Why Hotel Sales Teams Only Spend 30% of Their Time Selling – And How to Fix It

In a perfect world, hotel sales teams would spend their days doing what they do best—building relationships, closing deals, and growing revenue. But in reality, they only spend 30% of their time actually selling.

According to Salesforce’s State of Sales report, the remaining 70% is swallowed up by admin work, data entry, internal processes, and chasing down approvals. For hospitality sales teams—especially those managing groups, meetings, and events—this rings painfully true.

So, where does all the time go? More importantly, how can hotels and venues reclaim it?

Let’s dig into what’s holding sales teams back—and how forward-thinking hospitality businesses are transforming their commercial operations to fix it.

What’s eating up sales time in hospitality?

Hospitality is a high-touch, high-expectation industry. But too often, sales teams are caught in the weeds of manual tasks that take them away from what matters most: the guest.

Here’s how the average sales manager’s time breaks down, according to the Salesforce study:

• 12% meeting in-person with customers
• 10% generating quotes/proposals and gaining approvals
• 9% manually entering customer and sales data
• 9% administrative tasks (like reports and internal docs)
• 9% internal meetings and trainings
• 9% researching prospects
• 9% planning and prep
• 9% connecting virtually with customers
• 8% prioritizing leads and opportunities
• 8% downtime
• 8% prospecting

That’s only 3 hours a day spent selling, if you're lucky.

In hotels, this inefficiency is amplified. Here’s why:

• Disconnected systems: Sales data, room block info, BEOs, and contracts live in separate tools (or worse, spreadsheets).
• Inconsistent documents: Many use templates for proposals and contracts, but it’s often up to the sales team to find the right version and make manual edits—slowing them down and increasing the risk of errors.
• Fragmented tools: Some teams use separate tools for proposals, but still rely on manual processes for contracts and resumes—leading to inconsistent workflows and duplicated effort.
• Slow internal collaboration: Approvals require back-and-forth across departments, delaying responses to leads.
• No unified sales process: Without automation or workflows, every sales rep manages their own process.

The result? Slower sales cycles, lower conversion rates, missed revenue opportunities—and frustrated teams.

Why hospitality sales teams are still stuck in the past

Despite rapid innovation in other industries, many hotel sales departments are still using outdated tools or legacy software that was never designed for the complexity of hospitality.

The reality is:

• A team might still be tracking pickups in Excel.
• Proposals often require extensive manual updates and lack consistency across team members.
• Deposit requests require manual coordination with finance.
• Sales data lives in multiple systems with no single source of truth.
• Reporting is a time-consuming, error-prone task.

This isn’t just inconvenient—it’s expensive. Every hour spent on admin is an hour not spent selling. And when you're managing large group bookings, RFPs, and event leads, speed matters.

How to reclaim selling time with the right tech stack

The good news? There’s a better way.

Hotels and venues that embrace a modern, connected Hospitality Commercial Platform can reclaim hours of sales time each week—not by replacing staff, but by empowering them.

With the right sales automation in place, teams get time back to focus on what truly matters: building relationships, closing deals, and driving revenue.

Here’s how platforms like Thynk are making that possible:

Centralized, clean sales data

No more digging through emails, spreadsheets, or disconnected systems. Thynk integrates with your PMS and other tools to centralize guest, account, and all booking data—giving your team a single source of truth that’s always clean, current, and ready to use. No more duplicated entries or outdated info slowing you down.

Fast, automated document generation

Generate branded proposals, contracts, and group resumes in seconds. Thynk auto-fills templates with live data, supports multiple languages, and can be exported—so your team spends less time formatting and more time selling, with fewer errors along the way.

Room block & pickup management in one view

Easily manage agreed, blocked, picked-up, and forecasted rooms from a single screen. Thynk syncs update directly with your PMS, eliminating double entry and giving your sales and operations teams real-time visibility into room status—every step of the way.

Automated workflows & approvals

Say goodbye to internal bottlenecks. Thynk routes tasks, reminders, and approvals automatically, so your team can move quickly and stay aligned. No more chasing down signatures or getting stuck in email threads—just faster response times and smoother collaboration.

Built-in reporting & forecasting

Sales teams get real-time insights into sales performance, contribution by team members, booking pace, and revenue by segment. With Thynk’s dashboards and reports, you get instant visibility without manual data pulls or spreadsheet wrangling.

These aren’t just time-savers—they’re performance boosters. Sales teams with the right tools respond faster, close more business, and create better guest experiences.

A week in the life of a hotel sales manager – with vs. without Thynk

Ready to boost sales productivity in your hotel?

If your sales team spends more time copying and pasting than closing deals, you’re not alone. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

With Thynk you can finally break free from inefficient processes and give your teams the tools they need to sell smarter—not harder.