DePaul University’s School of Hospitality Leadership has launched a Revenue Management Alliance (RMA) to bring together leading revenue management practitioners and academic scholars to share best practices and foster integrated learning.

As part of DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business, the School of Hospitality Leadership’s Revenue Management Alliance will work in partnership with Smith Travel Research, long recognized as the leader in lodging industry benchmarking and research, to provide the hospitality industry with data analytics on best practices in the field. The RMA hopes to improve collaboration between hospitality academy educators and industry practitioners in the area of revenue management while disseminating pertinent trend information and cutting-edge research findings.

A recently completed RMA study evaluating the effectiveness of hotel brands on the Web uncovered inconsistencies in price parity in the U.S. hotel market and concluded that hotel operators could significantly benefit from a more coherent awareness of price offerings across multiple online travel agency sites. The study looked at 15 full-service urban market hotels in Chicago (luxury, upper-scale and economy) to analyze their marketing and pricing effectiveness across various third-party online travel intermediary sites such as Expedia and Travelocity compared with their branded sites.  

“The study indicated both poor price parity and poor reach results among the several hotels and hotel categories sampled,” said Thomas Maier, an assistant professor in the School of Hospitality Leadership and author of the study. Maier also serves as executive director of the RMA. “This would suggest hotels are not prioritizing the importance of reaching their customers on third-party intermediary sites and delivering a consistent and clear price offering to consumers.”

The study found that only six of the 15 hotels were operating at optimal reach effectiveness and recommended hotels dedicate the proper human capital resources necessary to manage the online distribution channels and consumer-driven activities surrounding the hotel marketplace.

The RMA is working to continue to provide valuable services and insights related to the discipline and practice of revenue management to the hospitality industry and academic community through industry insight podcasts, research symposiums, webinars and various scholarly publications.

“We look forward to working with key stakeholders in the evolving field of revenue management to enhance learning and applied research practices,” Maier said. For more information about the RMA, visit http://depaulrevmgt.com or email Maier at tmaier@depaul.edu.

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About the School of Hospitality Leadership

The School of Hospitality Leadership was established in DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business in 2009 to prepare students for management roles at hotels, restaurants, convention centers and other hospitality industries. The school offers undergraduate as well as graduate programs and international study. Since its inception, enrollment in the school has grown to more than 500 students in winter 2012. For more information, visit http://hospitality.depaul.edu, email SHL@depaul.edu or call (312) 363-6777.

About DePaul

With more than 25,000 students, DePaul University is the largest Catholic university in the United States and the largest private, non-profit university in the Midwest. The university offers approximately 275 graduate and undergraduate programs of study on three Chicago and three suburban campuses. Founded in 1898, DePaul remains committed to providing a quality education through personal attention to students from a wide range of backgrounds. For more information, visit www.depaul.edu.