The hospitality industry has changed and hoteliers need to adapt – efficiency is now vital.
NB: This is an article from OTA Insight
It is shortsighted at best – damaging at worst – to think that commercial teams can continue to work in silos. To knit commercial teams together for optimal efficiency you need a holistic commercial strategy that is supported by the four pillars of: predict, price, distribute and analyse.
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With such uncertainty hanging over the market, being able to accurately predict and act on demand signals will give you a head start on your competition.
Accurately predicting demand in your market
The hotelier playbook has been torn up and historical data has had to take a back seat. It is mission critical for hoteliers to invest in technology that can discover new and changing patterns of customer behaviour. This enables commercial teams to convert early demand signals – taking potential guests from lookers to bookers.
Hoteliers have long struggled to fully understand the guest journey before booking. Now, with market intelligence tools you can look at pre-booking, forward looking data points, to view unconstrained demand and move ahead of the booking curve.
Uncovering new revenue opportunities with forward looking data
Markets are still changing in the blink of an eye. A predictive market intelligence solution can help you create accurate forecasts for more informed revenue decisions, based on real-time, forward-looking demand projections, 365 days in advance.
You can more precisely predict demand levels in your market with early demand signals for flights, hotel searches, stay patterns, domestic/international travel, and leisure/business, collected from multiple data sources.
By better anticipating future demand levels you can spot and take advantage of short, mid and long-term revenue opportunities and capture your target audience ahead of your competition, with the correct pricing, discounting and promotional strategies.
Identifying and capturing demand with a sales and marketing strategy driven by forward looking data
With a predictive market intelligence tool, you can now see in real time where demand for your market is originating from and how it develops. This can be viewed at a granular level, looking at sub-location/airport of origin, geo-search, stay pattern, and accommodation types, including alternative accommodation (private rental sites).
Armed with insights on the booking window, stay pattern and demand origin, you can create marketing campaigns that target precise dates, LOS and source country, when guests are still in the inspiration phase of the customer journey.
By personalising your digital advertising and rolling it out where you know demand already exists delivers improved ROI and increased revenue.
With this data-first approach to marketing, teams can better allocate budget to markets which show the highest demand signals, while restricting budget for markets and segments that won’t bring the desired ROI.
Both revenue management and marketing can utilise future demand data by being the first to release targeted incentives, offers and packages, and new pricing strategies. Understanding booking intent is the essential component needed to align revenue management and marketing and improve business performance.
Once you’ve identified demand patterns in your market, how do you build a suitable pricing and promotional strategy that mirrors demand?
Capturing demand with an effective pricing and promotional strategy
Getting room prices right is the bedrock of revenue management. But there are so many factors to consider when devising an effective pricing strategy for your business, it can be hard to know where to begin.
In this dynamic landscape it’s time to re-evaluate to find real success. The key to gaining control of the situation and making confident decisions is real-time, actionable data.
It’s an incredibly fine balance of filling your rooms, while making sure they are being sold at the right price to the right guests – maximising RevPar. Ultimately, pricing hinges on supply and demand, but the difficulty is demand varies frequently depending on events, timing, trends and competition.
