As an entrepreneur, it is important to maintain professional skills and keep track of what is happening in the industry. At one time, I couldn't find Revenue management, let alone industry technology, discussions on HoReCa, or tourism industry events in Finland, so I participated in industry events abroad.

The events were interesting – sometimes I came across a couple of other Finns at events – with participation and travel expenses, the events are valuable investments to maintain competence. I was frustrated when this huge amount of information and advanced and mature technology solutions of these events were not seen at the events in Finland.

 At the same time, the paucity of these important topics that promote business productivity and the absence of industry events in Finland surprised me. I offered to tell a few words about revenue management, but the topic has not been interesting or suitable for the themes of our domestic events. After a few years of wondering why "someone" doesn't organize an event on these subjects in Finland – I decided to be that "someone". In particular, the following two reasons led to the final decision:

1. In 2017, Cornell Hospitality Report published "The Future of Hotel Revenue Management" by Sheryl E. Kimes, which revealed that revenue management had not progressed globally as I had imagined. Total Revenue Management (TRM) was still on the "future list". It went without saying that TRM is at the heart of my event – there is information on the subject for decades, you just have to make the decision to start and resource the measures. The start-up costs in comprehensive profit management will bear fruits for years to come.
2. Growth forecasts for global tourism. At various events, I followed the tourism growth forecasts for 2030 and beoyond, which were staggering. It was 2016-2017 – this growth would certainly also apply to the development of international tourism in Finland. In those days, some of the good and well-known services in Finland had shortcomings, for example in digitalization and revenue management, which includes among others dynamic and customer-oriented pricing as well as digital marketing and distribution channels. Of course, Visit Finland already promoted the digital leap at that time, but I felt that our industry would also benefit from taking advantage of the solutions to established issues that had already been resolved. Knowledge-based management of tourism, which is at the core of revenue management, has since entered development projects alongside digitalisation and sustainable tourism.

It doesn't make sense to take all Finnish travel companies to international events - we deserve our own focused event in Finland, don't we? This is also what the pioneers of our industry have stated by participating in the previous Nordic Revenue Forum events.

"A lot of information and things to apply to your own needs" Participant Nordic Revenue Forum 2019.

Why should you come to the event even though you have been in the industry for a long time?

Year after year, I understand better that our industry is one of the most challenging to lead and to create a seamless customer experience – dozens of details must go right and at the right time – advances in technology bring new opportunities all the time and current and future trends can bring new perspectives for business and service development – sometimes it's just good to recap what you've already forgotten over the years. Our partners are industry leaders globally – they have the resources to research and develop their services far beyond each individual company – and they also have knowledge of industry trends around the world and are willing to share that knowledge with us. In addition to the speeches, the best things for me are the discussions with other participants and partners. The discussions always which give me new perspectives and ideas even on familiar issues. Of course, the outcome of the event depends on the background and experience of the participant.

"The event was really successful. It's great to have something like this happening."  Participant Nordic Revenue Forum 2019.

The original goal in 2018 was to organize an event in Finnish in Finland, but it soon became clear that the leading solutions and the latest trend information were held by the international partners. I try to include domestic solutions whenever possible. With event arrangements taking up more time than you envision beforehand – I usually fail to mention about my own services meaning - what I do for the remaining 230 working days of the year!

Dozens of my days are spent organizing the event and discussions with partners, the rest of the days are spent either in promoting the daily monitoring of market demand in tourism, representing the Benchmarking Alliance and Visit Finland MyReputationMonitor services in Finland. To keep up with the industry news, operating environment, and trends I started collecting them on the travelnews.fi -website (maybe these compiled industry news are useful for others as well). Additionally I offer group coaching in revenue management, knowledge management, and digitalisation, as one of the Visit Finland Academy coaches. The remaining days in my diary are filled with company-specific coaching and sparring according to the value creation model of revenue management or with supervoimat.net alliance's knowledge-based management projects for private companies, associations and DMOs - in the end, these are all areas of comprehensive strategic and tactical revenue management.

 *Original text in Finnish.

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