When dynamic pricing was first introduced to revenue management the idea of managing transient pricing for hotels on a day to day basis was considered quite new Ð even radical. Even as recently as a few years ago, many hotels continued to sell at predefined rate levels, and did not manage rates dynamically.ÊToday, however, dynamic transient pricing has taken hold Ð largely driven by the transparency of rates in the internet distribution era.
As a result of this focus on transient pricing, competitive rates have also become a critical part of decision-making, and competitive rate information has become readily available and widely used. Transient pricing and pricing relative to competition have become highly visible, with hotel general managers and others closely watching competitive rate positioning.ÊFinally, as hotels have moved to dynamic transient pricing, many contracted rates have been converted to discounts off of published transient rates. The result of these contracted discounts is that more demand than ever is being managed by BAR & transient pricing.
It is in this highly dynamic pricing environment that we see hotels asking, ÒCan we properly manage my property’s revenue solely by adjusting rates?Ó and/or ÒWhy do I still need to manage rate availability?Ó It is clear that there is significant confusion in the hospitality industry when it comes to the role of pricing in revenue management. This confusion has paved the way for vendors that claim to have complete revenue management solutions, even though those solutions only address the pricing aspect of revenue management, and ignore rate availability management and its benefits. In reality, however, hotels cannot maximize their revenue or profitability solely by managing rate prices.
Hotels today need both availability and rate pricing in their RMS
To articulate the limitations of Òpricing onlyÓ approaches, let’s start with the simplest possible example: you have one room left to sell on Thursday, and a customer comes in and offers you your highest possible rate for that day Ð should you take it?ÊIf you are following a Òpricing onlyÓ approach, your answer is probably ÒyesÓ Ð you’ll receive the highest possible rate for that day.
But the question that you should be asking is: what other demand exists for that room? What other demand is competing for that space?ÊYou may well have another customer willing to stay two or more nights that would provide greater profitability for your property in the long run. In this case, ÒclosingÓ to a one night stay Ð even if demand for that one night stay is at the highest possible price Ð is preferable to the option of leaving that rate ÒopenÓ by selling it at your highest possible rate for the day.ÊThis is why we have long advocated that hotels today need BOTH availability and rate pricing in their RMS.
Scientists and academicians focused on hotel revenue management and price optimization recognize that hotel pricing is not like grocery store pricing, where inventory often isn’t a critical part of the decision.Ê Your local grocery store doesn’t need to worry about how much Diet Coke is available to sell when they are pricing that Diet Coke Ð the local supplier is going to make sure that there’s always plenty of Diet Coke on those shelves. But in hotel pricing, room inventory can’t fluctuate with demand Ð we can’t just create and eliminate hotel rooms on the fly. As a result, it’s not enough to know the willingness to pay of any single segment of demand Ð one must also understand how much room inventory is left to sell, the willingness to pay (or price sensitivity) of all of your channels and segments, and how that demand is distributed in terms of arrivals and length of stay.
Contracted rates, negotiations and availabilityÊ
Another reality for most hotels is contracted rates. In the past, many contracted rates came at a fixed rate (sometimes with day of week differences and seasonal adjustments); some rates were controllable with inventory controls on busy days, while others insisted on Òlast room availabilityÓ. However, as the industry converted to dynamic pricing, many contracts have been converted to Òfloating discountsÓ off published rates.Ê In many cases, these contracts can still be managed via inventory controls on busy days (or ÒclosedÓ as we commonly refer to this). These inventory-controlled negotiated discount contracts provide clarity to the contract partner, while still allowing the hotel to ÒcloseÓ the rates on peak days, where it may be profit-optimizing to bookings from other channels or segments or longer lengths of stay.
Managing floating discount rates in this way allows a hotel to dynamically change pricing, while still ensuring a consistent pricing strategy that is generally acceptable to the contract customer.ÊHowever, we have seen advocates of Òpricing onlyÓ approaches tell hotels that they should re-negotiate these contracts to allow varying discounts, so that these rates can be managed independently.ÊImagine asking your contract partners if they would accept a dynamic discount off a dynamic rate (either of which could change at any time).ÊWhy would they sign such a contract?ÊMost contract partners are making commitments to provide hotel operators with a significant share of their business Ð but without having any commitment at all from the hotel company in terms of price or discount, what partner is going to make that commitment?
