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

Technology has made inroads into the lives of all in an unbelievably magical way, with almost every industry progressing at a rapid pace with its constant deployment. Having already transformed the landscape of the hospitality industry, the rapid use of technology has taken customer experience to the next level, by ensuring that the ever-evolving expectations of the guests are being met. The future looks certainly different and exciting, with more innovations waiting down the...

A new report from Phocuswright says Airbnb is on track to become the world’s fourth-largest online travel company this year, behind only Expedia Inc., Priceline Group and China-based Ctrip in annual gross bookings. While the scale may – or may not – surprise some, it underscores what we all already know: the sharing economy is here to stay. Airbnb’s disruptive presence is understandably troubling to the hotel industry, but it is just one more example of the many unexpec...

In the first part of this blog post, we have read about interesting ways to cash on customer loyalty. Every hotel or travel business is dependent on its customers for churning revenue. While hoteliers must be already thinking along these lines, but we can’t ignore the fact that an existing client pool is always the easiest, profitable and most predictable source of revenue for a hotel. In all conscience, customer loyalty is not an alien concept in the hospitality indust...

What is the key opportunity in the hospitality industry that can help your hotel generate more revenue in 2016? It is customer loyalty. Industry trends demonstrate that it is easier to convert current customers than to look out for new ones. In the online space today, where ad impressions, clicks and conversions are getting costlier with every minute, acquiring new customers is an expensive exercise. So selling more to existing clients sounds feasible for hospitality and trav...

New research from travel agent groups shows some interesting trends in how consumers are booking their trips. According to a recent survey by the American Society of Travel Agents, 22 percent of American consumers said they booked travel through an agent in the last 12 months, the highest share reported in the last three years. Other recent research from groups like MMGY Global and Travel Weekly had similar findings. And all report that the highest usage is coming from ...

Hope you have gone through and implemented what we had shared in Part I of this blog series. Now you will agree that a revenue manager has to put on several hats in this role. Considering the complexity of their job role, a revenue manager can be rightfully termed as a - forecaster, strategist, system design specialist, data analyst, marketing guru, talent manager, social media expert, data miner, sales support and also a channel manager. There's a lot going on in his head on...

PokemonGo, the recent sensation among teenagers and adults alike, is a free-to-play location based augmented reality(AR) mobile game developed by Niantic, available on iOS and Android devices. The game primarily uses the GPS and camera of the user’s phone, which augments the user’s reality and surroundings into the game. It virtually places the (user) in the present location(GPS) on map; all the while mirroring the google maps with roads and locales on the user’s phone. ...

One of the biggest challenges for hotel companies and their demand partners has been how to develop and manage connections that give consumers instant, accurate results for their shopping queries without crashing the hotel companies’ often decades-old, legacy central reservations systems. Some big hotel brands have used direct connections with demand partners, believing they offer the easiest, most cost-effective way to share real-time rate and inventory with the big playe...

In the super dynamic and highly connected digital world today, it is tough for a hotel to earn its bragging rights. Also, revving up the overall hospitality play and standing out in the crowd is not a cake walk, considering the high level of competition in the industry. Rapidly shifting consumer landscape further adds to the pressure, by disrupting customer research patterns and interaction levels, with hospitality or travel brands. In such a scenario, any revenue manager ...