Certificate in Sales (Hospitality)
Available 15th August 2026
Turn hotel sales knowledge into results—win business and grow accounts with confidence.
Hotel sales has changed. Today’s hotel sales professionals need more than strong relationship skills. They must understand customer behaviour, market segments, competitor activity, commercial strategy, negotiation, technology and the different ways that corporate, group and leisure business is contracted.
The HSMAI Certificate in Sales (Hospitality) provides a practical, industry-specific learning pathway for hotel sales professionals who want to build stronger commercial capabilities and achieve better results.
Through a combination of eight core courses and two elective courses, participants will develop the knowledge and skills needed to understand buyers, identify opportunities, communicate value, present compelling hotel solutions, negotiate effectively and build profitable customer relationships.
The programme is designed specifically for the hospitality industry, using relevant hotel examples, sales scenarios, practical tools and activities that participants can apply in their roles immediately.
STUDY ANYWHERE, ANYTIME
DEVELOPED BY HOTELIERS
HANDS ON LEARNING
How the Certificate Works
- To earn the HSMAI Certificate in Sales (Hospitality), participants must successfully complete:
- Eight Core courses
- Two Elective courses
Participants complete a total of 10 courses, allowing them to build essential hotel sales capabilities while selecting optional courses that best suit their role, market and career goals.
Course Pricing
- HSMAI Members pay only US$400 for the 10-course program, a saving of US$150
- Non-members pay only US$550 for the 10-course program
Once you sign up, the course materials are available to you for 12 months. Upon completion of the course, you will earn a Certificate in Sales (Hospitality).
Register Your Interest
Program Content
CORE COURSES
*All eight core courses are required.
Build a strong foundation in the principles and practices of professional hotel sales.
This course introduces the role of sales within a hotel’s broader commercial strategy and explores how hotel sales has evolved. Participants will learn about the hotel sales process, ethical selling, productivity tools, professional image and personal branding.
By the end of the course, participants will understand the fundamental skills, behaviours and processes required to succeed in a hotel sales role.
Key topics include:
- The role and evolution of hotel sales
- Ethical selling and building customer trust
- The hotel sales process
- Sales tools and systems that improve productivity
- Professional image and personal brand
The skills and behaviours of successful hotel sales professionals
Understand how travellers and meeting planners search for, evaluate and select hotels.
This course explores the customer journey from initial inspiration and research through to booking and the guest experience. Participants will examine how different types of customers shop for accommodation, which factors influence their decisions and how intermediaries, travel agents, meeting planners and loyalty programmes affect hotel selection.
Understanding the booking journey helps sales professionals communicate more effectively, remove barriers to purchase and position their hotel at the right stage of the customer decision-making process.
Key topics include:
- How customers search for accommodation
- The stages of the guest booking journey
- Factors that influence hotel selection
- The role of travel agents and other intermediaries
- How meeting planners evaluate venues
- Hotel loyalty programmes and their influence on booking behaviour
- How loyalty programmes support revenue and customer retention
Improve sales performance by understanding what hotel buyers need, value and expect.
This course helps participants move beyond simply presenting hotel features and instead focus on identifying the buyer’s real priorities, challenges and decision criteria.
Participants will learn how to ask effective questions, listen actively, uncover stated and unstated needs and build stronger customer relationships. The course also introduces key psychological factors that influence buying decisions.
Key topics include:
- Understanding different types of hotel buyers
- Identifying customer needs and priorities
- Asking effective sales questions
- Active listening techniques
- Building trust and long-term relationships
- Recognising emotional and rational buying motivations
- Connecting customer needs to relevant hotel solutions
Create persuasive proposals and presentations that demonstrate value and inspire action.
This course teaches participants how to transform hotel information into compelling sales solutions. Rather than relying on generic presentations or long lists of features, participants will learn how to develop a clear sales narrative that connects the hotel’s offering to the buyer’s goals.
The course covers proposal development, storytelling, presentation structure, visual communication and virtual presentation techniques.
Key topics include:
- Preparing effective hotel sales proposals
- Structuring persuasive sales presentations
- Presenting benefits rather than features
- Using storytelling and sales narratives
- Demonstrating value and return on investment
- Avoiding common presentation mistakes
- Delivering engaging in-person presentations
- Mastering virtual sales presentations
Understand how hotels divide, analyse and manage different sources of business.
This course introduces the principles of market segmentation and explains how hotels classify customers according to their needs, booking behaviour, purpose of travel and commercial value.
