Pablo Torres on revenue, volume, value, and the keys to success in tourism

Can travel & tour­ism des­tin­a­tions learn some­thing from rev­en­ue man­agers about max­im­ising value out of any giv­en volume?

Pablo Torres par­ti­cip­ated in a Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­view. For this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, the inter­view­er Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci sum­mar­ises the high­lights. [The full tran­scripts of the Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­views are avail­able on Substack.]

Who is Pablo Torres?

Pablo Torres is a hos­pit­al­ity influ­en­cer, lec­turer, dir­ect­or, founder, and consultant. 

Start­ing out as a hotel recep­tion­ist more than 20 years ago, Mr Torres’ exper­i­ence acquired at sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al chains, and his rap­id pro­mo­tions, led him to spe­cial­ise in rev­en­ue man­age­ment in which he became expert. 

His atten­tion to detail, open­ness to dis­cus­sion, and will­ing­ness to cre­ate con­nec­tions smoothed his career path, which developed into seni­or con­sult­ing roles at the UK-based Front­line Per­form­ance Group. 

In recent years, Mr Torres has settled in the Comunit­at Valen­ciana region of Spain, where he leads the eponym­ous Torres Hos­pit­al­ity Con­sult­ing. He also foun­ded Rev­en­ue Growth, a com­munity of rev­en­ue man­age­ment professionals.

Reflect­ing his own career tra­ject­ory, and per­haps an instinct to ‘give back’, Mr Torres has a grow­ing interest in hos­pit­al­ity edu­ca­tion, train­ing, and career devel­op­ment. He serves on the tour­ism edu­ca­tion advis­ory board of the Valen­cian Busi­ness Con­fed­er­a­tion, is a lec­turer and thes­is ment­or at the Bar­celona Exec­ut­ive Busi­ness School, and is a dir­ect­or at TEDUKA, a tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity train­ing plat­form. He is also the dir­ect­or of an exec­ut­ive search firm.

Advice for young people: Learn. Travel. Dare!

For a hobby, Pablo Torres enjoys explain­ing travel and hos­pit­al­ity trends for his social media fol­low­ers. His tone is a blend of inform­al con­ver­sa­tion and learned lecture. 

Des­pite being not as digest­ible as sports high­lights or silly cat videos, interest in online edu­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment con­tent is rap­idly grow­ing. Mr Torres acknow­ledges the import­ance and poten­tial use­ful­ness of this type of con­tent and would encour­age its wide dis­sem­in­a­tion over the internet. 

How­ever, he warns young people against excess­ive inter­net use. He thinks the con­sump­tion of social media for use­less pur­poses is lead­ing to ser­i­ous forms of addic­tion, which can cloud young people’s sense of iden­tity, aspir­a­tion, and per­son­al growth. 

He says young tal­ents need to fol­low a three-step solu­tion to success: 

“Learn. Travel. Dare!”

Trending now: ‘Revenge travel’

When asked about big changes he has noticed, Pablo Torres poin­ted imme­di­ately to COVID-19 as a major cata­lyst for evolving cus­tom­er beha­viours and decision-mak­ing pro­cesses. The require­ment to stay at home for sev­er­al weeks, some­times months, made people crave move­ment, fun, and liberty. 

Lock­downs spawned a “revenge travel” trend, which Mr Torres describes as a com­pul­sion to “seize every moment, seek more exper­i­ences, and be less res­ist­ant to price increases”. This trend has con­tin­ued and shows no sign of stop­ping. It has con­trib­uted to the rap­id recov­ery of the travel, tour­ism, and hos­pit­al­ity sectors.

Don’t miss Bert van Wal­beek’s “GT” Insight: ‘A ‘year of hell’, pent-up wan­der­lust, and the super­mar­ket of beau­ti­ful places’

Revenue: The lifeblood of hospitality 

Rev­en­ue is the lifeblood for every hotel. Indeed it is the “most cru­cial aspect in every busi­ness”. But rev­en­ue man­age­ment only became a spe­cial­ist role in the late 1970s and ‘80s as hos­pit­al­ity com­pan­ies and cor­por­a­tions emerged. 

