Chris Anderson is a professor at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration. Prior to his appointment in 2006, he was on the faculty at the Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario, Canada. Professor Anderson’s main research focus is on revenue management and service pricing. He actively works in the application and development of revenue management across numerous industry types, including hotels, airlines, and rental car and tour companies, as well as numerous consumer packaged goods and financial services firms. Professor Anderson’s research has been funded by numerous governmental agencies and industrial partners. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management and is the regional editor for the International Journal of Revenue Management. At the Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Professor Anderson teaches courses in revenue management and service operations management.

Hotel Revenue Management and Pricing OptimizationImmersion Program
Overview
Increasing hotel sales and profits requires a comprehensive revenue management strategy that includes creating and managing customer demand and establishing a marketing strategy built around rigorous control systems. Doing this better than the other players in the market will produce a clear, competitive yield advantage.
This on-campus certificate program at Cornell University’s world-renowned Nolan School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, New York, builds on fundamental principles of pricing and revenue management to give you advanced tools and techniques to make strategic hotel pricing decisions, set inventory controls, and drive overall organizational performance.
Over the course of four days, you’ll work with faculty experts and hospitality professionals from around the globe to further explore hospitality strategic leadership via hands-on activities, interactive case studies, and team assignments. You’ll have the opportunity to run a competitive revenue management and pricing simulation that will enable you to test your skills and knowledge, apply new tools to today’s revenue management challenges, and discover new approaches to maximizing profit versus revenue. By the end of the program, you will gain new skills and best practices, as well as a powerful network of international colleagues.
This certificate program is part of the Anheuser-Busch Professional Development Program (PDP) at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. First launched in 1928, this world-renowned executive program has welcomed hospitality professionals from around the globe for over 90 years. For additional information, please review Frequently Asked Questions about the program, including information about traveling to Cornell and information for European students on applying to the Leif Torne Scholarship.
Daily Schedule
- 7:30am - 8:30am: Networking and continental breakfast
- 8:30am – 12:30pm: Class
- 12:30pm – 13:30pm: Buffet networking lunch
- 13:30pm - 17:00pm: Class
- Evening: Individual or group assignments, networking
Special Program Events
- June 13, 2022
- 17:00pm - 18:30pm: Networking Reception
- June 16, 2022
- 16:30pm - 17:00pm: Certificate Presentations and Program Wrap-up
*If it is not possible to travel to the Cornell campus due to COVID-19 restrictions, you will have the option to transfer to a future date or receive a refund.
Strategic and Competitive Pricing
Dave Roberts
Revenue management has historically been focused inward; you’ve likely used historical transaction data to generate a forecast and manage prices and inventory. As information has become more readily available, you need the ability to more directly model and take into account the pricing and inventory actions of your competitors when contemplating revenue management decisions. In this intensive session, you’ll take a strategic and competitive look at revenue management and pricing decisions, focusing on understanding the reactions of others as well as how to use today’s tools to make pricing and inventory decisions to drive profitable revenue. Using a strategic pricing simulation, you’ll develop an understanding of the interplay between pricing and digital marketing in competitive markets and refocus your efforts on profit versus revenue.
Driving Profit Through Performance and Demand Management
Chris Anderson
Defining the “revenue performance” of a hotel has traditionally involved a series of benchmarking approaches like comparisons to last year; budget; forecast; and, of course, the competitive set. As the discipline evolves, performance metrics need to evolve as well. Metrics such as RevPAR Index will likely remain crucial for the foreseeable future. That said, the role of revenue management is to make tactical and strategic decisions to further the goals of a hotel or set of hotels, and these goals extend far beyond revenue maximization; in fact, some of these goals are actually counter to revenue maximization. In this session, you’ll examine the often-competing goals of customer acquisition, customer retention, engagement and loyalty, channel choice, and the corresponding revenue management approaches. You’ll also examine a “balanced scorecard” approach, which presents a much more comprehensive assessment of revenue performance. You’ll leave equipped with the tools to excel in today’s more active revenue management environment.
How It Works
Program Dates
Location
Ithaca, NY
Class Size
What's Included
Program Dates
Location
Ithaca, NY
Class Size
What's Included
Faculty Authors
Dave Roberts retired from Marriott in 2019, after 23 years with the company. Most recently, he was the Senior Vice President of Revenue Strategy and Solutions; in this role, he was responsible for revenue management strategy and execution for around 7,000 hotels worldwide. He also led revenue analytics, providing top-line analysis for the company, as well as sales systems, providing strategy, development, and deployment of technology to manage meeting and event business. Prior to this role, he led consumer insights, providing consumer research and analytics for regional and corporate stakeholders. Mr. Roberts has also been Regional Vice President of Market Strategy for Marriott’s Eastern Region as well as Vice President of Global Pricing, in addition to several other roles in the company.
Prior to Marriott, Mr. Roberts was a manager in the Finance Department at American Airlines, working on airplane purchases and route economics. He was also a technical consultant on missile defense for the U.S. Department of Defense, as part of the “Star Wars” initiative. Mr. Roberts has a B.S. and an M.S. in Operations Research from Cornell University, as well as an MBA with majors in Finance and Economics from Northwestern’s Kellogg School. He holds a U.S. patent on a software product (a “data matching” algorithm) and has published several academic papers on such topics as forecasting, options pricing, and customer choice modeling. Mr. Roberts was on IBM’s Business Analytics Advisory Board for six years and on Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research Advisory Board for five years. He has been a frequent speaker at industry events as well as several top universities. In his spare time, Mr. Roberts enjoys martial arts and astronomy.
Key Course Takeaways
- Employ a strategic and proactive approach to pricing decisions
- Anticipate the reactions of your competitors regarding price changes
- Convey an understanding between transient revenue management and negotiated selling
- Recognize the role of online channels and the opportunities they provide in demand creation and management
- Examine the fundamentals of competitive pricing
- Use segmentation to devise effective revenue management and distribution strategies
- Analyze the moderating role of digital marketing in low-demand environments
- Utilize today’s forward-looking demand signals


What You'll Earn
- Hotel Revenue Management and Pricing Optimization Certificate from the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration
- 32 Professional Development Hours (3.2 CEUs)
Watch the Video
Who Should Enroll
- General managers
- Revenue managers
- Marketing managers
- Hospitality professionals who are responsible for financial performance

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