Participants will explore the difference between a market segment and a distribution channel and learn how segmentation supports pricing, forecasting, sales planning and commercial decision-making.
Key topics include:
- What market segmentation is
- Why hotels segment their business
- Common hotel market segments
- Corporate, group, events, wholesale, leisure and retail business
- The difference between a segment and a channel
- How customer behaviour differs by segment and channel
- Using segmentation to identify opportunities
- Segments, channels and personalised offers
- How segmentation supports revenue and sales strategy
Negotiate confidently, respond to buyer concerns and move opportunities towards a successful close.
This course provides a practical introduction to hotel sales negotiation. Participants will learn how to prepare for a negotiation, identify objectives, understand the stages of the negotiation process and protect the value of the hotel’s offering.
The course also explores common buyer tactics and objections, providing practical techniques for responding without discounting unnecessarily or damaging the customer relationship.
Key topics include:
- Preparing for a sales negotiation
- Setting objectives and identifying priorities
- Understanding the stages of negotiation
- Five essential negotiation techniques
- Responding to common buyer tactics
- Protecting value while offering concessions
- Recognising and overcoming sales objections
- Avoiding common objection-handling mistakes
- Identifying buying signals
- Closing the sale and confirming next steps
Use market knowledge and competitor insights to identify opportunities and position your hotel more effectively.
This course teaches participants how to understand their competitive landscape, gather useful market intelligence and turn information into sales action.
Participants will learn practical techniques for researching competitors, monitoring market demand, benchmarking guest satisfaction and identifying opportunities by customer segment.
Key topics include:
- Defining your hotel’s market
- Identifying an appropriate competitive set
- Analysing competitors by customer segment
- Conducting a competitor scan
- Gathering intelligence from online and offline sources
- Monitoring market trends and demand generators
- Benchmarking guest satisfaction and reputation
- Identifying competitive strengths and weaknesses
- Positioning your hotel against competitors
- Turning market intelligence into sales opportunities
Focus sales resources on the accounts and opportunities that offer the greatest commercial value.
This course provides a structured approach to managing hotel accounts, protecting existing business and growing customer value.
Participants will learn how to assess the potential of each account, prioritise sales activity, understand share of wallet and create strategic account plans that support retention, development and new business acquisition.
Key topics include:
- Maintaining, developing and replacing accounts
- Understanding account value and potential
- Creating an Account Value Matrix
- Avoiding low-value or unproductive sales activity
- Understanding share of wallet
- Developing strategic account plans
- Setting account objectives and actions
- Conducting effective account reviews
- Identifying opportunities to grow existing accounts
- Customer retention strategies
- Aligning account plans with hotel sales goals
ELECTIVE COURSES
*Participants select four elective courses.
Develop the communication skills needed to build trust, strengthen relationships and achieve better sales outcomes.
This course explores how hotel sales professionals can adapt their communication to different audiences, situations and communication channels. Participants will learn how to communicate clearly with customers, colleagues and operational teams while ensuring that customer expectations are understood and delivered.
Key topics include:
- Understanding your audience
- Adapting your communication style
- Building rapport and trust
- Communicating value clearly
- Written, verbal and digital communication
- Internal communication and handovers
- Managing difficult conversations
- Connecting customer needs to the right solution
Give hotel salespeople the information, tools, content and support they need to sell effectively.
Sales enablement ensures that sales professionals can quickly access accurate, relevant and persuasive information throughout the sales process.
This course is designed for sales leaders, commercial leaders and team members responsible for improving sales productivity. Participants will learn how to create a practical sales enablement system that supports consistent messaging, faster responses and stronger customer presentations.
Key topics include:
- What sales enablement means in a hotel environment
- Sales content, tools and technology
- Hotel fact sheets, brochures, images and video
- Room, venue and product descriptions
- Presentations, templates and proposal resources
- Sales processes and response standards
- Battle cards and competitor information
- Training and coaching resources
- Keeping sales content accurate and accessible
Build a proactive prospecting mindset and develop the skills to find and win new hotel business.
Sales Hunters play an essential role in identifying new customers and creating demand rather than waiting for enquiries to arrive.
This course introduces practical strategies for prospecting, researching potential customers, starting sales conversations and maintaining momentum throughout the business development process.
