Weekly Insights. April 27, 2024

What are the best practices when calculating group rates?

Our Industry Expert Panel exists out of professionals within the hospitality & travel Industry. They have comprehensive and detailed knowledge, experience in practice or management and are forward-thinking. They are answering questions about the state of the industry. They share their insights on topics like revenue management, marketing, operations, technology and discuss the latest trends.

A new approach to hotel management fees

In the ever-evolving hospitality industry, the question of how to effectively compensate hotel operators remains crucial. While the basic premise of paying managers for their management skills holds true, the prevalent incentive fee structures may no longer adequately align with market realities, particularly for owners.

Event driven hotel pricing: How do major events influence the evolution of room rates?

Large scale events are significant revenue generators for hoteliers, injecting demand into markets and thus allowing hotel revenue managers to advertise much higher rates for their hotels during these periods.

They are generally circled out in any hotel commercial team’s calendar as critical points to drive revenue and consequently you must have the right strategy in place.

A core part of this is understanding rate evolution up to the event date, especially as these events buck normal demand patterns, introducing new variables into the revenue management equation.

With this in mind, it’s time to go on a deep dive and show you how major events can affect hotel market pricing.

How to improve hotel sales: 17 ideas to add to your strategy

In the hospitality industry, delivering exceptional service is foundational to driving repeat bookings. Though, how do you attract guests in the first place? Are word-of-mouth recommendations enough to sustain and increase hotel sales?

To increase hotel revenue, you continuously need to refine the sales process. You can never sit back and think you’ve reached maximum performance.

Whether it’s by adding new tools or tactics, it calls for a comprehensive approach and active involvement. Here are over a dozen ideas to include in your hotel sales strategy and tips on how to track its success.

A history lesson in revenue management and the top challenge facing today’s hotels

With every passing year, revenue management is playing a more central role at hotels as they navigate a landscape now locked in a permanent state of change. 

Particularly in recent years, when hotels have at times been forced to confront a reality without cash flow, revenue management has been thrust to the forefront of every hotelier’s mind. Revenue managers, as a result, have been tasked with the critical role of delivering effective pricing and distribution strategies amid evolving trends and market demands, no matter the economic climate.

But while revenue management as a discipline has transformed since it found its way into hotels, there appears to be a widening gap between the heightened demands of the practice and the shrunken pool of talent within the industry. Below is a chart that illustrates this trend.

Rate parity in hospitality: Hotels vs OTAs

Everybody in the hospitality business encounters the concept of rate parity. Its initial aim was to make things fair and square for all the industry players, but that's not always the way it works.

To cooperate successfully with OTAs without losing control over their own pricing, hoteliers need to grasp the idea and develop a strategy that will allow them to apply rate parity to their advantage.

Enhancing hotel guests’ well-being: Academic insights for hoteliers

Below are ten suggestions of how your hospitality brand can enhance your guests’ well-being, focusing on both affective and cognitive components.

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