The chains may have revenue management wrapped up but for independent hotels it’s harder. Fear not, help is at hand
Vlatka Barčan has been in the hotel business for over 16 years. Having graduated with a master’s degree in economics and hotel management in Croatia, she found herself working her way through different hotels along the country’s spectacular coastline.
On moving to the US it was a similar story. As assistant general manager at the Norwich Inn in Vermont, which is owned and operated by part-time Cornell Hotel School Professor and serial hotelier Joseph Lavin, she acquired some “hands on experience”.
“I learnt so much from Joe. Even though I was second in command, they let me run things. It was like running my own business – really helpful!”
Although Barčan remains friends with the Lavin family, she outgrew the area and wanted to move on – this time to the Big Apple. At The Pierre, a five-star Taj Hotel in New York, she again she proved her versatility in various roles including as assistant restaurant manager, director of reservations and as revenue and sales manager. While at The Pierre, she learned revenue strategies from director of revenue Darren Skomorowsky, who became another one of her mentors.
Her final stint, before launching her own business, was spent as director of revenue for Millennium Hotels, where she was quickly promoted to area revenue director, managing the New York and Boston markets.
From this experience, Barčan’s Fifth Revenue Inc consultancy is now on a new mission – to help independent hotels flourish in what is an increasingly turbulent market.
“Demand is growing,” she says, “but not as much as supply, and a lot of hotels don’t see the importance of paying attention to their pricing strategies.”
1. Competitor analysis needs to be accurate
If you want to be ahead of the game, you need to understand your competition inside out and learn their moves. For Barčan, it’s important to establish who your real competitors are. This can only be achieved if you know your own goals, how you want to differentiate, which customers you want to attract and so on. “It’s about knowing who your market is as benchmarking against that,” she says. When hotels are comparing themselves against their true competitors, then they can put the right strategies in place to increase REVpar, one of the main day-to-day metrics.
