The current state of the application of revenue management activities in the SME segment: A case from the Czech Republic

Abstract

The article aims to investigate the level of adoption of revenue management activities in small and medium-sized hotels in the Czech Republic. One hundred fifty members of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants from the Czech Republic were questioned. The questionnaire was derived from the MERMI model used to evaluate the adoption of revenue management activities in hotel operations. For this research, the scope was reduced to fit better the focus on the SME based on the Delphi method. The results show the low level of adoption of revenue management in this segment, where 23 % of the respondents stated no interest in revenue management, and only 17 % had the revenue manager in their organisational chart. The GM or marketing and sales managers prosecute the revenue management activities for the rest of the hotels. As revenue management is one of the departments highly supported by information and communication technologies, their adoption is low, as 30 % of the respondents from small hotels are using these technologies. It is crucial to mention that these are not only the revenue management tools but also the WBEs, Channel Managers or CRMs. The results support the increasing gap between academia and revenue management practitioners. The paper's novelty lies in its focus on the SME segment, where the previous studies mainly focused on the applications in upper-scale and luxurious hotels. The SME segment, with its majority in the segment (in the context of the number of hotels), was omitted entirely. Therefore, the paper showcases a significant theoretical and practical knowledge gap. Further research should focus on the SME segment and deliver actionable proposals for the hoteliers losing competitiveness by omitting the revenue management principles.