The hospitality industry is expanding rapidly. Hotel companies break ground on new build projects every week. Many operators are renovating older properties and reopening them as new brands from Marriott, Hilton, IHG and others.
This expansion is based on investor capital; and investors demand a return. How do management companies deliver this return? Profitability.
“Forecasts provide extended vision to anticipate financial results on both top and bottom line, enabling hotel operators to make operational adjustments,” says Chief Information Officer for Concord Hospitality Brian Cornell.
“Owners have a heightened expectation that technologically sophisticated, high performing operators have the awareness, tools and resources to aggressively target additional top-line revenue opportunities if a shortfall is anticipated. They also expect operators to proactively manage operational expenses and labor costs to protect profit flow-through.”
Concord operates more than 90 properties that include Marriott, Starwood, Hyatt, Choice, IHG, and Hilton brands for multiple ownership entities. Concord Hospitality uses the Targetvue Hotel Forecasting and Budgeting Solution from Aptech Computer Systems.
Highpointe Hotel Corporation operates 15 flagged properties with two under construction. “Creating forecasts for multiple properties is a complex process. In the past Highpointe used Excel to manually build forecasts, but we were not satisfied with the process,” said Mark T. Pate, Sr, assistant controller/IT director of Highpointe.
“We automated our forecasting and budget processes a year ago when one of our ownership groups required line item hotel forecasting, which we felt was impossible with Excel spreadsheets. They also wanted to know where the hotel would finish its year at any point in time on a line-by-line basis. Again, this is nearly impossible to keep current with a spreadsheet. We do this today with an automated forecasting system that lets us manage by the numbers to optimize profitability. It also delivers the reporting our owners want.”
Highpointe Hotel Corporation also makes use of the Targetvue Forecasting and Budgeting Solution from Aptech.
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