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A bstr act The objective of this study is to explore how social media strategies can be integrated with the function of revenue management. A survey was used to evaluate the extent to which some travel firms use/perceive social media. This study explores possible synergy between the time spent developing social media channels and the opportunities these might generate for travel firms active in the application of revenue management tactics. This has lead to the recommendation of new practices that could potentially enhance future revenue and profit. The present study identifies that travel firms can build opportunities to capture additional revenues by focusing on building engaging and useful content for customers. The travel industry is just beginning to embrace the need to combine public relations (PR) activities with new marketing approaches that must engage, rather that use interruption and coercion to generate sales. As engagement of the public with social media grows, it is evident that this will have implications for revenue management approaches, in the same way that approaches to PR and marketing have needed to evolve with the growth in online interaction between consumers. A shift in strategic outlook may enhance the ability of travel companies to sell valued products, improve customer relationships and increase their bottom-line; hence it becomes even more important for such organizations to ensure they have a solid social media strategy. I NT RODUCT I ON This study aims to provide recommendations for integration of social media usage with revenue management strategies. To shed light on the field of study, social media applications have been assessed as consumer influencers, and tools to capitalise on consumer creativity. An exploratory survey of 36 travel professionals has provided a glimpse into how social media tools are perceived in range of travel organizations. Social Media (SM) represents a growing trend of interest to most businesses, as its usage is not limited to a particular generation (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The growth of SM usage was initially enabled by the launch of Web 2.0 that brought openness and technology democratization through two-way communi cati on. Thi s empowered consumers to search, browse, l earn, buy and contribute knowledge in a transparent, social way. "Social search is based on the premise that the bulk of relevant human knowledge -particularly the community-based, user-generated knowledge K ate Var ini Senior Lecturer, that is highly valued by individual searchers -resides with people and not in the mathematical algorithms associated with normal internet searching" (Drury, 2008).Online shopping has grown very quickly and dominant sales have been for products like leisure and travel, books and CD's, apparel, groceries and consumer electronics. Number of online shoppers are most significant in the UK, Germany and France. Ecommerce opportunities lie in using SM to bypass i ntermediari es and, reduce cost of search engine optimi zati on vi a the introduction of a greater...

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PurposeRevenue management has grown in popularity and is now a widely accepted discipline that has brought about significant improvements to businesses worldwide. With globalisation in recent times, there is now space for international hotels, fast food restaurants, automobile companies and other brands to offer their products in India. Educating people who are going to be part of such a process is a huge challenge. The aim of this paper is to present some of the challenges businesses and communities have to overcome.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses secondary sources to explore possible approaches to rapidly stimulate the uptake of revenue management through partnerships between hospitality and tourism businesses.FindingsA growing middle class population and access to better education presents an opportunity to build a wider range of profitable services. Global brands with already established revenue management practices are in a position to share skills and knowledge with new and smaller players. Partnerships will be essential to rapidly and effectively develop the skills and knowledge required, starting with those in educational fields where the resources are already in place.Originality/valueRevenue management has not been deployed widely in India. Being able to learn from the early adopters would allow Indian firms to leapfrog over issues and barriers, thus implementing practices more rapidly and effectively.