Consider the special case of corporate contracts. Most of us recognize that corporate travel is not particularly price-sensitive Ð at the point of booking.ÊHowever, corporate travel buyers are price sensitive Ð at the time of contracting.ÊCorporate travel buyers are well aware that the industry knows that corporate travel is generally price-insensitive Ð that is exactly why they choose to negotiate fixed rate or fixed discount contracts. The contract partner commits to ensuring that the hotel receives the lion’s share of bookings, in return for a commitment to price or discount.ÊWithout this protection, most rational systems would charge these customers as much as or more than a typical transient customer Ð arguably providing no discount at all.ÊIn this light, independent pricing of such contracted corporate rates is effectively not participating in negotiated contracts with the corporate customer at all, as such terms will not be acceptable to them.
The right approach to managing contracted rates is to recognize the links between daily pricing and these segments Ð while also recognizing that these different segments may well have distinct demand patterns and price sensitivity. Revenue management systems should also recognize that some of that demand can be controlled by availability as well as price, while some of that demand (due to last room availability clauses) cannot be managed via availability controls. By using this approach, we are able to support these common types of contracts as they exist, while continuing to optimize revenue through the use of both pricing and availability recommendations.
Groups and group pricing group pricing is another great example of the importance of recognizing the value of room inventory. For simplicity, we will set aside the complexities of associated non-room revenues, including function space Ð though these are certainly highly relevant subjects to group pricing decisions in general. In determining what rate is the optimal rate to offer a particular group, we need to know not only the willingness to pay of the group, but what other prospective guests will be displaced by the group. In other words, we need to calculate the expected profit from the rooms that a group would take up if the same rooms were sold in the optimal manner to other demand segments, a value commonly referred to as the Òdisplacement costÓ.
Contrary to common perception, displacement cost is not a price recommendation, per se, but rather a minimum revenue threshold that the group must provide in order to deliver value at least equal to the expected value from demand from other segments.ÊSo, if we have a group that has indicated that it will not pay more than $100 for each room on a particular night, but our displacement calculations have indicated that we need $120 per room, then our optimal decision is to decline their offer of $100.ÊWondrously, the same displacement cost calculations can be used to find an alternate night for this group where a $100 rate would be acceptable and profitable.
In conclusion: two is better than one
With constant attention to transient rates Ð from GM’s, ownership, and even channel partners Ð it is easy to miss the ongoing importance of valuing inventory and using availability controls.ÊHowever, as we have demonstrated here, hotels that optimize BOTH rate pricing and availability will outperform hotels that restrict themselves to managing pricing alone. Whether you are managing basic transient rates and controlling for complex length of stay interactions, negotiating contracts, or making overbooking decisions, understanding inventory value and setting appropriate availability controls in conjunction with optimizing rates adds significant value to these decisions.
By Alex Dietz and Tugrul Sanli
Alex Dietz is the Advisory Industry Consultant for IDeaS and the Advisory Product Manager at the SAS Institute, and Tugrul Sanli is the Senior Director for Advanced Analytics at the SAS Institute. Alex is Principal Industry Consultant for SAS Institute’s Hospitality and Travel Global Practice, and a 25-year veteran of pricing and revenue management solutions development and consulting in the hospitality, travel and retail industries. Before joining the Hospitality and Travel practice, Alex worked as the Product Manager for SAS Markdown Optimization Ð a price optimization solution used by leading fashion retailers Ð a position he held with SAS forÊfive years. Prior to joining SAS, Alex was the Vice President of Revenue Management and Marketing for Raleigh-Durham based Midway Airlines from 1998 to 2002, reporting directly to CEO Robert Ferguson. Alex began his career with American Airlines, where he acted as Internal Product Manager for American’s industry-leading revenue management systems. Following his time with American, Alex joined SABRE where he acted as Product Manager for SABRE’s airline revenue management solution, and also led SABRE’s pricing and revenue management global consulting practice.Ê
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