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Hotels · Sales strategy

Decide who sells which room, and stop paying commission on a guest you know.

Sales strategy for a hotel is the decision about which channel fills which room and who is answerable for selling it: the direct booking, the travel agent, the corporate rate contract and the banquet hall. GullySales sets that split against your own occupancy and puts a name against each channel.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

Realistic editorial illustration of hotels at work in India

What sales strategy means

Sales strategy is deciding which customers to chase, through which channel and at what price, instead of every salesperson working their own way. GullySales sets this plan against your actual pipeline and the deals you have won and lost so far.

Also for hotels

Sales and marketing for hotels, the overview.

Last updated 5 Oct 2026.

For hotels

Where it usually goes wrong, and what we would do.

  • “The channels are not competing for the same room”

    A Tuesday room is filled by a corporate contract and a Saturday one by a leisure guest comparing properties online. Selling both through the same discounted channel is how a full weekend still loses money.

  • “Banquet is a different business and needs its own seller”

    A wedding family wants a walkthrough, a menu and an itemised quote from somebody who can agree a discount in the room. A front desk trained on room rates cannot hold that conversation.

  • “A corporate rate is won by a person with last year's numbers”

    Somebody has to sit in front of a company travel desk with the room nights their staff already spent in your property. No listing anywhere produces that account.

What we do

What we deliver for hotels.

Every deliverable, what it covers for you, and the result it is there to produce. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. A channel map with a name against each source

    Direct bookings, travel platforms, travel agents, corporate contracts and banquet set out with the person answerable for each and what each costs you per room night.

    Result: Every source of business has somebody who owns it.

  2. Room-night targets set against your own occupancy pattern

    What each channel should bring in the peak weeks and in the lean ones, worked out from what the property actually filled last year rather than from a percentage.

    Result: The sales manager knows what the team is chasing, and when.

  3. A corporate list of the travel desks worth visiting

    Companies, hospitals and training centres within reach of the property, with the person who books rooms there and the rate they are paying today.

    Result: The sales call goes out with a list instead of a guess.

  4. Banquet run as its own pipeline

    Wedding and event enquiries taken by a person who can quote, with the site visit, the menu tasting and the advance treated as separate steps.

    Result: A family that visited on Sunday hears from somebody who can give a number.

  5. A direct-booking offer the front desk can make at checkout

    A benefit worth more to the guest than a discount and less to you than the commission, offered by name at checkout and written into the record.

    Result: The guest who arrived through a platform comes back without one.

  6. Revenue by channel, counted after commission

    What each channel earned once commission, agent margin and the discount given are taken off, read against the baseline recorded before work started.

    Result: The busiest channel is judged on what it actually left behind.

How the result is measured

  • Win rate
  • Average deal size
  • Pipeline coverage against target

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

Read the full sales strategy and consulting page

Choices a sales strategy makes

Make these calls from your PMS, your banquet diary and last year's occupancy.

Which nights to sell first
Mark the nights last year that ran below what the property needs, often certain weekdays or the off-season. Point the sales manager and any package at those dates, not at weekends that fill on their own.
Which companies to approach before cold calls
Pull from the PMS the companies whose staff stayed with you on a walk-in rate. Approach those travel desks first, with the room nights they already booked, before calling companies that have never stayed.
How a banquet enquiry becomes an advance
Write the steps: enquiry, site visit, menu tasting, itemised quote, advance, contract. Check the banquet diary for families who visited and never paid an advance, and find the step where they stopped.
Who can move a rate on the spot
Agree who can change a room rate or banquet package price, and how far, before a guest asks. A desk that cannot quote a group rate loses the booking to a hotel whose desk can.
Which promotions and allotments to stop
Look at what each travel agent and platform promotion left after commission and discount. Drop promotions that fill rooms you would have sold anyway, and end allotments for agents who release them at the last minute.

Who it is for

This is written for these hotels.

