Tips & Guide
What data should you be using for better revenue management?
Analysing the right data is paramount for effective revenue management. Your potential customers are swamped by hundreds of offers emblazoned on websites when they’re browsing the plethora of hotels available at the click of a mouse. The key to setting yourself aside from the competition is to ensure your website and your digital distribution channels are different. You can make it the right type of different by ensuring data drives how your website looks. But what types of data? Read on to find out the data you really should be utilising for better revenue management.
Net Gain per channel
This is a critical data category for hoteliers who have multiple domains and channels. Instead of analysing the demand, or traffic, for each channel, look at your net gain. Is it costing you more to keep the channel than what you’re gaining from it? Could you incorporate it into your other channels? Ensuring that you use your reservation system for hotels to analyse your net gain per channel is crucial in determining how successful your revenue management is.
Historical data
How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve came from? Analysing historical data from revenue management software in hotels is a dependable tactic you can use to make your revenue management more profitable. For example, if the lifetime value of guests who’ve visited you from deal websites such as Groupon is lucrative in the long run then you’re doing the right thing. If not, then maybe a change is in order.
Pace Reports
You can learn a lot from the hotel pace report available from your revenue management software in hotels. These provide you with detailed data about your hotel’s performance by room types, week parts (weekday vs weekend performance), holidays such as New Year and more. Viewing these allows you to plan ahead for the future and adapt accordingly.
Booking Windows
Remember to factor in outliers when viewing your lead times; what if your average booking window is 15 when outliers are removed, but it initially appears to be 30? You could then go onto create a marketing strategy with an average 30-day lead time in mind and completely miss your target audience. The only solution to this is to consider each booking window carefully so you know exactly when people are booking, what they’re booking and why they’re booking.
Cancellations
Do you find your hotel taking in a lucrative amount of bookings, only to be dismayed when you realise a large percentage of your would-be guests end up cancelling their stay via? Are people with longer lead times more likely to cancel their stay with you? If so, how can you engage with them during their lead time so they don’t cancel?
Effectively analysing your cancellation rate and who’s changing their minds about their stay can save you potentially thousands in retaining guests as opposed to losing them. If you find there’s a certain demographic or customer group who’re cancelling more than others you can act decisively to combat the problem.