Seneca said: “There is no one less fortunate than the person whom adversity forgets, for he never has the opportunity to test himself.”
Philosophy is the nourishment of human curiosity. It allows us to analyze and reflect on what surrounds us, and to deepen our knowledge from an objective point of view.
We can consider it the mother of scientific thought. It leads us to question the world in order to understand it and set new goals with the aim of improving it.
When faced with an unexpected event, human beings fall into regret and resort to complaining.
In this way, we shift responsibility outward, because it is easier to deflect it onto someone or something external than to recognize and accept our own weakness.
Ortega y Gasset would say that “we have lost our sense of perspective,” which in recent years has led to a certain discouragement due to economic crises, air traffic controller strikes, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, political instability, or COVID-19.
One thing that has characterized the hotel sector lately is resilience—this ability to overcome the adversities we regularly face. And just as we began to glimpse the long-awaited signs of recovery, our alarms were triggered again when the Russian army invaded Ukraine.
One of the fundamental pillars of Revenue Management is decision-making.
When we have to make a decision, it is anchored in different contexts, and knowing how to interpret that context is essential for thought to evolve.
This reminds me of chaos theory, which, in general terms, studies the sensitivity of certain systems in which a small change can lead to major consequences. It is the science of process—the attempt to know what will happen, not what is or what will remain. That famous crystal ball that every Revenue Manager carries in their pocket.
With chaos comes the idea of non-linearity, and in general, we see the great difficulty in predicting the evolution of certain systems. Human beings, as a rule, are intolerant of uncertainty.
In Revenue, to make informed decisions, we must take into account, at a minimum, two factors: the circumstances and the context in which we live.
One of the Greek philosophers, the Stoic Epictetus, said that we must ask ourselves what depends on us and what does not depend on us. We must eliminate what we cannot control and focus on our sphere of control with the intention of improving what can be improved.
