Our Recently introduced Demand Manager Tool seems to have captured Revenue Managers interest. Although a simple graph it can, in the right hands, be a very useful feature. The graph simply looks at demand (the quantity of searches made by web visitors for a particular day) against the average price of the rooms on that day.
The underlying theorey is 'Supply and Demand', which might sound new and novel but in fact the vast majority of hotels have been practising Demand Management since hotels first opened, haing one price for winter and another for summer, or lower prices midweek compared with weekends. However this principle tends to be set at the beginning of the year when the hotel rates are published and not varied to suit 'real/actual' demand, hence hotels could, and frequently are, sitting on over-priced rooms on quiet days and under-priced rooms on high demand days.
Lets have a look at a few examples;
Example 1
Example 2
There are a few caveats to be considered however;
- With the current trend towards last minute bookings the further forward you look, demand will appear artificially weaker.
- This only considers demand based on web searches on your own hotel website, it does not look at your own occupancy. You may for example see very poor demand on the graph, but in fact your hotels is fully booked due to a weeding.
All in all, this should be considered as a useful tool to be used alongside other information to help set room pricing.
Check your Demand Manager Graph in the Day Manager Tab