Key topics include:
- The role and mindset of a Sales Hunter
- Identifying high-potential prospects
- Researching companies and contacts
- Building a prospecting plan
- Using LinkedIn and digital tools
- Networking and referral strategies
- Writing effective prospecting messages
- Cold calling with confidence
- Building relationships with new prospects
- Managing follow-up activity
- Turning prospects into qualified opportunities
- Using AI to support sales prospecting
Build a practical understanding of corporate, group and contracted hotel business.
This course provides hotel sales and revenue professionals with an essential foundation in selling and managing business travel, group bookings and negotiated contracts.
Participants will learn how different types of contracted business operate, how to sell effectively to corporate and group buyers and how commercial terms, concessions and displacement decisions affect hotel profitability.
Key topics include:
- Understanding corporate and business travel segments
- Understanding group and event business
- Selling to corporate travel buyers
- Selling to meeting and event planners
- Contracted and negotiated hotel rates
- Key clauses in hotel sales contracts
- Commissions, concessions and inclusions
- Evaluating the cost of concessions
- The impact of concessions on revenue and average daily rate
- Working with revenue management
- Understanding displacement analysis
- Evaluating whether to accept group business
Build stronger relationships and communicate more effectively with customers and colleagues from different cultural backgrounds.
Hotel sales professionals regularly work across cultures, countries and communication styles. This course introduces common cultural differences that can influence communication, relationship-building, negotiation and decision-making.
Participants will learn how to recognise different cultural preferences and adapt their approach without relying on stereotypes.
Key topics include:
- Understanding cultural awareness
- Recognising different communication styles
- Direct and indirect communication
- Relationship-focused and task-focused cultures
- Attitudes towards hierarchy and authority
- Different approaches to time and deadlines
- Cultural influences on negotiation
- Adapting meetings and presentations
- Avoiding assumptions and stereotypes
- Building trust across cultures
Understand the psychology behind customer decisions and build the resilience needed for a successful sales career.
This course explores the human behaviours and psychological factors that influence sales conversations and buying decisions.
Participants will learn how to recognise personality styles, interpret non-verbal communication and apply practical behavioural insights ethically. The course also addresses the personal side of sales, including managing stress, rejection and confidence.
Key topics include:
- Psychological influences on buying behaviour
- Emotional and rational decision-making
- Common purchasing motivations
- Understanding different buyer personality styles
- Adapting your sales approach by personality type
- Reading body language and non-verbal signals
- Building rapport and trust
- Using psychological techniques ethically
- Managing sales-related stress
- Responding positively to rejection
- Building confidence and resilience
Understand how to evaluate, negotiate and manage leisure contracts that support profitable hotel business.
This course introduces the fundamentals of contracting with wholesalers, tour operators, destination management companies, online travel partners and other leisure distribution partners.
Participants will learn how leisure contracts are structured, which commercial clauses require close attention and how to assess the true value of a leisure partnership.
Key topics include:
- Understanding the leisure distribution landscape
- Working with wholesalers and tour operators
- Destination management companies and inbound operators
- Static and dynamic rates
- Net and commissionable rates
- Allotments and free-sale arrangements
- Release periods and cut-off dates
- Stop-sell procedures and blackout dates
- Promotions, overrides and added-value offers
- Payment terms and cancellation clauses
- Market-specific and seasonal contracting
- Evaluating production and account performance
- Assessing the profitability of leisure contracts
- Working with revenue and distribution teams
Certificate Outcomes
By completing the HSMAI Certificate in Sales (Hospitality), participants will be able to:
- Explain the role of hotel sales within an integrated commercial strategy
- Apply a structured and ethical hotel sales process
- Understand how guests, corporate buyers and meeting planners evaluate and select hotels
- Identify customer needs through effective questioning and active listening
- Build stronger and more valuable customer relationships
- Translate hotel features into relevant customer benefits and business solutions
- Develop persuasive proposals and sales presentations
- Communicate the value of a hotel’s offering with confidence
- Understand key hotel market segments and distribution channels
- Use market and competitor intelligence to identify sales opportunities
- Negotiate commercial terms while protecting hotel value and profitability
- Respond effectively to buyer objections and recognise buying signals
- Prioritise accounts and sales opportunities according to commercial potential
- Prospect proactively and build a sustainable pipeline of new business
- Work more effectively with revenue management, marketing, operations and other hotel teams
- Understand the fundamentals of corporate, group and leisure contracting
- Adapt communication and sales approaches for different cultures and personality styles
- Use practical sales tools, technology and AI to improve productivity
- Develop the confidence, resilience and professional behaviours required for a successful hotel sales career
Who Should Enrol?
