If you were asked to identify an area of life or
business that wasn’t turned upside down by the pandemic, it would be a nearly
impossible task. The hospitality sector and revenue management in particular
were hit hard by the crisis.
Even today, with demand returning in more and
more markets, challenges remain. But with the right tools and strategies at
hand, you can overcome them and tap into new revenue streams during the
recovery and beyond.
Grappling with an all-new competitive landscape
With the emergence of COVID-19 and the
subsequent lockdowns, historical data became relatively obsolete from one day
to the next. Established demand and booking patterns went overboard, and the
competitive landscape changed significantly. Due to furloughs and downsizing,
fewer staff were left to deal with countless changes.
However, even with demand
growing once again, challenging conditions continue. Yes, it’s good news to see
increased pick-up as markets re-open. But, with 32.5%
of hoteliers saying their property is understaffed, commercial teams are
leaner and have more on their plate than before. At the same time, commercial
departments must be alert and quick to react since competition is fiercer than
ever. Unfortunately, the silo culture that has manifested itself between
revenue, sales, distribution and marketing teams often makes it harder to
identify and work towards common goals.
Setting commercial teams up for success
For hoteliers who want to get ahead and thrive,
a silo mentality is simply no longer an option. Instead, savvy hoteliers
require efficiency, streamlined communication, collaboration and the ability to
access and share live, forward-looking market and competitor data. This is the
key to uncovering and seizing revenue opportunities before the competition.
There are already tech tools in place that can
gather vast amounts of relevant real-time information and thus slash the time
spent on manual data collection. They provide the insights needed to optimize
pricing and distribution. However, it still takes time to sift through vast
volumes of data before you can make any decisions. And teams engaged in a silo
mentality often don’t share this information, so decisions from different
departments end up not being aligned, which impacts overall efficiency.
But now, there’s finally an easy way to solve
this challenge, break down silos and enable commercial teams to work together
more efficiently for maximized business results.
Consolidate business intelligence and break down silos with the Overview
Hoteliers have been aware of the silo effect and
its negative impact on business performance for some time. Despite a
willingness to change, the lack of integrated technology was one of the main
factors keeping commercial teams from collaborating more successfully.
Now, the launch of OTA Insight’s new Overview will solve this
challenge by providing a consolidated overview of key metrics relevant to all commercial
departments. Getting all this information in one place vastly improves internal
communication and allows for faster, more data-driven decision-making. With The
Overview, hoteliers can react, adapt and drive business in today’s fast-paced
and competitive market environment.
For the first time, a single platform makes all
this information accessible to all stakeholders in real time. That includes
senior management, commercial and operations departments, and regional
leadership teams. The Overview
shows data from any combination of OTA Insight’s business and market
intelligence tools to provide an accurate live snapshot of property/market
performance and KPIs.
Depending on the tools a subscriber is using, this can include distribution
health per channel, price competitiveness, events and holidays, market demand
(based on upper-funnel search data), OTB data vs market, pick-up, ADR and
revenue. This can provide a deep understanding of the market, demand and your
hotel’s positioning in seconds.
Increase efficiency with leaner commercial teams
The Overview
does away with the need to click back and forth between tabs or manually
collate data into reports. Instead, you can now receive an instant snapshot of
all KPIs in one central homepage. This helps you track key insights into your
revenue, distribution and market performance quickly and with ease.
Especially if you’re working within a leaner
team, you’ll benefit from saving time handling your data manually. First,
you’ll be able to make well-informed commercial pricing and revenue decisions
faster than ever. With the alert feed, you can boost productivity and
stay on top of your day, by easily monitoring the most important commercial
changes and opportunities at a glance. Second, you can reinvest your time
in more strategic planning and analysis, developing new commercial approaches
and staff training.
Finally, the Overview also comes in handy if you
want to present your results in a concise format during meetings with your
team, management, or the owners. Again, you save time on preparing your report
because your data is already laid out in a clear and visually appealing
format.
Deepen collaboration across commercial departments
Use the Overview
to streamline internal communication by sharing key insights across your entire
team. Simply give them access to the platform, so everyone can view a snapshot
of your overall performance and KPIs. Since the view is individually customizable,
each team member can select the data most relevant to their work.
This can help foster a greater understanding of
how one commercial department’s decisions can impact the others. More informed
and constructive interdepartmental discussions about promotions, targeted campaigns,
rate changes, etc. are the consequence. This can enable your team to
effectively set and work towards common goals and measure progress along the
way. The data immediately shows if there’s room for improvement, making it easy
to correct your course quickly.
Uncover opportunities in a fiercely competitive market
Despite recovery being in full swing in many
markets, occupancy is often still lower than pre-pandemic levels. But, since
every property wants to win as much business as possible to recover faster,
competition is fiercer than usual. On top of that, demand patterns still
haven’t gone back to 2019 levels.
In this situation, it’s difficult to plan ahead
and set pricing and promotional strategies without forward-looking insights,
ideally powered by availability & upper-funnel search data. The Overview
offers a detailed snapshot of pricing, availability and upper-funnel search
data you need, to understand how your hotel compares to the competition and the
market as a whole. You can also drill down on specific areas in seconds, so you
always immediately spot the latest changes in demand and the new possibilities
they bring.
Let these insights be your North Star when analyzing
emerging opportunities and deciding how to react. This will help you adjust
your rates quickly every time demand shifts. You’ll also find it easier to optimize
your hotel’s positioning and avoid outpricing yourself during slower periods.
As a result, you’ll be implementing more effective and refined pricing
strategies that increase your revenue even in challenging market conditions.
With all of your key metrics in one place, commercial decision making that
includes a mix of pricing, marketing, placement and promotion has never been
easier.
Summary
In a time where smaller teams are tasked to do
more with less, it’s crucial to place trust in tools that will maximize
efficiency, improve collaboration and help your team make the best decisions
possible.
If you’re looking to save time, and do more with
your data, now is the time to take action, with the Overview. With the Overview
you and your team can now easily plan, monitor and execute on key commercial
decisions more effectively than ever before.