Hotel Management — March 2012
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Technology
Automation boosts efficiency, revenue management practices
As hotel systems become more complex and interrelated, new opportunities continue to emerge for hoteliers to boost revenue.
“The most fundamental thing today is being able to utilize all the information available,” said David Kong, president of Best Western. “Twenty years ago, we used to have to call around and find everything out. Today, that information is at your fingertips. We’re using Revcaster and supplying reports to every hotel.”
Since Best Western properties cover a wide range of hotel product, a one-size-fits-all revenue management solution does not exist. At the Best Western Owners Conference 2011, executives announced that operators could buy into Revcaster’s cloud-based revenue management system if they so desired. By offering automated services to willing hoteliers, Kong said hotels can become more intelligent about increasing revenue.
“The problem is nowadays there’s just so much that takes up an operator’s time,” Kong said. “People don’t have the time to really focus on revenue management properly, so what we want to do is make things easier and simpler for hotels so they can be freed up to concentrate on what they do best.”
This automation also allows the brand to simplify its rate offerings and better manage revenue across disparate properties catering to several types of guest. In 2011, Best Western introduced a descriptor program to better inform channel partners and guests about the type of experience they can expect from a particular property. Kong said Best Western plans to further simplify its rates using automation, meaning even less work for operators on a day-to-day basis when it comes to revenue management.
“Over the next few years we have a program to collapse rate plans into different buckets, so when hoteliers open one bucket they open up all those rate plans, making it easier for them to manage it,” Kong said. “The next step is to automate forecasts for the hotel, then we can have it synced up to the rate buckets.”
best western
Local focus on revenue management
For companies managing a series of hotels in the same region, a better understanding of local market dynamics is essential for effective revenue management.
“By using automation tools for channel distribution, it allows us to be more effective in time management and get rates and inventory out to channels without having to jump through 700 different hoops,” said Sean Kline, director of enterprise systems for Joie de Vivre Hotels. “The ability to have one spot to upload and change that info and know its effectively going out allows us to focus on revenue-producing ideas. If a revenue manager is spending three-quarters of his time on channel management, that’s less than a quarter of their time given to look at what is happening in national, state and neighborhood levels, All those are the things that drive revenue and our profitability.”
For Joie de Vivre, understanding the relative value of loading product into one channel over another is a major focus. By automating the sale of rooms to OTAs that may have been manually managed in the past, the company has been able to better optimize revenue across its hotels.
“The landscape constantly changes,” said Kline. “When I came on board with JDV five years ago, at the time we had no direct relationship with a channel management tool. Now, automation allows us to give a wider swath of rooms that can be sold.”
As hotel systems become more complex and interrelated, new opportunities continue to emerge for hoteliers to boost revenue.
“The most fundamental thing today is being able to utilize all the information available,” said David Kong, president of Best Western. “Twenty years ago, we used to have to call around and find everything out. Today, that information is at your fingertips. We’re using Revcaster and supplying reports to every hotel.”
Since Best Western properties cover a wide range of hotel product, a one-size-fits-all revenue management solution does not exist. At the Best Western Owners Conference 2011, executives announced that operators could buy into Revcaster’s cloud-based revenue management system if they so desired. By offering automated services to willing hoteliers, Kong said hotels can become more intelligent about increasing revenue.
“The problem is nowadays there’s just so much that takes up an operator’s time,” Kong said. “People don’t have the time to really focus on revenue management properly, so what we want to do is make things easier and simpler for hotels so they can be freed up to concentrate on what they do best.”
This automation also allows the brand to simplify its rate offerings and better manage revenue across disparate properties catering to several types of guest. In 2011, Best Western introduced a descriptor program to better inform channel partners and guests about the type of experience they can expect from a particular property. Kong said Best Western plans to further simplify its rates using automation, meaning even less work for operators on a day-to-day basis when it comes to revenue management.
“Over the next few years we have a program to collapse rate plans into different buckets, so when hoteliers open one bucket they open up all those rate plans, making it easier for them to manage it,” Kong said. “The next step is to automate forecasts for the hotel, then we can have it synced up to the rate buckets.”
best western
Local focus on revenue management
For companies managing a series of hotels in the same region, a better understanding of local market dynamics is essential for effective revenue management.
“By using automation tools for channel distribution, it allows us to be more effective in time management and get rates and inventory out to channels without having to jump through 700 different hoops,” said Sean Kline, director of enterprise systems for Joie de Vivre Hotels. “The ability to have one spot to upload and change that info and know its effectively going out allows us to focus on revenue-producing ideas. If a revenue manager is spending three-quarters of his time on channel management, that’s less than a quarter of their time given to look at what is happening in national, state and neighborhood levels, All those are the things that drive revenue and our profitability.”
For Joie de Vivre, understanding the relative value of loading product into one channel over another is a major focus. By automating the sale of rooms to OTAs that may have been manually managed in the past, the company has been able to better optimize revenue across its hotels.
“The landscape constantly changes,” said Kline. “When I came on board with JDV five years ago, at the time we had no direct relationship with a channel management tool. Now, automation allows us to give a wider swath of rooms that can be sold.”
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