The rev­en­ue man­age­ment spe­cial­ist is now a pil­lar of a hos­pit­al­ity busi­ness since s/he has to con­trol all the rev­en­ue, check trans­ac­tions, identi­fy pain points, set pri­cing strategies, goals, and object­ives, and make real­ist­ic forecasts. 

How­ever, Mr Torres thinks that a dynam­ic evol­u­tion of this role is needed. Rev­en­ue man­agers need to have “decision-mak­ing power over the oth­er sources of income” since “the weight of ancil­lary rev­en­ue is grow­ing”. Accom­mod­a­tion rev­en­ue alone is not enough in the cur­rent exper­i­en­tial tour­ism economy!

Volume vs value for destinations

When ques­tioned about ‘over­tour­ism’, Pablo Torres focused on the import­ance of tour­ism for region­al and nation­al cof­fers: “The key is not wheth­er tour­ism is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for des­tin­a­tions, but rather [the appro­pri­ate] volume”. 

The rev­en­ue man­age­ment expert believes that the more the tar­get trav­el­ler is low-cost, the great­er like­li­hood of gen­er­at­ing “binge vis­it­ing” with high volumes. If a des­tin­a­tion were to repos­i­tion itself for lux­ury cli­ents, the bet­ter the tour­ism outcomes. 

How­ever, rising wealth and travel aspir­a­tions in pop­u­lous coun­tries like India and China cor­res­pond to a threat to des­tin­a­tions … if there is mis­man­age­ment. The key to suc­cess, accord­ing to Mr Torres, is to always man­age volume for value to pre­vent des­tin­a­tion sat­ur­a­tion and to main­tain socio-eco­nom­ic sustainability. 

Public-private collaboration 

Pablo Torres says pub­lic and private entit­ies need to col­lab­or­ate to ensure prof­it­able and sus­tain­able out­comes for their des­tin­a­tion. In this regard, the EU’s Next Gen­er­a­tion Funds alloc­ated to tour­ism could be very use­ful. How­ever, con­tinu­al dia­logue is import­ant since recon­cil­ing opin­ions increases the chances of cor­rectly alloc­at­ing funds. 

Entre­pren­eurs espe­cially need to be heard more often since “a country’s wealth is gen­er­ated by its entre­pren­eurs”. Entre­pren­eurs risk their own cap­it­al to cre­ate new “busi­nesses that gen­er­ate employ­ment and taxes”.

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About the author

Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci stud­ied inter­na­tion­al tour­ism & leis­ure at Uni­versità di Bologna, Italy and sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment at Aal­borg Uni­ver­sity, Den­mark.

Cur­rently work­ing as a com­mer­cial assist­ant with VDB Lux­ury Prop­er­ties in Bar­celona, Spain, the quad­ri­lin­gual Itali­an is inter­ested in des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment, the exper­i­ence eco­nomy, and cus­tom­er care, and has a pas­sion for social sus­tain­ab­il­ity, remote tour­ism, and co-creation.

About the Tourism’s Horizon Interviews

“Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner Tourism’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions, in col­lab­or­a­tion with “GT”, has sought the can­did views of well-known and respec­ted experts on tourism’s past, present, and future. 

The Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­views involves Jim Butcher, Vil­helmi­ina Vain­ikka, Peter Smith, Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci, Dav­id Jar­ratt, and Sudip­ta Sarkar as inter­view­ers. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog will pub­lish their high­lights and com­ment­ary as “GT” Insights. 

Read the full tran­scripts of each inter­view on Tourism’s Horizon’s substack.

Featured image (top of post)

Por­trait of Pablo Torres with the quote: “Learn. Travel. Dare!”

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