The Certificate is suitable for:
- Hotel sales coordinators and executives
- Business development managers
- Account managers
- Group and events sales professionals
- Corporate and leisure sales professionals
- Sales managers and directors of sales
- Revenue and commercial professionals who work closely with sales
- General managers and hotel owners seeking a stronger understanding of hotel sales
- Hospitality professionals preparing to move into a sales role
The programme is suitable for both emerging and experienced hotel sales professionals who want to strengthen their commercial knowledge, refresh their skills or build capability in a new area of hotel sales.
How it Works?
- Self-paced. The Certificate is delivered online, allowing participants to complete the courses at a pace that suits their schedule.
- Hotel-specific. Each course includes hotel-specific examples, practical activities and tools designed to help participants apply their learning in the workplace.
- Flexible Options. Complete the eight core courses, select two elective courses that match your professional goals and build a practical hotel sales qualification that supports your next career step.
- You can have access to the course materials for 12 months so you can come back and review any lessons or sections that you’d to do again.
- CHSL Practice Exam. At the end of the program you can test your skills by completing the Practice Exam for the HSMAI Certifications for Sales Leaders (CHSL).
Register Your Interest
Our new Sales Course is planned for launch by the end of August 2026. Register your interest below and we’ll keep you updated with course details, launch dates and enrolment information.
Course Feedback
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I completed the 10 courses this past weekend. The courses were very comprehensive, and I loved the videos and links to different resources and articles. Thank you so much for putting this together.
Associate Market Manager, Expedia America
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I am proud to let you know that I no longer distribute everything everywhere. All because of YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Owner at Eastiny Hotels Thailand/ New Zealand
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PHM Hospitality, Managing Director
We are a hospitality business, we are a service business. Service Business means People. As one of hospitality business leader in Indonesia, we acknowledge that we are on the transition period. Between traditional to technology base of service. In order to fulfill the requirement, the industry needs human resources who also ready. At current condition, we are short of manpower resources; especially in Revenue Management sector. REVENUE READY COURSE is the solution that we saw. This course opens our view towards hospitality business revenue management. It is not only room, it is not only food & beverage, it is not only e-commerce; but the whole aspects of revenue. Therefore we were making sure that our property leaders can get this knowledge. We wish, this kind of courses and also the advanced courses can be developed and spread to the rest of the business in the future, to help our growth.
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"As a former hotel manager, and regional revenue and distribution manager, I experienced the gap in our industry for a single training resource that accommodated the multitude of hotel staff around me. 'Revenue Ready' is uniquely suited for both entry-level hospitality employees, who may be inspired to steer their career direction toward revenue disciplines, as well as long-time industry sales, marketing, and management personnel who can gain an updated education on the use of revenue and distribution tools. Already, we are seeing revenue directors and general managers utilising the program to validate previous learning and to ensure their teams are using common, correct language around the complex and ever-evolving revenue and distribution management platform landscape. I look forward to watching even more graduates, from all levels, equipping themselves with the knowledge they need to generate more accurate forecasts, to yield more revenue and to ultimately run hotel businesses that are sustainable and profitable."
Founder & Director, SKNapp Consulting
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Shangri-La Hotels, New York/ Sales Coordinator, Global Sales,
I really enjoyed the program and learned a lot of valuable information about revenue management and the hospitality industry in general. I thought that the checkpoint quizzes worked really well. They were a great way to maintain engagement and test knowledge retention. I would suggest a final test at the end of the course to reinforce the essential concepts and showcase to the participant how much they learned. Thank you again for this resource and I look forward to continuing my engagement with HSMAI! Warmest regards, Mariel Dweck, Sales Coordinator, Global Sales, Shangri-La Hotels, New York
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Hotel SO, Bangkok/ Director of Business Development
HSMAI is a worldwide international association with expertise. We support learning with no restriction of prior learning course nor related skills and knowledge. When comparing with organization learning courses, HSMAI allows everyone to learn something they might not be able to learn from their organization. Besides great networking among hospitality industry people.
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SiteMinder/ Managing Director - Asia
"For years, hoteliers have told us they need two things to be successful in their roles: knowledge and tools. 'Revenue Ready' brings these together to empower graduates to understand and influence the absolutely-critical and complex discipline of revenue management within their hotel businesses. SiteMinder is very proud to support this pioneering initiative across the Asia Pacific, a region on the rise and where hoteliers, more than ever, must equip themselves with the fundamentals of revenue management and the practical skills involved in leveraging some of the industry's most widely-adopted hotel technology solutions to remain competitive."
