In an interview with Adam Hayashi, VP of Revenue Management & Analytics at AccorHotels, we heard how the group is putting luxury at the centre of its strategy. Now we hear his tips from the frontline. Hayashi will be sharing more in Vegas but in the meantime here is a taster.
#1. Price based on demand and customer demographic
An early lesson came from the revenue and sales managers of a Fairmont hotel in Bermuda. Hayashi was visiting the property and asked the revenue manager if he could see the rooms. The revenue manager said she’d call the sales manager because “I don’t go into rooms. I price them.”
“The revenue manager had the insight to realise that it really doesn’t matter what the room looks like, what her perception of the room is, or mine for that matter. We price based on demand, and the guest we are targeting. In the luxury space, you are selling an experience and services and everything that goes with that,” Hayashi explains.
Ultimately, it is really about understanding your customer demographic, and how to approach each segment; how to market to them and price the room right.
“It was a key lesson. I stopped looking at demand as a whole and looked specifically at the demand that we were targeting within a market,” he stresses.
Call it tough love, but if a hotel chain has invested $140million in a renovation, rooms need to be priced accordingly.
He explains it like this: “So if a guest starts saying ‘this hotel is too expensive now’, then maybe, at this point of time, we have to accept that we aren’t the right fit at this time for this guest. Or maybe, they aren’t our guest during this season, or they are our guest for just a weekend rather than a week-long stay.”
Having said that, with 25 unique brands “we are able to appeal to all guests at different times”.
