Bridging the Disconnect: Rethinking Structure, Strategy, and AI in Hotel Commercial Teams
As the hospitality industry navigates increasing complexity in both technology and guest expectations, the ability to connect strategy across departments has never been more critical. Few understand this intersection as clearly as Vladislav Valiček, Strategic Management Advisor for Future-Ready Business Organisations whose work sits at the crossroads of revenue, marketing, and digital transformation. With deep experience in aligning commercial outcomes with operational design, he brings a systems-level perspective to some of the sector’s most persistent challenges.
In this article, Vladislav explores the structural disconnects between IT, marketing, and revenue teams and why fixing them requires more than better tools. From rethinking digital transformation as a cultural shift to seeing AI not just as automation but as organisational intelligence, their insights offer a forward-looking framework for hotel leaders ready to embrace orchestration over fragmentation.
Where do you see the biggest disconnect today between IT, marketing, and revenue teams in hotels—and what’s the first thing that needs to change?
The biggest disconnect is structural. IT, marketing, and revenue teams each operate within their own digital portfolios, but these portfolios are designed and managed in isolation. IT is often excluded from understanding the logic behind marketing or revenue strategies, which means they cannot meaningfully contribute at the business layer. They are left maintaining infrastructure without knowing how it is actually being used.
The same disconnect exists between marketing and revenue. Both run campaign-based models, whether pricing strategies or digital ads, but those campaigns are not linked by any shared operational architecture. There is no unified flow. Each team is working toward its own KPIs in its own queue, even though the ultimate goal is the same: generate demand and optimize profit.
The first thing that needs to change is how we see the structure itself. This is not about fixing a dashboard or improving inter-team communication. It is a design problem. Alignment cannot be solved purely through better software. It requires a cultural and strategic shift, rethinking how we collaborate, how we define success together, and how we structure internal systems to support shared objectives.
If there is no strategy for alignment between marketing and revenue or between IT and commercial teams, no amount of operational patching will fix the fragmentation.
With tech stacks growing more complex, how can hotels avoid data silos and create one unified source of truth that actually supports smarter revenue decisions?
While tech stacks are growing in complexity, the deeper issue is the internal fragmentation within each stack. We are not just dealing with silos between departments. We are now facing silos inside individual functions.
Take revenue management. Most hotels have RMS tools, yet revenue managers still rely heavily on Excel workarounds. This shows us that the real issue is not just data integration. It is the disconnect between strategy and execution, even within a single department.
For years, the industry has talked about data lakes as a solution. But in practice, many turned into dumping grounds, centralized warehouses filled with data, disconnected from action. They never solved the core challenge.
Now we have a new possibility. AI has matured to the point where it can help structure data and surface misalignments, not just between teams but within them. Fragmentation in the data layer reflects fragmentation in how we work. If we try to fix the data without fixing the working logic behind it, the problem will persist.
So yes, data lakes are still relevant, but only if paired with an AI strategy that makes meaning from the data. AI can now hold the operational intent across departments and reveal where alignment breaks down. The goal is not just integration. It is orchestration. Once that is in place, the applications themselves become easier to manage and much more effective.
Digital marketing often runs on different KPIs than revenue management. In your view, what practical tools or approaches can bridge this gap and align goals?
Marketing and revenue teams may look like they are running in parallel, but they are actually fragments of the same process. The issue is not that their KPIs are different. It is that there is no shared logic connecting those KPIs into one coherent flow.
Both sets of KPIs (clicks, impressions…), ADR, RevPAR are fragments of a bigger question:
Did the guest who saw us become the guest who stayed with us, and how much value did we realize from that intent?
This flow includes:
Visibility: Did the guest see us? (Marketing)
Engagement: Did they take action or interact meaningfully?
Intent fulfillment: Did we offer what they were looking for?
Commercial outcome: How much value did we generate per realization of that intent? (Revenue)
The key connector here is guest intent realization. If we track that as the common thread, both marketing and revenue metrics stop being isolated indicators. They become markers of how well we supported guest intent across the journey.
Practically, this means shifting how we build dashboards and how we structure collaboration. Instead of separating marketing and revenue views, we need guest-centric systems that track performance across the arc of intent. Tools like:
Real-time attribution modeling
Guest profiling and segmentation engines
AI-enhanced journey mapping
Cross-functional conversion analysis
But more than tools, this requires cultural change. Teams need to stop defending their KPIs in isolation and start building narratives together. We move from parallel execution to shared orchestration.
Only then do we begin optimizing not just for cost-per-click or ADR, but for something deeper: how fully we translated guest intent into mutual value.
Many hotels still treat digital transformation as an isolated IT project. What’s your take on how IT can become a strategic partner in driving commercial outcomes?
We have been talking about digital transformation for years, but rarely ask the essential question: what exactly are we transforming into?
Too often, digital transformation becomes a goal in itself, detached from business purpose. IT is tasked with executing systems, maintaining infrastructure, and now somehow driving innovation too. It is unrealistic and unsustainable.
The truth is, transformation is not technical. It is cognitive.
It is not about tools. It is about how people understand their systems and roles. And that is where the real gap lies.
In Croatia, we do not have a technology problem. We have a comprehension problem.
International chains only have a 10 to 20 percent edge in comprehension, but that edge is structured. It is reinforced through onboarding, cross-functional roles, and alignment playbooks. That small edge creates huge advantages in execution.
In Croatia, we often learn through survival and improvisation. That leads to fragmented outcomes. Even when we adopt the same tools, we do not see the same results.
That is why the next shift is not about reconfiguring IT. It is about creating a new organizational layer, a function that holds business logic, drives AI adoption, connects departments, and maps operational workflows. Not a one-time transformation office, but a permanent orchestration layer.
IT will remain essential in maintaining systems and stability. But real transformation belongs to those who can build shared comprehension, translate it into execution, and evolve it continuously through AI.
Looking ahead, how should hotel leaders think about AI and automation—not just as efficiency tools, but as catalysts for cross-functional collaboration and profit growth?
AI is not just a tool. It is a medium, a space where organizational memory, procedures, and exceptions can live, evolve, and be shared.
Let us make it tangible. Imagine your best receptionist with ten years of experience, countless guest interactions and deep operational intuition. Now imagine that knowledge, instead of being locked in their mind, is captured, structured, and connected across your sales, reputation, and OTA data. That is what AI can do.
Yes, there is hype, mostly driven by vendors selling AI agents. Some of those agents are valuable. But AI is not a magic box you plug in. It is not about AGI or some distant leap. The real shift is already here: it is how we embed AI into the way we understand ourselves.
Hotel leaders need to see AI as the space where your business logic lives. A space that your team continuously feeds with real explanations of how they work, why they do things a certain way, and what is changing. That requires honesty, reflection, and a willingness to evolve.
So when someone pitches you an AI tool, ask:
Will it impact EBITDA?
Will it reduce operational burden?
Will it support how your teams learn, adapt, and improve?
The best systems today do not just automate. They help you simulate, reflect, and orchestrate how work gets done. That is when AI becomes transformational. Not as efficiency, but as a living system through which your organization understands itself and grows.