Hotels that have traditionally relied on group and convention business have found themselves struggling over the pandemic period.
NB: This is an article from Strategic Solution Partners
Uncovering and maximizing new revenue streams, the way we did for the subject hotel in this case study, is a sure-fire way to diversify business and protect your hotel’s financial future.
Situation: Challenge to Generate Hotel New Revenue Paths
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A 417-room big brand resort in Orlando, Florida was stagnant on generating new hotel revenue streams.
The property had long enjoyed being the leader in group business in its market, based on having more meeting space than average and a stellar event reputation. However, two new competitors opened nearby, challenging the subject property’s ability to rely on its previous strong group base of business.
Like many group houses over the last year, the resort that could previously rely on 70% of group business was suddenly faced with:
- New competitors that have depleted group occupancy.
- Food and Beverage revenues in decline as a result of fewer banquet events.
- Ancillary revenues declining with occupancy loss.
- Leisure and transient business strategies inadequate for changes in demand.
The Strategy: Create New Initiatives & Find New Hotel Segments
Leadership had to rethink overall market segmentation strategies to continue to promote RevPAR and TRevPAR growth, so we walked through the following items in detail:
- Production by channel compared to the market
- Competitive market segmentation
- Ancillary spend by segment
- Distribution costs variables of each channel and market segment
- Leadership’s perceived limitations based on history
Each of the above items was heartily discussed, and the team came up with a new strategy by segment and by channel including:
- Addition of previously unneeded channels, such as base wholesale and opaque
- A robust digital marketing strategy to promote the resort and drive traffic to brand.com
- Re-strategizing seasonality and pricing based on new market dynamics
- Alignment with new properties and brands in the market
- Repositioning for weekdays
- Re-alignment of the sales team to focus on the group segments that were experiencing demand
- Adjusted room type names and descriptions
- Created guest value for views and balconies
- Created revenue opportunities for room sales
- Retrained the Front Office team on upselling strategies
The Results: Brand New Markets & Portfolio Revenue Success
We went to work with the new strategies and quickly deployed each of the initiatives listed above. The tracked results through the first 120 days were outstanding!
The results:
- 2.7% gain in ADR
- 5% gain in RevPAR
- RPI growth of 12%
- 5% increase in Spa and F&B Spend per occupied room
- Overall transient revenue increases of 5%
The Future: How do we Continue to Grow?
Engagement among the group continues, and the team is laser-focused on continual tweaks of the strategies to ensure the resort stays one step ahead of the market! Whether a hotel’s revenue stagnation has been caused by the pandemic, new competition, or something else, a key step is to take a fresh look at business segments and channels that may have been ignored in the past.