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Reservations & Communications Executive, Four Seasons Orlando
I am writing to inform you of my recent completion of your certificate in revenue management program. I think you for putting together such a comprehensive and insightful overview of revenue management. I look forward to receiving my certificate and putting this knowledge to practical use perusing a career in revenue management.
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North Coast Hotel Resort - Vancouver, Canada
I like the course. It is very convenient and has a lot of good content. I really like the video interview or lecture recording of different professionals from the leading companies. Thanks for all your help and have a great day.
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Peninsula Hotel Tokyo
Thank you very much. I well received certificate. I really enjoyed programs and learnt a lot of thing about revenue which helps me a lot in my role. Once again, thank you very much. Best Regards, Chiho
FAQs
Here is an explanation of the difference between the training program and the professional certification.
Certificate in Sales
The HSMAI Certificate in Sales (Hospitality) is an online training program designed for hotel sales professionals who are new to the discipline, have limited experience in a hotel sales role, or want to strengthen and update their practical sales skills.
The program is self-paced and includes hotel-specific examples, activities, tools and resources that participants can apply directly in the workplace. Participants complete the required core courses and select elective courses aligned with their professional goals.
Course materials are available for 12 months from the enrolment date, allowing participants to revisit lessons whenever they need a refresher. Upon successfully completing the program, participants receive the HSMAI Certificate in Sales (Hospitality).
The program also includes access to a practice exam to help participants assess their readiness for the Certified Hospitality Sales Leader (CHSL) certification.
CHSL Certification
The Certified Hospitality Sales Leader (CHSL) is a professional certification. It recognises that an individual has the industry experience, knowledge and capabilities expected of an experienced hospitality sales leader.
To qualify, candidates must meet HSMAI’s professional experience requirements and successfully pass the CHSL certification exam. The certification process combines a candidate’s relevant work experience with independent study and assessment against the standards established by HSMAI’s global sales leadership experts.
In simple terms, the Certificate in Sales is a training and development program, while the CHSL is a professional designation that validates your experience and expertise as a hospitality sales leader.
Still unsure which option is right for you? Please contact the HSMAI Academy team, and we will be happy to help.
Not to worry. We’re here to help. Just reach out to us via our support email at HSMAI SUPPORT. We want your experience to be positive, so please never hesitate to ask if you need help or have a question.
Courses and subscriptions purchased on the HSMAI Academy site are licensed for individual use only. If you would like to share the material, you can use the “Share” link to notify friends and colleagues that they might enjoy purchasing the class themselves. You may also consider purchasing a Group Plan for your team. For more information please contact us.
HSMAI Academy offers a variety of self-paced, on-demand courses in several disciplines, including sales, revenue management, digital marketing, distribution, business acumen, and more.
Specific pricing for each course is outlined on the description page for each course.
Start by reviewing the self-paced courses available.
For groups of 10 or more, bulk discounts are available. Contact the HSMAI Academy team for details.
If you study an individual course, you will receive a certificate of completion. If you complete the Certificate in Revenue Management or the Certificate in Digital Marketing and need a replacement certificate, contact HSMAI Academy
For proof of CRME, CHBA, CHSL and CHDM certifications, please contact Kathy Tindell.
Yes! You will receive a certificate of completion for each course you complete. The certificate is available at the end of the course.
As soon as you log in to a course, go to your profile and complete your full name as you would like it to be printed on the certificate. You must do this before you complete the first course.
On completion of the course you will be provided with access to the relevant certificate.
When applyng for a certification, you can claim points for courses you take from the HSMAI Academy.
Yes! Each course has a symbol (similar to below) showing how many professional development points you qualify for when applying for an HSMAI certification.
Definitions of terms and acronyms used in the commercial disciplines in hotels (sales, marketing, revenue management, and distribution) are outlined in here:
If you applied for and paid for a self-paced course, you will receive an email from HSMAI.exceed.careers with your login and password details.
To access the courses go to https://HSMAI.exceed.careers and use the email address you enrolled with to sign in.
If you forgot your password, use the “Forgot Login Detail” link and you will be prompted to recover your password.
If you have already enrolled, you can access the courses here.
If you haven’t enrolled, please check out our range of courses here.
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- Then, once you have your password email, go through the process to set up your password.
- Lastly, to access the course, please use this link and use the email address you enrolled with to sign in:
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