The Revenue Managers' Experience: Implementing Hotel Revenue Management in Australia and New Zealand Hotels

Abstract

This dissertation examines the lived experience of hotel revenue managers implementing revenue management (RM) strategies across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), a region under-represented in a literature dominated by European and North American case material. Three research questions guide the inquiry: the strategies and practices currently employed by ANZ revenue managers; the gaps between the academic RM literature and ANZ practice; and the challenges anticipated over the next 12 to 18 months. A qualitative, modified two-round Delphi methodology was used to explore answers to the research questions. Round 1 employed semi-structured interviews with eight experienced revenue managers (four Australian, four New Zealand) representing a cross-section of property types, and Round 2 returned to the same panel with structured validation and ranking exercises. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis framework, generating seven themes. The findings show a discipline in active strategic recalibration. ANZ revenue managers have shifted from occupancy-driven thinking to a focus on rate integrity and a total-revenue orientation, with RevPAR remaining the dominant operational KPI alongside ADR and forecast accuracy. Forecasting is consistently layered, combining historical data, market intelligence, and tacit professional judgement, which practitioners articulated as an approximately 80/20 division between algorithmic output and human interpretation. Off-peak strategy focused on rate-floor protection and value-added packaging rather than discounting, with a national divergence between revenue-led Australian practice and cost-led New Zealand practice driven by Auckland’s acute supply–demand imbalance. Individual-level personalised pricing was uniformly rejected as reputationally risky. Three challenges achieved full panel consensus for the next 12 to 18 months: 1. supply–demand imbalance, 2. geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, and 3. margin pressure from rising operating costs. The study contributes a practitioner-grounded evidence base from a structurally distinctive market, a multi-dimensional reframing of the research–practice gap encompassing data infrastructure, organisational architecture, and professional scope, and a layered conceptual model of contemporary ANZ revenue management practice.