Room Rate Comparisons and what it tells us.
One of the products we offer is a Room Rate Comparison Service. This is a weekly published document that allows customers to see exactly where they stand in comparison with competitors in the area. For us however it tells us other things, for example which hotels are managing inventory and which are not.
This week we see one particular hotels rates vary from 98€ per night to 212€ (for the same room on the same day). The only logical conclusion here is that the hotel is not managing their online inventory. This problem is not uncommon as many hotels are only just coming to terms with the need to employ a Revenue Manager. However with some 55% of bookings said to originate on the web (Note NOT necessarily mean booked through the web, but at least researched on the web) this is a severe loss of revenue. Remember that on Travel Portals price is likely to be a key factor (your loyal customers will book directly on your hotel website anyway). If you are 5€ more expensive than your competitors you may loose the sale, and if you are 5€ cheaper you could be throwing away 3€ of revenue as you may only need to be the same price or a few euro cheaper than your competitors.
The Room Rate Comparison also identifies hotels that are applying the same price, midweek or weekdays, whilst others are practising full 'Demand Management' and vary the price greatly to attract customers and lift the occupancy (just like airlines do).Another common problem is missing room types. For some reason (often lost in the mist of time) a hotel may not have Family Rooms or Single Rooms set up (maybe they were being redecorated at the time they signed up with the Booking Engine!). Whatever the cause, it is costing them revenue.
Every week however we discover oddball problems, such as the hotel not displaying at all on a search for their location. Thisis almost always due to the Booking Engine having the hotel located in the wrong town. This week we found one Booking Engine who had the town name incorrectly set up as a County, making it impossible to locate the hotel in a search. Moral of the story? Do a periodic search on the Booking Engines you are working with to make sure you are correctly displaying. The hotels that stand out the most however, are the ones that are showing 'No Availability' on the popular booking engines week after week, ie They are not selling inventory online. Its hard to know how these hotels will survive. In the last 6 months we have received contacts from hotels all around the world, to display and sell their rooms, who have mistakenly identified us as a Travel Portal. Reading between the lines these hotel Revenue Manager are signing up to very Online Booking Engine they can find in an effort to sell rooms.
Making Money from Wifi
Hotel Wifi - We met BitBuzz at the Hospitality Exchange in Belfast last week, and what they had to say about hotels using wifi as a Revenue Generator was very interesting. Leisure break hotels tend to feel the need to offer this FOC to their guests (City Hotels most certainly dont, i am regualrly paying as much as 15€ for a 24 horu wifi voucher) but more and more things are being done over a hotel wifi system. For example anypne equipped with a modern mobile phone can make calls over a hotel wifi network, completely bypassing the hotels telephone system. They can even call down videos and movies to watch. All thisis happening with many hotels unable to tap into this potential revenue stream.We understood from the presentation that BitBuzz have a number of schemes including a zero set-up fee scheme, which appears to be very attractive to hotels in this current economic situation. Speak to this guy below, and let us know the outcome.
Russell McQuillan
M: +44 (0) 7888841919
+353 (0) 860491066
W: http://www.bitbuzz.com/
E: russell.mcquillan@bitbuzz.com
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Inventory Management and Online Marketing Traning
We are now starting to plan for a couple of new training courses that will begin in January 2010
A. Inventory Management - Selling rooms through Booking Engines During each module a representative from one of the major booking engines will present their system and how to get the most out of it (ie Booking.com, LateRooms etc, Gulliver etc). We will train the participants how to put in place a proper Demand Management System to flex rates according to hotel occupancy. Give hotels (that dont already have use it) the Channel Management Tool that updates many booking engines simultaneously for the duration of the course. (This could cost you 1500€ Per Annum if you are using RateTiger for example !) With so much business going via the web, its hard to believe this course would not pay for itself in a couple of weeks. If you have a very wel trained Revenue Manager consider this as an opportunity to train other Reservation Staff. We are getting close to the point where Receptionists will not be able to do their job without web training.
B. Online Marketing
The rational for this course may appear strange, but it is very real; In the past we have spent much time training hotelreservations staff in the art of Online Marketing, but once they re-enter the hotel environment other problems take priority, with the result that Online Marketing is only really done in 'fits and starts.', and rarely in a way that hotels can measure the success. In additon new features come along at a frightening pace that can be useful to hotels. For example since the last course Google Maps have become all powerful, Tripadvisor have developed some useful widgets, videos have becone more prevalent, and Social Media is starting to make an impact.
This Online Marketing Course will be very similar to previous ones but the hidden agenda' is to ensure that
A. An Online Marketing Plan is defined.
B. An Online Marketing Plan is executed
C. Reservations staff are trained on the latest online opportunities.
This course will porbably run for 2.5 hours, once per month for 10 months (excluding July/August).
MORE DETAILS TO COME IN NOVEMBER
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World Travel Market
Easily the largest and most interesting travel show in the Uk and Ireland. This is taking place in Excel, London November
9/12th. If any of our customers are planning a journey please let us know so we can meet up.
http://www.wtmlondon.com/