Ray Stone, senior advisor, sales & marketing, Accor Asia Pacific, who will be speaking at the WIT Ideas Lab at ITB Asia on October 21, shares lessons he's learnt from his long career in hotel sales and marketing.

Q: You started in airlines, then you moved to hotels and there you stayed. What's more interesting about hotels versus airlines?

I felt that hotels gave me a better opportunity to move around the world. I was with an American airline, TWA, and I felt there was a limit to what I could do and where I could go. Restlessness is mostly at the heart of what I've done in my career.

Q: You've always been in sales and marketing. Often, the two are lumped together; yet they are completely different disciplines. Would you agree or disagree – sales is results, marketing is all bluff?

I agree they are different disciplines. Years ago, you went into sales,and if you get to a point when it isn't challenging enough and if you intended to diversify further, it was easier to move into marketing – if you had the capabilities, you could make progress.

It is still possible to move from sales to marketing today – this has happened in Accor with some very capable people. But, of course, marketing has become more complex – in addition to the creative and technical aspects, pricing, revenue management etc, distribution has become a whole subject on its own. The relative complexity and dynamism of the online environment has brought new opportunities of taking part in a conversation with a customer. These skills are becoming more specific and new job roles are being created – such as social media coordinators or managers.

Professional marketing is certainly not all bluff today. Customers are smart and promises not kept are not forgotten and there is an impact on the brand. Marketing budgets today have moved away from traditional media to online marketing. Not only are customers going online, but online marketing is also more quantifiable.

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