We have written extensively about to take your hotel to the next level. As strategy is one of the most essential parts, we would like to share with you a summary of all the top tips we provide.
NB: This is an article from Xotels
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The Basics of Managing Revenue
In our recent articles about What is Revenue Management and their Free Revenue Management Book for Hotels we explain everything in detail about what the concept of revenue management is all about.
In short, revenue management as a disciplined approach that aims to increase the revenue success of your business. This is done by thoroughly understanding your property, its customers, and the market.
Many define it as: “Selling the Right Room to the Right Client at the Right Moment at the Right Price.”
At XOTELS, they like to be even more specific, so to this concept is added: “On the Right Distribution Channel with the best commission efficiency”.
Benefits of a Good Strategy
Strategy is for any hotel is a fundamental pillar. Following best practices and a well-thought-out strategy is the only way to unlock the full potential of your property, with benefits including:
- Claim your fair market share: with more hotels forecasted to open every year, gaining a fair market share will become more difficult each year. Without a solid strategy, you will just get lost in the pile – being unable to reach satisfactory visibility and level of business to remain open.
- Seize the right opportunities: opportunities are abundant – but trying to find the right distribution mix and deciding which opportunities to target is where hoteliers get lost in the giant maze of channels available. Also, gone are the days of selling the majority of your rooms through OTAs. Without a healthy distribution mix including a strong website and direct sales, you can forget about your profit margins.
- Take full advantage of the available demand: of course, we know that flat pricing is not how revenue can be maximised, but what lies at the other end of the spectrum? You cannot just apply different prices and restrictions per day without a plan in place – as you can easily do more harm than good.
7 Essential Strategies
Find below XOTELS top 7 list of strategies to take your property to the next level – and increase your performance:
1. Encourage Direct Bookings
Encouraging customers to book directly should be a main priority included in your property income strategy. Making sure you get your fair share of direct bookings allows you to compete with OTAs and avoiding to pay the hefty commissions on those bookings.
There are several recommended best practices to follow to boost your direct bookings, namely:
- Invest in a great website: build a well-designed and good-looking website, that is user-friendly and is also mobile optimisation. Make sure you have the best content available, and that all information is accurate and up-to-date ensures a seamless user experience.
- Incentivize: having the best prices on your website is one things, but don´t forget to think about offering other exclusive benefits or extras to encourage users to book on your website and not the OTAs.
- Bring customers to your website: thinking multi-channel here is important. How to bringing in traffic to your website from platforms like Google Ads, Metasearch, SEO, and social media, will need to be part of your strategy to generate revenue.
Ultimately, prioritising achieving a fair share of direct sales empowers properties to establish stronger control over guest data to increase profitability, and maintain autonomy over their brand image and customer experience.
