Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Would your pricing strategy pass this test ?

You know your pricing strategy is working…because your hotel is receiving reservations every day.

Is it ALSO true that your pricing strategy is costing you money?

Does your pricing strategy:

• Put your hotel at risk of not maximising it’s daily revenue potential

• Put your hotel at risk of reduced revenue every day

• Motivate clients to ask for rate reductions if other hotels charge less

• Attracting the wrong segments for your property

• Squeeze profit margins

• Require costly systems to track and administer revenue

I did a simple exercise with a client to test the alternative: “What if your pricing strategy had been value based pricing instead of being based on comp. set analysis ?”

How would that impact their actual revenue compared to forecast?

Test results - Major revenue increases and a better utilisation of capacity….. and an increased auxiliary spend

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

The concept of differential pricing increases total profits for your hotel.

You will however have to think about:-
- How can you differentiate between the two segments and structure your pricing to make one segment pay more than the other ?
- How can you control demand so the lower-paying segment does not use the entire availability ?

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Never underestimate your challenge or your ability to deal with it.


Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Win by personalisation, not standardisation.

Think out of the box - who want’s to stay in a standard product

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Plans are only good intentions…...

Put them in action

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Your USP is never what you think it is.


It is what your customer think it is.

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Everything is on sale…….

If the price is right !

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Today's Revenue Management thought:-

Acquaintances will ask for discount prices.

True friends will pay the price, to support you, your business, your time & work.

Make your guests your friends.

Have a profitable week.

✌🏼

Google introduces free organic listing for Hotel Ads: One extra reason to be live on Google Hotel Ads

Google launches a new feature for Google Hotel Ads. Now you can have visibility in two places within the price feed. We will take a closer look at the free organic listing. Here is what we know so far.

What is this all about?

If a hotel is already doing Google Hotel Ads campaigns and therefore is visible with their direct link on the paid section, Google is now giving them the opportunity to be visible twice: in the price feed that we know so far plus in an organic price listing. 

The full launch will happen on the 9th of March.

Where exactly can I see the new additional listing?

The new section is located right below the paid one, on the Google Hotel Ads price display after clicking on “view more rates”. 
When the user then decides for a link, they will be redirected to the booking engine of the website - just the way as it is today.

Why is this new feature important?

This new section is providing double exposure for your hotel. This leads to additional traffic for no extra costs. 
Furthermore, this creates opportunities for hotels to be displayed with their direct link at least on the organic listing while using very low bids for Google Hotel Ads.

How does it work exactly?

There are no costs involved with this new feature. However, it is of course necessary to be live with Google Hotel Ads campaigns in order to be also visible in the new organic section. 
Paid listings will continue to appear in ad slots and will operate in the same way as it does today. 

If the hotel is already doing Google Hotel Ads campaigns, there is no additional step to take for getting this new feature. It is also important to know that the visibility of the organic slot is independent of the bidding i.e. if the base bid applied in the paid Google Hotel Ads campaign is extremely low, the organic listing is still shown.

‍Conclusion‍

Google is giving the hotel’s direct link the opportunity to be displayed not only on the paid price listing but also on a new organic one. Thanks to the double listing the hotel can take up more space as an advertiser. So it will help increase your overall visibility. Even competing with the OTAs, you now have the opportunity of being more present.

You have questions around the new feature or Google Hotel Ads in general? Don’t hesitate to contact us.

RoomPriceGenie - Revenue Management Systems and the Recovery from Corona – Will Pricing be Accurate ?

Data is the future! Data will help you make better decisions! Data’s so great! It is better than humans! Data this! Data that!

But what if you suddenly have very little data? And the data you do have is either not representative of the current situation or too sparse to make the usual calculations. What if the algorithms you set up to deal with the data are no longer valid?

RoomPriceGenie is in a fortunate position in that our algorithm is not adversely affected by any of these issues. While standard RMS build demand forecasts frompast reservations and new pick-up, our approach is different; we look at your market positioning and optimise for that.

“The crisis has rendered meaningless the typical reference points—including historical booking patterns and trends—that drive price optimisation.”

All the data from previous years are not going to describe your demand for this year correctly. Creating forecasts will require in-depth segmentation and an understanding of the behaviour of each of those segments. While this is possible with the software, it was not really built for this scenario, and one imagines that strong human overlay would be required.

“This drastic change has essentially turned companies’ revenue management systems into blank slates.”

The RMS could “trigger a race to the bottom that would harm revenue and price positions even more”.

Why? When demand is low, normal price elasticities may no longer hold. The RMS may be reducing the price to stimulate demand that actually isn’t there. As the reservations don’t arrive, the prices will be driven lower because the systems are intended to optimise occupancy.

And the most damaging part of this is that other hotels will have to follow suit, reducing prices to match yours. This means that revenue for the industry as a whole is lower, while you gain no competitive advantage. 

This is the hotel version of the ‘Prisoner’s dilemma’ problem. If only you reduce, then you get more business. But if your competitor does too, both of you will be worse off.

The best outcome in this prisoner’s dilemma is for both parties to keep prices high. This is the tactical approach that is necessary in low-demand circumstances because you may never be able to fill your rooms even if you give them away for free. Everyone keeping prices higher means at least those that do need to travel will pay full value.

RoomPriceGenie is built for smaller hotels that are not price-setters themselves. They need to follow what is going on in the market as a whole and position themselves for maximising revenue. Basing your pricing strategy on market rates instead of data forecasts means the RoomPriceGenie software will not rush to drop your room prices when it sees a decline in pick-up. Instead, it will maintain rates in line with your market and consistently be positioning you to ensure you receive (just a little more than) your fair share of business. When you are busier, your prices will go a bit higher than the other hotels; when quieter you will be a little cheaper. In doing so, you will be maximising revenue on whatever demand exists in your area. 

This approach means that we will not start a race to the bottom. If everyone else goes down then you will have to follow. But if they don’t then you will be positioning yourself to maximise revenue from this smaller pot, with higher prices. Equally, you won’t be so high you put your guests off.

Furthermore, in times of crisis, hoteliers need software that can implement their pricing strategy – often the individual insight with the human-touch will be a great asset. RoomPriceGenie gives users the option to take matters into their own hands. With the ability to make simple but powerful adjustments within the app, hoteliers are able to have the best of both worlds when it comes to crisis management; number-crunching automation combined with strategic intervention. 

We would love to show you how RoomPriceGenie can help you come out of this, and also how, by using the wisdom of crowds, we have excellent pricing in normal times too.