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

While a lot of hotels strive to achieve a fine balance on what strategy to apply in their business strategy, Push Occupancy or Strive for higher rates; it is extremely critical to identify high-demand periods in advance as those are the dates when hotels MUST push rates as well as occupancies. All markets experience seasonal fluctuations in their business patterns and this seasonality clubbed with perishability aspect makes revenue management in hotels a crucial exercise, ...

Human minds are inherently prone to biases. Isn’t it? In hotel revenue management, biases can be your worst nightmares since these can result in imprecise conclusions. And, inaccurate conclusions often equal to missed revenue opportunities. Look, either you have a crystal ball that empowers you to know how much will be the average length of stay for varied rate categories in your hotel or what will be the occupancy percentage for “x” number of room nights and many more. Do...

Are you opening a hotel soon? This New Year, adopt the correct prioritization approach in your hotel pre-opening roadmap. Entering into the market with a brand new hotel comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities. After all, hotel business development and planning can be highly demanding, especially during the pre-opening phase. As a hotel general manager, did you realize that opening a fully staffed hotel in 2017 without guests can put your entire investment at ...

It’s growing and getting stronger. This Zika virus news capsule is not easy for the travel and tourism industry professionals to swallow. As the mosquito-borne Zika virus enters into the United States, there’s a growing anxiety in the tourism industry. Further, a warning from the WHO that the Zika virus is “spreading explosively” and that it’s now an international ‘public health emergency’ has global implications. Vacationers are now rethinking their travel plans, especial...

Scientific pricing arrived on the scene as a diverse collection of pricing models developed by industry experts. This methodology is being employed by a rising number of hotels to supercharge their hotel operations and pricing strategies. This quick adoption of the scientific pricing methodology is being triggered by the huge revenue benefits and process improvements it has already garnered for many early adopters like Grandhotel Zvon, Hotel Bernini Bristol, The Landmark Bang...

Improving hotel forecasting is critical for effective planning and quick decision. Your goal is to avoid what we call the curse of "inaccurate forecasting." The more accurate hotel room forecasting you have, the better you can strategize across marketing, operations and pricing. In fact, an improvement of 10% in forecasting accuracy can result in an increase of 1.5% to 3% in revenue generated from a revenue management system. The infographic below outlines the reasons why ...

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...