Tips & Best Practices for Hospitality & Travel Professionals | RateGain Blog

With the shelf life of a single day for a hotel room, hoteliers aim to maximize its value. And, forecasting is the key driver of the pricing management decisions/inventory management decisions. Agree? Any inaccurate forecast(s) can lead to reduced profit margins for your hotel business. If you're among those hoteliers who have not tried effective hotel room forecasting yet, then you’re missing out on at least 9 advantages to your hotel revenue management approach. What are...

There’s a reason why we hear a bazillion times about ‘how to make the most of your Facebook page’. Busy with the grand scheme of things, you might tend to forget the simple basic rules behind Social Media. Here are the quick essentials your hotel must follow to market on social media (Facebook) effectively: 1)       Understand where you stand Know where you stand online in comparison to your competitors Set up clear goals- what you want to achieve from your Face...

In this age of big data, there’s lots of talk about how all the seemingly unlimited amounts of information we collect and store can be put to use. But actually figuring out how to access and translate that into business intelligence remains one of the most vexing issues for the hospitality industry today. One of my top goals here at DHISCO Inc. is to advance our and our partners’ ability to analyze the data we have and create next-generation business intelligence solutions...

As a revenue manager, taking a decision on the right price is the most important part of your role. However, for your pricing decision to be as accurate as possible, there is another preceding decision that you need to take correctly. Most revenue managers spend a lot of time calculating optimum prices without dedicating sufficient time to this step. The trouble is, not paying enough attention to this step will invariably lead to incorrect pricing and missed revenue opp...

With WTM London right around the corner, the RateGain team brings you an article about the UK's hospitality growth story, and what it means for Revenue Managers. In 2015, London is expected to  receive 18.82 million international visitors, according to the annual MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index. This makes London the top-ranked international travel destination for the fifth time in a seven year period. This is 6% more than the 2014 number of 17.8 million visits...

This is the fourth part of an exclusive seven-part series that takes a look at how top cities in various regions have performed in terms of rate parity. The first six parts will look at trends in each of the below regions: APAC EUROPE NORTH AMERICA LATIN AMERICA (This Part) MIDDLE EAST OCEANIA The last part of this series will feature an in-depth comparison between the performance of these 6 regions and a check on the impact if any of rate parity being ...

According to Kirby Payne, President of HVS Hotel Management, the primary role of F&B in a hotel is to increase a hotel's room revenues. To this effect, if a hotel can increase their aggregate user ratings by one point (e.g. 3.3 to 4.3), they could increase their price by 11.2% before impacting occupancy. New age travellers consider a hotel stay as a series of experiences. In addition to service, sleep quality and cleanliness, a very important part of the entire expe...

Late last year, Toni Portmann took on the challenge of being a turnaround artist for Pegasus Solutions, the company that created the original “hotel switch.” A tech pioneer, Pegasus eventually helped more than 100,000 hotels (including 300 hotel chains) distribute their room rates and availability to global distribution systems, and later to online travel agencies and metasearch platforms. Yet last year, Pegasus split up some of its operations. Private equity firm H.I.G...

Grandhotel Zvon is an award-winning, upscale 4-star hotel, situated in the historical centre of Ceske Budejovice. This international hotel brand has spacious, air-conditioned deluxe rooms and junior suites, fitted with high-quality furniture and luxurious fabrics. The team wanted to upgrade its manual database operations that were adversely affecting the quick decision making and add more sophistication to combat price wars, inflicted by low demand. Grandhotel Zvon chose RevG...