Sell Group Business in a Smarter Way with the Power of Data and Analytics

The Challenge

This medium-sized hotel in West Houston, with over 5,400 square feet of event space, offers a contemporary combination of style and substance. Conveniently located near popular attractions such as Houston’s CityCentre, Memorial City Mall and the American Girl® store, the hotel makes it easy to explore or conduct business in Houston. They offer luxurious accommodations including room service and cocktails from their on-site restaurant and bar.

Their Director of Sales, Andrew Mirsky, was not new to the hotel industry. But even as a veteran, he found their hotel losing market share to their comp set and could not explain why. His team was booking groups, but not getting as much as the competition. They were in the dark as to how much they were losing and to what kind of group business. Each week when the STR Report came out, leadership would inquire about what they missed out on in group. He was not able to fully explain why his hotel was not getting their fair share. This was only exacerbated when a new hotel was built across the street. He was finding that they needed a better way to maximize their share of group business.

The Solution

Having used Knowland in previous hotels, he knew who to call. He launched the Knowland solution for his team. It was soon after that he realized he needed more horsepower. He quickly upgraded their version of the Knowland solution to be able to prioritize events and see which ones would be optimal for this property.

Andrew used Knowland to assign groups to his team to prospect into because the data gave him a level of confidence that the group would consider his hotel. His team then leveraged Knowland for their call blitzes, giving them the event details to create personalized sales pitches.

In the Knowland solution, he could also see exactly who was booking with his hotel’s competition, like the Omni, and why his hotel was potentially losing out on that business.

The Knowland solution enables me to respond to our ever-changing environment leading to smarter selling and maximized group business revenue.

– ANDREW MIRSKY, DIRECTOR OF SALES

The Results

Andrew was able to show his leadership how their hotel stacked up against other hotels with similar profiles, but not necessarily within their original comp set. He created unlimited comp sets for his hotel within Elite. The data showed him how his hotel compared to the other hotels with similar profiles. This was a huge eye-opener — seeing all the potential accounts that might consider his hotel for their next event—and informed proactive sales strategies that not only bolstered revenue, but also his confidence.

The entire sales team at the property has access to Knowland and they meet weekly to review how to capture more of their market. They rely on Knowland to sell smarter. The solution helps validate and justify why they may have lost business and gives them the resources they need to develop proactive sales strategies to prospect for the future. For example, their SMERF Manager identified feeder cities that have school sporting events each year and began to target them as part of her sales strategy. From this, they were able to grow their wrestling and soccer group programs without corroding corporate midweek bookings.

Andrew trusts Knowland to help him know his buyers, and future buyers, and win share in the group and meetings marketplace.