  • Business and transit hotels
  • Boutique and heritage properties
  • Resort and destination hotels
  • Budget and mid-market chains
  • Banquet and wedding-focused properties
  • Serviced apartments and long-stay properties

Not for

It is not the right fit if.

  • You have no reliable record of last year's room nights by company and channel, so any strategy would be guesswork
  • The general manager will not allow a rate to be moved by anyone but themselves, and the team cannot act on a plan
  • You have no one to call companies or meet planners, and a strategy without a seller is a document

How it works

How the sales strategy work runs

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Agree the question

    We read your requirements brief and fix the decision the strategy has to answer, so the review does not drift.

  2. 2

    Read your records

    We go through sales data, quotations, lost deals and enquiry sources, and talk to the people who sell and the people who deliver.

  3. 3

    Test the findings in the market

    Segments, channels and competitors are checked against buyers outside your current customer list, including a few conversations with buyers and with those who did not buy.

  4. 4

    Draft the direction with you

    Choices are put to the owner and sales leaders before they are written up, because they hold the knowledge and have to carry it out.

  5. 5

    Write, present and hand over

    The strategy and roadmap are written, presented with the reasoning, and left with a named owner for each first action.

Proof

What happened when owners fixed this.

Real clients, the work we did, and the result as it was recorded. Where no number was recorded, none is claimed.

All case studies

  • Hotel Felicity Inn

    Situation
    A traveller compares three hotels on a phone and books one. The website was not built for that.
    What we did
    • The site rebuilt around booking
    • Photography and one look
    • Search work for destination searches
    • Content a traveller reads
    Result
    • Online bookings increased 35%
    • Organic traffic increased 50% within six months
    • Positive reviews on Google and TripAdvisor increased 30%
    Read the case study

Also worked with

Chord Road Hospital · Curtain Label · Difesa Security Services · Hands On CSR · Implevista · Kambar Group · Kalessi · Kerur Pain Clinic · LL Trust · Lucky Deals · Natural Gases · NavaShakthi Souhardha · NewCom Logistics · Proton Technical Services · SB Engineering · Shakthi Foundation · Shakthi Group · Urbanest · Insyde Studio · Venkateshwara Laser Tech · Vivara Studios

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
We have one sales manager. What should the week go on?
Corporate accounts and banquet enquiries. Both are large, both need a person in a room, and neither arrives on its own. A room booking from a travel platform needs the listing kept current, not a visit. That split goes in writing after the first conversation so it is not reargued every week.
How do we grow direct bookings without breaking rate parity?
Offer something that is not a lower rate. A late check-out, a breakfast or a room upgrade costs you less than the commission and leaves the published rate alone. Make the offer after the stay, when you already have the guest's number.
Should the owner or general manager meet corporate clients personally?
For the larger accounts, yes, at least for the first meeting. A travel manager signing a rate agreement wants to meet someone who can commit the property. After that, hand the account to the sales manager for bookings, rate questions and complaints, and bring the owner back in at renewal.
How do we plan sales around the wedding season and the lean months?
Fix wedding season banquet packages early from last year's diary and enquiries, and take advances to hold dates. Give the lean months to corporate offsites, conferences and staycation packages for local families. Train the front desk on those offers before the lean stretch starts, not once it has arrived.
How much does it cost?
There is no price list, because the work differs by business. The fee is scoped after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and put in writing before anything starts, split into our time, your media spend and production.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
It depends on the trade, the channel and what is already in place. After we have read your brief and spoken to you, we say what we would expect to move first and how it will be measured against the baseline. Nothing here is guaranteed.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
Your brief, and a conversation. After that, access to whatever this work touches, such as your website, your accounts or your enquiry record, and time with the people who handle your enquiries.
What if we are not happy with the work?
Tell us and the plan changes. Everything is reported against the baseline, so a number that is not moving is visible to both sides. The term is in your written scope, and the refund and cancellation policy sets out the rest.

From the blog

Further reading for hotels.

All articles

More for hotels

Everything else we would do for you.

Or start from the overview: sales and marketing for hotels.

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