The current economy is forcing hotels to copy pricing methods first pioneered by the airlines. In training sessions over the years we have asked hotels if they think the 99c room will ever happen, and the percentage of people who think this possible has steadily increased.
For us however the results from discount schemes are not always as obvious as they might first appear. Let us take the example of 2 separate approaches to the same issue.
- Hotel A started in Winter sending out an E Zine with 19€ rooms, available on selected days.
- Hotel B reduced there room rate to 59€ across the board to increase business.
Which do you think actually increased a hotels revenue?
Interestingly, Hotel B (offering 59€ rooms across the board) seemed to suffer the most. Yes, booking quantities were up, but revenue was down, in actual fact customers took up the 59€ offer during weekends, when they would normally have obtained much better rates.
Hotel A, that was apparently giving away rooms fared much better, actually doubling their total online revenue. The clue to this sucess seem to lie in the satement; '19€ rooms available on SELECTED DAYS'. In actual fact this hotel, with a room stock of 100 (making 3000 room nights per month) was only offering 4 rooms on 4 days of the month when they had excess inventory ie midweek. ie They were not selling this room rate on nights when demand was decent, affecting their existing revenues. But the offer seemed strong enough to get people talking, and raise demand for the hotel across the board.
Moral of this story appears to be;
Be generous with you promotions if you want to attract attention, but dont make offers that can be taken up on days when demand is reasonable.
September Channel Management Offer
Starting September 2009 we will be offering new customers the chance to use the Channel Management Solution FOC on a 3 month trial, we have about 10 places available so contact us on info@accubook.net if you are interested
Other News
AccuBook are pleased to announce the creation of AxisRooms, a Joint Venture between TravelHQ based in Banaglore India and AccuBook of Donegal Ireland.
The new company will offer a one-stop solution for hotels to distribute their rooms to Travel Agents, their own website and Online Travel Agents such as Agoda, Booking.com, TravelGuru and RatetoGo.
'The software is the most advanced on the market' said AxisRooms Director Anil Kumar Prasanna 'The ability to control ALL your inventory form a single point makes it a 'must have' for hotels wanting to sell their accommodation across as many channels as possible in the Asian and World Wide Market'.
The software is now available in Beta Version on http://www.axisrooms.com/
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