HSMAI Role: Certified Trainer in Revenue Management & Distribution

Way back when I was a teeny tiny teenager who thought she knew everything and working my way through university, I got my first job in a Pizza Hut restaurant.  I fell in love with the hours, the busy, the constant change and the challenge of making customers happy.

Fast forward a few years and I finished university with, of all things, a degree in Education and Diploma in Primary Teaching and headed off on a big adventure with a backpack and a Lonely Planet and the knowledge of how to wait tables, pour drinks and the concept that it was far easier to pick up a job in hospitality than teaching in a school. 

15 years later, I returned to Australia having lived in 5 countries and worked my way up through hotels, I no longer waited tables but worked behind the scenes as a Revenue Manager.  I was one of the first to jump onboard with this new job that had been created with the advent of OTA’s and online selling.  I loved the challenge of making the numbers work, adjusting prices, filling hotels and achieving a budget.   As an early starter in Revenue Management, I had to teach myself so much.  There were no RMS or CRM systems, we had pen, pencil and an excel sheet.  It was sink or swim and we learnt by trial and error. 

Today, I take that passion for numbers and mix it with my experience in turning around underperforming hotels to work with small to medium independent hotels.  I created my own company 3 years ago to fill a void.  People want to work and own their own hotel but don’t always have either the time or experience to manage their online presence.  At RevenYou, we work with owners to grow their bottom line profit in an ever-changing world. 

In 2018 we partnered with HSMAI, a non-profit industry association for sales, marketing and revenue people in hotels and I’m happy to volunteer my time &  experience to help raise the level of professionalism of hoteliers in the industry.