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Exam Information
Official specifications published by AHLEI
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Skills this practice test covers
- Write a hotel marketing plan with target segments and measurable objectives.
- Match offers and channels to business travelers, leisure guests, travel agents and meeting planners.
- Run a sales call from prospecting and needs analysis through objections to the close.
- Use occupancy, ADR and RevPAR to judge room rates and group business.
- Manage reservations, overbooking and distribution channels while keeping rates consistent.
- Sell catered events and meeting rooms, and prepare the banquet event order.
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CHSP exam content
2 domains · 14 topics · 195 questions
Markets and Market Segments99 questions
This domain covers who a hotel sells to and how it plans to reach them. It starts with the marketing plan, then works through each segment: business and leisure travelers, travel agents, meeting planners, and special segments such as government, military and SMERF groups.
Skills tested
- Separate marketing from selling, and apply the Four Ps to a hotel's products and services.
- Build a marketing plan from situational and competitive analyses, target markets and measurable objectives.
- Win corporate accounts through RFP responses and rate negotiations.
- Work with travel agents and online travel agencies while still growing direct bookings.
- Sell meeting space to planners, from site selection to the meeting contract.
Official topics
- Introduction to Hospitality Marketing and Sales
- The Marketing Plan: The Cornerstone of Sales
- Marketing to Business Travelers
- Marketing to Leisure Travelers
- Marketing to Travel Agents
- Marketing to Meeting Planners
- Marketing to Special Segments
Sales Functions96 questions
This domain is the daily work of a hotel sales office. It covers organizing the office, reservations, revenue management, personal and telephone sales, internal marketing, and selling catering, meeting rooms and the hotel's restaurants and lounges.
Skills tested
- Organize a sales office, set measurable sales goals and track each person's results.
- Set policies for cancellations, no-shows and overbooking across several booking channels.
- Calculate occupancy, ADR and RevPAR, and use demand forecasts to set rates.
- Handle objections and close a sale, in person or by telephone.
- Prepare banquet event orders and catering contracts, and manage meeting room inventory.
Official topics
- Managing the Marketing and Sales Office
- Reservations
- Revenue Management
- Personal Sales
- Telephone Sales
- Internal Marketing and Sales
- Marketing Catered Events and Meeting Rooms
Requirements
- Required: six months in a qualifying hotel sales job, such as director of sales, sales manager, sales coordinator, sales representative or banquet/catering manager.
- Holders of an accredited degree, or of an AHLEI certification at supervisor, manager, department head or executive level, do not need the six months.
About the CHSP exam
The CHSP exam from the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI) tests the marketing and sales knowledge that a hotel sales team uses to fill guestrooms, meeting rooms and catered events. Its two domains follow the chapters of AHLEI's Hospitality Sales and Marketing textbook: first the markets a hotel sells to, then the work of its sales office. Candidates need six months in a qualifying sales job. An AHLEI certification at supervisor level or higher, or an accredited degree, waives that time. Passing earns the Certified Hospitality Sales Professional designation, which is valid for five years.
The PlanetCert practice test splits its questions about evenly between the two domains, and revenue management and personal sales are among its larger topics. The explanations work through both numbers and judgment, such as how RevPAR differs from ADR, or when a group displaces guests who would pay more. Flashcard mode suits the industry vocabulary, from SMERF and FAM trips to banquet event orders. Brainy AI Assistant can turn a chapter's idea into a hotel case, such as a first sales call to a meeting planner.
How to earn the certification
- Earns
- Certified Hospitality Sales Professional (CHSP)Professional
The CHSP designation is valid for five years.
How to prepare for CHSP
- 1
Study the textbook one chapter at a time
Each exam topic matches a chapter of AHLEI's Hospitality Sales and Marketing. Read one chapter, answer that topic's practice questions, and move on only when every miss is clear.
- 2
Draft a marketing plan for a local hotel
Pick a nearby hotel and write a short plan: its competitors, its target segments and one measurable objective for each segment. This rehearses the planning topics of Markets and Market Segments.
- 3
Drill the revenue formulas
Work out occupancy, ADR and RevPAR from sample figures until each takes seconds. Then test a group request with a displacement analysis and decide whether to accept it.
- 4
Role-play the sales call
Walk through prospecting, needs analysis, objections and the close, once face to face and once on the telephone. Personal Sales and Telephone Sales are separate topics in Sales Functions.
- 5
Take both domains under time
Finish with the CHSP practice test in Timed Mode and sort the missed questions by topic. Ask Brainy AI Assistant to explain an industry term or rework a revenue example with new numbers.
Start a timed CHSPrun
AHLEI's own study text is the Hospitality Sales and Marketing textbook, whose chapters match the exam's topics.
Who CHSP is for
- Hotel sales managers and directors of sales who sell rooms and meeting space.
- Banquet and catering managers who book functions and events.
- Sales coordinators and representatives who want proof of their hospitality sales knowledge.
- Former reservations or front desk staff who have moved into a hotel sales job.
Typical job titles: Sales manager · Director of sales · Catering sales manager · Group sales manager · Sales coordinator · Convention services manager
CHSP glossary
18 terms from the exam objectives and the vendor's official material, each defined in a sentence.
- ADR (Average Daily Rate)
- The average price paid for an occupied room over a period, found by dividing room revenue by rooms sold.
- Attrition clauses
- Contract terms that charge a group when it uses fewer rooms, or less food and beverage, than it agreed to.
- Banquet event orders (BEOs)
- Documents that list every detail of a catered function, from menu and room setup to timing, for the staff who deliver it.
- Corporate rate agreements
- Negotiated room rates for a company's travelers, often agreed after the company sends hotels an RFP.
- Displacement analysis
- A check of whether a group's total business is worth more than the individual guests it would push out of the hotel.
- Familiarization (FAM) trips
- Free or reduced-cost visits that let travel agents or meeting planners experience a property before they sell it.
- Four Ps
- Product, price, place and promotion: the four parts of a marketing mix that a hotel can adjust.
- Global distribution systems (GDS)
- Networks that travel agents use to see and book hotel rooms, flights and rental cars.
- Government per diem rates
- The daily lodging allowance that sets the most a government traveler can pay for a room.
- Market segmentation
- Splitting a hotel's possible guests into groups that share needs and buying habits, so each group gets a fitting offer.
- Online travel agencies (OTAs)
- Websites that sell hotel rooms to travelers and earn a commission or margin on each booking.
- Overbooking
- Accepting more reservations than there are rooms, on the expectation that some guests cancel or do not arrive.
- Pace reports
- Reports that compare bookings on the books with the same point in earlier periods, to show whether demand is ahead or behind.
- Property management systems (PMS)
- A hotel's main operating software for reservations, check-in and check-out, room status and guest accounts.
- Request for proposal (RFP)
- A document in which a company or meeting planner asks hotels to offer rates and terms for its business.
- RevPAR
- Revenue per available room: room revenue divided by all rooms available, which equals ADR multiplied by occupancy.
- Room block
- A set of rooms held for a group at an agreed rate until a cut-off date.
- SMERF
- The social, military, educational, religious and fraternal market, which is price-sensitive and often books in slower periods.