While everybody seems to understand the need to get to grips with vast quantities of consumer data in order to make accurate revenue predictions, just 20% of North American hotels are using RM systems.
Here are a handful of tips from EyeforTravel's 12-page white paper, which includes views from top brands including ODIGEO, Starwood Capital Group and Denihan Hospitality Group, as well as a detailed case study from El Cortz Hotel & Casino.
- Consider joining forces with a bigger group: Remember though that tailored RM solutions work best.
- Clean up your data: Accurate data requires tight controls and more attention must be paid to data supplied by the customer or gathered through person-to-person contact. Remember too that location-based data can be wrong and purchases can be made on behalf of others. Personal interaction is critical.
- Deliver strategic insights: This means eradicating contaminated data. This is critical to providing a strong foundation on which to run RM programmes and new systems are needed but it is also important to understand the limitations of the machine.
- Define a long-term strategy: This requires skilled people which have the ability to understand the impact of local events as well as external influences like economic conditions.
- Get organisational consensus: A lack of joined approach doesn't work. There is more need for inter-departmental cooperation and greater understanding at the C-suite level.
- And yes, know that the consumer landscape is changing: The multichannel environment presents two distinct problems: Data and Purchasing behaviour. As mobile accounts for 20% of travel transactions (eyefortravel, 2013), the volume of data needing to be analyzed and processed has also grown. And social media provides a wealth of information about location, preference, customer segment and advocacy.
- Ensure your organisational structure supports an RM policy: this means having a cultural shift to ensure that core like marketing, sales and revenue work together to share information critical to RM success.
Click here to download Effective Revenue Management in the Hospitality Industry, a free white paper from EyeforTravel: http://events.eyefortravel.com/smart-travel-analytics-north-america/content-e4t.php
Source: Digital Journal reporting on a full story from http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/11/prweb11323422.htm
