Revenue Management

In 1975, a Kodak employee named Steven Sasson showed his invention of the digital camera to his bosses. Fearing it would eat up their film sales, they dismissed the idea of manufacturing it for the masses. In 2012, Kodak filed bankruptcy, for they were too late to embrace a potentially advantageous change and leverage opportunities therefrom. They failed to learn from their competitors.

Is managing restaurant’s online reputation a priority for hotel general managers? Yes, you need to focus & leverage technology and enhance your Hotel Brand.

A recent study reveals that approximately 90% of travel bookings are done online, compared to just 50% a decade ago. This clearly explains the increasing trend of booking travel online by the consumers. It also justifies the reason why hoteliers need to master distribution and do it soon because the hotels that will invest in their channel optimization and distribution strategies will certainly emerge as the next generation of winners in the hospitality industry.

I think by now most hoteliers understand that higher hotel guest sentiment leads to power in pricing. In addition, having a solid amount of reviews gives consumers confidence in making their decision. Taking that one step further, interacting with your guests via social media and review sites allows you to further show engagement and empathy with guests.

Hotels using yield-management, selling the right room to right customer at the right time, confirm having gained sizeable increase in revenue. Learn how! What do airlines, tour operator and hotels have in common? All of them sell fixed time-limited resources. Moreover, when it comes to maximizing revenue from a fixed resource, say, hotel rooms, and a permanently fixed price does not help! Let us find out why.

In the travel industry, AI is capable of finding price gaps and demand pattern. In the current time of tough competition, all travel companies, airlines, car rental, and cruises, etc. are looking beyond past trends for price, demand and yield management. Progressive Airlines are already using AI for competitive marketing intelligence, target new customers, build its brand value and drive revenue.

Hotel Revenue management is a data-driven technique consisting of three interdependent components: customer, product, and price. In order to maximize the hotel revenue in the hospitality sector, it is important to sell the right space at the right price and at the right time. This is the selling mantra of the hospitality sector.

What is the number one parameter that comes to your mind while reviewing your hotel’s ideal performance levels? Which is that one index that is so critical to Revenue Management that its progress often makes up for a lack in other important areas? Which is that one element that will instantly enhance your hotel’s goodwill? Obvious as it is to any revenue manager, a healthy occupancy rate always belongs in the resume of a profitable property.

Earlier in hospitality domain, the pricing structures and decisions were majorly based on factors like supply and demand, local events, corporate/negotiated rates, event/group bookings, majorly because of the absence of hospitality technology tools. With the advent of hotel price intelligence tools, competitor rates became an important factor in pricing. However, in the current scenario, the focus is shifting to guest reviews and ratings. Now, the price that you can charge for your room is directly proportional to your hotel reputation, specifically online reputation. Reputation Management touches the property as a whole and needs to be the responsibility of every department in the hotel working together. ORM should go hand in hand with Revenue Management. Your hotel reputation should also guide you to use reviews to influence your decision-making process and effect change where required.

Rate Shopping tool is capable to monitor prices of thousands of competitor hotels on hundreds of different channels including OTAs to carry out detailed competitive analysis that helps a hotel in formulating the best pricing strategy among its competitors. However, in current scenario only a basic Rate Shopping tool is not enough to nail the correct pricing strategy.

Distribution Strategy Studio is the first of a series of events organized by RateGain during 2018, exploring news and trends in travel distribution and revenue management. The first leg of this exciting itinerant journey (which will include cities and Countries all over the globe as Dubai, Milan, Colombia, Delhi, Mexico, Berlin and many more), will be in Madrid.