In an internet addicted world, booking travel has also become digital with hotel rates displayed across multiple booking sites. Room rates vary according to room type, and many other inclusions like meals, Wi-Fi, and other amenities, like spa, club, local transfers, etc. Room rates also largely vary with change in demand, seasonality and other variables. No wonder with every additional room type and booking partner/OTA, the number of rates visible online for a hotel becomes an even bigger number.
Looking at this massive data, it is seemingly impossible for a revenue manager to keep track of all their hotel rates and their comp-set manually. Additionally, do not miss the usual oscillations in travel demand and supply. Advance tools are designed with the facility to map room types most easy way possible.
This further emphasizes why revenue managers cannot institute competitive hotel pricing strategy without monitoring their competitors’ rates and demand & supply patterns. This is no small a task for hoteliers, it involves tracking thousands of room rates and demand patterns, analyzing all that data to gain valuable insights so as to position their hotel in the market and identify opportunities (price optimization) when and by how much to adjust their prices to stay competitive and lift RevPAR and earn more revenue.
This entire process is becoming even more challenging as the booking route moves online. More travelers opt for Metasearch sites to shop for rooms in an obvious market where consumers can easily find the lowest available rate for their requirement.
This clearly explains the phenomenon that since travelers are using price comparison sites in making their booking decisions, then hoteliers also have to move online and use that same data to make their hotel pricing strategy. Hoteliers need to have a transparent overview of the market, with admission to competitor room rates from across hundreds of booking channels along with a way to quickly compare them easily.
The good news is, yes, they can do all of this and in the comfort of their office/hotel with a competitive RateShopper.
Consumer data is available right from the stage a consumer starts its search online until a guest checks-out. In addition, not to forget, post stay reviews. However, all of this data is scattered. Technology tool help collects all this data and derives actionable insights from it.
Technology tools (rate shopping tools) enable hoteliers to access billions of rates gathered from hundreds of room booking sites. Hoteliers have already acknowledged that this data could enable them with a lot of insights and quickly establish competitive hotel pricing strategy.
Innovative tools offer drag and drop feature for quick and hassle free room type mapping for rate shopping. Further, progressive systems allow flexible comp-set management. Which means subscribers can set their own preferred comp-set basis proximity or any other criterion.
User friendliness and easy navigation are one of most important criterion for increased usability of the rate-shopping tool. Simple dashboards and easy filters to see the required information make it much easier for the users to set their parameters.
This comprehension from revenue managers, combined with an undertaking from technology vendors to empower hoteliers to be competitive online and a trust from hoteliers that data-driven decisions are crucial to the health of the business success, has inspired technology solution providers to develop most advanced and cutting-edge rate shopper tools.
For hoteliers, the advantage of using a rate shopper tool is enormous considering that all consumers are searching online and comp-set is publishing rates there too.
Real rates aggregated from hundreds of booking sites are fetched. This data when displayed on a simple dashboard that is easy to navigate will make the life of a revenue manager much simpler. All the data in the world are worth nothing if it is not easy to comprehend. Hoteliers need to harness the data in order for it to have an impact on strategic decision-making.
The bottom line – Metasearch is not just compelling hoteliers to be more competitive online; it is also empowering them to be more pro- active in their pricing technique and earn more revenue.
Some obvious benefits of using an innovative Channel Manager are – better online visibility, dynamic inventory management, advance price planning, ensures price parity, no over selling or double bookings, easy management of last minute inventory.
To conclude, the hotel industry is now in a phase where utilizing data is progressively vital in laying the footing of future success. Hence, hotel technology providers must step up; provide innovative tools to accumulate rates from multiple sources, and empower hoteliers to utilize this data to establish competitive hotel pricing strategy that is a winning formula for higher revenue.
