand how service improvements or lapses affect rate and demand. By correlating review scores and survey themes with pricing power and conversion, hotels can quantify the ROI of service improvements. 

In a total profit optimization model, the commercial team is responsible not just for “filling the hotel,” but for shaping demand in a way that maximizes lifetime value and profitability. 
 

Subscribe here to receive each installment of this series as we go around the hotel and identify the right data for Operations, Accounting & Finance, Commercial Strategy, F&B, Spa, Golf, and Ownership & Asset Management.