Do you want to know how to stop managing your revenue and start realizing your revenue potential? An upcoming webinar on EyeforTravel.com on January 22 will deal in some detail with some of those issues. To whet your appetite we had a pre-webinar chat with our panel of speakers to hear what lies in store for smart travel analytics in 2014.
Do you want to know how to stop managing your revenue and start realizing your revenue potential? An upcoming webinar (http://events.eyefortravel.com/smart-travel-analytics-north-america/webinar-employ-smart-travel-analytics.php) on EyeforTravel.com on January 22 will deal in some detail with some of those issues. To whet your appetite we had a pre-webinar chat with our panel of speakers to hear what lies in store for smart travel analytics in 2014.
1. Learn how translate and simplify of data
2. Beware the rising costs of commissions
Most directors of revenue management are not focused on it but the rising cost of commissions paid to distribution partners is the biggest challenge facing them today, says Patrick Bosworth, Co-Founder and CEO of Duetto Research. He even goes as far as to say that current RM strategies are inadvertently benefiting intermediaries at the expense of hotel owners and operators. Hotels must abandon best available room rates, independently yield segments, and always offer all known customers a lower price through their direct channels than they offer to Expedia, Booking, Kayak, GDS and so on.
3. Choose the right people to make the magic happen
According to Henegar, anyone that has tried to write a job description for a revenue management position in the last two years will have found it tough to keep it under the size of a novel. This is because revenue management today is so far beyond the old definition of simply managing rates and availability. “The different ways consumers are able to conduct business in the travel industry is astounding,” he says. “At times, that’s a great thing; at others it’s just ridiculous. The greatest challenge a revenue manager has is keeping up with it all. But I don’t think we need to be looking for a solution to that challenge – we need to be looking for the right people to make the magic happen.”
4. Expect tools, systems and channels to proliferate
5. Ensure analytics systems provide relevant information to hotel GMs
“Without their buy-in and understanding it's hard to maintain budgets and in such cases data-driven decisions are too often overridden,” says Bosworth. On another note, he says it is also important for transactional systems in the industry to build more robust APIs to disseminate data quickly, cheaply, efficiently and flexibly.
6. Prepare for a refocus on net revenue
According to Bosworth, 2014 will be the year when hoteliers begin to focus on net revenue rather than just gross revenue as this is usually reflected in RevPAR. “We will learn that while RevPAR will continue to grow in 2014 the cost to acquire that revenue will grow faster,” he concludes.
Josh Henegar, Corporate Revenue Manager, 1859 Historic Hotels. Ltd, Patrick Bosworth, Co-Founder and CEO, Duetto Research Inc, and Sameer Mehra, Chief Revenue Officer, Hersha Hospitality Management will join Tim Gunstone, Managing Director, Eyefortravel for our free webinar Employ smart travel analytics to maximize your revenue: http://events.eyefortravel.com/smart-travel-analytics-north-america/webinar-employ-smart-travel-analytics.php