Most hotel tech companies say they listen to customers. Few can show where that listening happens, who is in the room, and which product or pricing decision it changed. A customer advisory board is the structured answer. Run well, it gives you early warning on churn, honest input on the roadmap and a group of senior hoteliers who will vouch for you. Run badly, it is an annual dinner that produces a photo and nothing else.

A customer advisory board (CAB) is a small, invitation-only group of senior customers who meet on a fixed cadence to advise a vendor on decisions it has not yet made: roadmap, pricing, positioning and where the market is heading.

That last part matters. A CAB is not a support forum, a user group or a focus group for a feature you have already built. CRV's guide for startup founders draws the line clearly: customer success helps customers get value from what you have built, while the CAB helps you decide what to build next.

Hotel tech companies already doing this

You do not need to be a giant to run one, but it helps to see how others have set theirs up. In December 2024 Shiji formed the Shiji ReviewPro Customer Advisory Board in Barcelona, with members including Barceló Hotel Group, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, Kempinski Hotels, Meliá Hotels International, Minor Hotels, Pestana Hotel Group and Radisson Hotel Group. Its stated job is to guide the future direction of ReviewPro.

In June 2024 SevenRooms launched its inaugural CAB at the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, chaired by Ari Kastrati, Chief Hospitality Officer at MGM Resorts International, with a yearly theme and three areas to explore: the future of hospitality, artificial intelligence and revenue management.

Smaller formats work too. Mews ran a Customer Advisory Board with select French customers in October 2022, alongside a round table at the Lancaster Hotel where it shared its roadmap for the next three to four months. And when Agilysys was building its rGuest Stay PMS, its VP of engineering told Hotel Business that its advisory board included hotels using Agilysys systems and hotels using competitors, from small properties to luxury resorts.

The CHAIR framework

The patterns in those boards and in the published guidance from CRV, Pragmatic Institute and Gainsight reduce to five stages. We call it CHAIR: Charter, Hand-pick, Agenda, Implement, Renew.

The CHAIR framework turns a customer advisory board from an annual dinner into a source of real product and pricing decisions. Free to share with a link back to this post.

C: Charter

Start by writing down what the board is for. CRV recommends two or three concrete objectives framed as decisions you need to make, and a named owner with the authority to act on what members say. Its suggested charter spells out the commitment, for example four quarterly meetings of 90 minutes each plus 30 minutes of preparation. Pragmatic Institute's guide to running a CAB adds a rule worth printing: "Don't research something that you're not willing to change."

In hotel tech the charter also has to name the voice you want. Owners, operators and brands judge software on different terms, a gap we cover in why owners and operators want different things from software. A board that mixes all three without a clear purpose will produce noise.

H: Hand-pick members

CRV suggests eight to 12 members and notes you will typically invite 15 to 17 candidates to fill those seats. Pragmatic Institute suggests six to eight customer representatives, warns against stacking the room with the loud, large accounts salespeople tend to suggest, and advises against seating competitors from the same segment together, because they will not discuss their problems openly.

That last point is sharper in hospitality than in most markets. Two hotels in the same city competitive set will not share pricing worries in front of each other. Spread members across markets and segments: independents, regional groups, management companies and, where it fits your plan, a brand. Invite the person who signs or influences the renewal, not only the most active user. The Agilysys example shows a further option: a seat or two for hotels that use a competitor, if you want honest input on switching.

A: Agenda built from members

CRV recommends interviewing members before each meeting and aiming for at least 80 percent of the content to come from customers rather than your team. Gainsight's account of running its own CAB describes meeting at least four times a year, two in person and two virtual, sending a survey beforehand to seed the discussion, and splitting the day into an executive track and a practitioner track after a shared morning.

Hoteliers have a calendar problem your SaaS peers do not. A general manager in a resort will not join anything in peak season. Put in-person sessions next to events members already attend and keep virtual sessions short. Our post on the peak season trust window covers how timing shapes what hoteliers will give you.

I: Implement and close the loop

This is where most boards fail. CRV warns that if members make the same suggestion in three consecutive meetings with no visible progress, they stop participating, and recommends monthly updates between meetings. Pragmatic Institute adds a caution in the other direction: a CAB is an input session, not a decision-making body, so be careful about making commitments in the room.

The answer is a simple log: what was raised, what you decided and why, and when it ships. Share it at the start of every meeting. Then tell members first when their input reaches the product, using the same discipline we recommend for release notes hoteliers actually read.

R: Renew or retire

CRV suggests tracking three or four measures: how many members stay year over year, expansion revenue from member accounts compared with other customers, and references and referrals from members. It also sets a useful bar: if you cannot point to three to five significant product or strategy decisions that came from CAB input in the past year, the programme needs retooling.

Gainsight adds a caution: track CAB participation alongside your other advocacy so the same people are not asked for everything. Members are natural candidates for a reference property programme, but only if you protect their time. Their retention will show up in your net revenue retention long before it shows up in a survey score.

A first-year plan

1. Months one to three: write the charter, agree internal ownership, shortlist candidates across segments and markets.

2. Month three: send personal invitations from the CEO with dates for the year already set.

3. First meeting: members present their own priorities for the year; you bring two or three open decisions.

4. Between meetings: a monthly note with what changed because of their input.

5. Second and third meetings: one roadmap decision, one pricing or packaging question, one market topic each time.

6. Month twelve: review retention, decisions traced to the board and member feedback, then rotate seats.

Failure modes to watch for

• The board is a sales event in disguise, and members notice.

• Only happy customers are invited, so you hear nothing new. Use win-loss interviews for the critics you are missing.

• Vendor slides take most of the time.

• Members hear nothing between meetings.

• Meetings land in peak season and half the seats are empty.

A CAB is one part of a wider retention and positioning system, which is how the hotel tech GTM strategy guide treats it. If you are not sure where your customer insight is getting lost before it reaches the roadmap, start with a free GTM leak audit.

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