Davidson Hotels & Resorts Books $100k in New Event Business for 2021 within Two Weeks

Group business is key to hotels returning to profitability. Today Knowland, the leader in hospitality group data analytics, announced the completion of a project with long-term partner, award-winning hospitality management company, Davidson Hotels & Resorts, that helped develop and implement a multifaceted prospecting program to re-invigorate sales teams and accelerate sales into recovery. Using the Knowland platform, properties uncovered approximately $100k in new business for 2021 within two weeks.

Advantages of the Knowland program:

• Returning to the basics of hunting for sales – Knowland worked “outside the box” providing prospecting training, meeting and event data plus sales engagement tools such as email templates, sample LinkedIn messages, and email subject lines to improve the efficiency of the proactive sales outreach. This included a partnership with Master Connection Associates to design and implement a sales refresher program including a Prospecting with a Purpose Playbook.

• Bringing new insight and opportunity to sales – Knowland’s customer success team oversaw project management for 30 days to optimize “above the funnel” lead acquisition with counseling, training support as well as data best practices. Plus, a prospecting roadmap was implemented that coached each property on how to build new business pipeline despite the dramatic reduction of inbound RFPs they experienced.
• Leveraging Knowland’s AI-driven SmartSearch – Teams were provided access to the Knowland platform database and its Premium Contact Data to help them identify and drill into their top 50 – 100 target accounts. Many of the target accounts were very different to the accounts the hotels focused on before the pandemic, so using the technology, sales managers were able to source potential new accounts “most likely to book their property” based on market, distance from the hotel, industry, past booking behavior, brand match, and more.

C. Daniel Engle, vice president, field sales, Davidson Hotels & Resorts said: “Not only was it important to provide our sales team with the tools they needed to become proactive sellers with a hunter mentality, but it was also critical that management was able to ensure accountability while monitoring their success. With Knowland, we achieved our objectives from beginning to end.” 

Patricia Shea, vice president, sales, Knowland, said: “As an innovator in hotel management, the Davidson team knew they would need to be proactive to stay ahead of the curve into 2021. In today’s market, they knew there was business to be had, but they also understood the importance of not sitting still and going after it.”