Chapter 28Sales and Marketing

Stronger weekend occupancy, more outside covers at the rooftop bar, new group leads — the commercial team calls September proof that marketing worked. The owner sees a different headline: Sales and Marketing is $42,000 unfavorable and GOP conversion is weaker than expected.

Lina explains the hotel didn't buy one campaign — it bought paid search, agency creative, a PR launch, a loyalty offer, a planner familiarization trip, trade-show attendance, and new photography, layered with discounted rates and comped rooms for planners. Amara stops the team before they calculate one blended ROI. Some of it is marketing expense. Some is a Rooms commission. Some changes revenue rather than creating an expense at all. A future group lead isn't realized revenue yet.

“Do not call marketing effective because revenue followed. Prove the campaign components, cost homes, target demand, source evidence, incrementality and contribution.”

Questions this chapter helps answer

• Why is attributed hotel revenue or ROAS not enough to prove that a sales or marketing campaign created profitable incremental business?
• How should cannibalization, discounts, package cost, loyalty, transaction cost, displacement, timing, and cancellations be reflected in campaign economics?
• How should hotel sales pipeline and marketing results be connected to contribution rather than headline revenue alone?

What this chapter gives you

• How to split one campaign into its true accounting and operating components
• Why comped rooms and discounted rates require a different treatment than a marketing invoice
• A framework for calculating contribution-based ROI — and for saying honestly when ROI can't yet be proven

Key concepts

• Sales and Marketing
• ROAS
• attribution
• incrementality
• cannibalization
• displacement
• campaign contribution
• qualified pipeline
• commercial economics

One campaign name does not create one expense line, one revenue segment, or one ROI formula — treating it that way is how marketing gets credited for revenue it didn't actually cause.

Hotel Financial Reporting in Practice · Manish Gupta, CA