Hotelmarketing'com

Daily must-reads for hotel marketers.

Oaky: Hotel front desk upselling. While many hoteliers are aware of the benefits of hotel front desk upselling, they hardly leverage it to its full potential.

Net ADR, the most important KPI for hotels. Too many hotels still guesstimate what the costs and profitability of each channel is. A rigorous net ADR analysis, that moves beyond “average commissions” is a core competency every professional revenue manager should have.

Changing fall hotel demand spurs programming, pricing. Revenue-management strategies around packages, events. The transition from the summer to fall travel seasons has been different than in past years, according to some U.S. hoteliers, who are adjusting strategies for selling hotel rooms to meet the new demand.

Hoteliers refine channel strategies to maintain profits. Finding the most profitable demand as leisure diminishes and group and business travel take its place. As the industry comes down from its leisure-driven demand high of the summer, revenue experts are being forced to look more closely at where and how they find new streams of demand.

Hotel budgeting for 2023 has mostly normalized. Higher levels of demand and strong rate growth ahead. U.S. hoteliers preparing their budgets for 2023 said they expect the cost of labor will continue to be a major expense as they try to provide competitive wages and benefits.

As long as guests pay, resort fees stay. Hoteliers must provide demonstrated value for fees more than ever. What will most likely change is a greater focus on transparency, with hotels ensuring that guests making reservations are made aware of these fees.

Hotel guest experience needs to improve to maintain rates. Labor issues and other challenges caused an erosion in guest satisfaction. The hotel industry has some serious investments to make in improving guest experience if hoteliers want to maintain current high rates.

Hotel market segmentation becoming more blurred. Harder to distinguish between business and leisure travelers. As some figures such as average daily rate and occupancy either surpass or inch toward pre-pandemic levels, hotel revenue managers say segmentation is shifting.

Hoteliers have room to grow rates. How inflation affects hotels' average daily rate. Inflation is a double-edged sword for hoteliers, helping them push rates while also driving up their costs, cutting into profitability.

Pricing hotel food and beverage. Food-and-beverage directors are working more closely with revenue management specialists to ensure menu items are priced at the most profitable rate.

Hotel revenue managers optimistic for fall travel season. Group, business transient demand expected to grow. Bolstered by strong summer performance in the U.S., hotel revenue managers are forecasting that the positive trends will continue into the fall.

IHG: Hotel industry's high rates are sustainable. While room rates have increased, they haven’t risen at the pace of inflation. With work and life patterns changing and the effect that has on travel, IHG Hotels & Resorts’ Elie Maalouf said he believes the hotel industry’s rate recovery is sustainable.

Are hotel room rates too high?. Travelers may have reached their limit when it comes to hotel pricing. Thanks to surging demand, hotel rates have skyrocketed this summer, with some particularly hot markets, such as Hawaii and Florida, reaching record highs.

Travel fees are back. Airlines, car rental companies and hotels are reinstating old surcharges and adding new ones to your bill as travel returns to pre-pandemic levels.

Hotel revenue strategy: What’s changed in the past two years?. Everything. And nothing.. In terms of handling today’s revenue strategy, the elements remain the same. But the actions we need to take to address each element are completely different from any time in the past.

Major hotel brands see room for further rate increases. That hot market has led to rising room prices, something major hotel chain executives say will not subside soon. Two things are keeping demand high: the leisure consumer’s more than $2.5 trillion in incremental savings, and strong corporate balance sheets paired with “very good” profitability.

The paradox of the past. Although it seems to make sense to compare your hotel’s present performance with its past, the conclusions will be misleading and inaccurate.

Shift to revenue performance. Expedia spoke to 200 revenue leaders across the globe to better understand how leveraging technology can help hoteliers navigate price and planning decisions.

OTA Insight launches new dashboard. The Overview consolidates and visualizes a hotel's key metrics including distribution health per channel, price competitiveness, and more.

From Revenue Manager to Revenue Generation Manager. Too many hospitality leaders still hold an outdated view more befitting of the 1990’s era term of “Yield Management”. The objective for Revenue Generation Manager should always be focused on proactively generating revenue rather than simply “managing” revenue that is generated by others.

Technological breakdown drives evolution in hotel revenue management. Automated systems weren't prepared for the pandemic, so hoteliers adapted. The hotel industry had never coped with a demand shock to the level of the pandemic, and similarly the automated revenue-management systems had no frame of reference.

Sabre Hospitality acquires Nuvola. The hospitality upselling and messaging tool provider will power 'Sabre’s innovative vision for the future of hospitality retailing'.

Hotel revenue management has gone far beyond pricing guest rooms. Hotels are using software to maximize revenue in public spaces. Resort managers in particular have learned that they can use revenue management principles and techniques to get the most profits from food and beverage, spas, pool and golf courses.

The solution to missed revenue opportunities in hospitality. Over dependency on the OTAs, alienated loyalty members and worsened profitability. Today's complex travel customer journey requires an integrated strategy to engage, acquire, service and retain travel consumers across multiple digital touch points.

Duetto: When do you sell out? By saving highly profitable bookings for that +/- 10% window, hotels can out-earn their competitors by a good margin.

Where do solar and electric vehicle charging fit into your hotels revenue strategy?. How hotels could tap into this opportunity, and how to monetize it. HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Advisory Board recently discussed the potential impact of commercial solar and EV charging on hotels’ revenue and profit strategy.

Flexibility is the new black in hotel revenue management. Guests will pay that extra rate for flexibility. As consumers have been educated now around flexibility, getting the right guests at the right price with the right experience will require flexibility from hoteliers.

Predict and prescribe. Future trending data has the power to end the speculative forecasts that many hotels have ascribed to during recent months.

Hotel revenue experts share priorities for 2022. Pricing strategies include optimizing segmentation, capturing ancillary revenue. Hotel revenue managers are entering the new year with revisions to their core strategies to best optimize segmentation and capture ancillary fee opportunities.

Hotel revenue managers adapt to unpredictable demand patterns. Room-type analyses, hotel rankings become more important. The unpredictable travel demand patterns of 2021 caused many hotel revenue managers to work harder and smarter to capture business, and going back to the basics.

Six ways benchmarking can support your distribution strategy. Performance monitoring is now more important than ever. Examining daily and weekly data helps hoteliers stay abreast of the latest recovery trends and provide a deeper understanding of which metrics are recovering fastest, and where opportunities exist.

IDeaS: The science behind G3 RMS. Advanced analytics allow for data to back up each level of decision-making so the system is never left to make assumptions that can greatly impact potential revenue opportunities.