Hotel income. If manager pays bill, what is cost of position? Let me reveal to you inner secret

Original: Li Sheng

Hotel revenue manager has always seemed like a tall order, but when it comes to specific job responsibilities

However, not many hotel workers can answer it, and many directly call it "accounting"

But is their job really as simple as calculating costs and revenues?

How to improve hotel revenue management capabilities? Increase hotel income?

Let me analyze answers one by one

PART 1

The job of a hotel revenue manager

The main functions of a revenue manager include forecasting, pricing, inventory management, marketing, and channel management

1, Forecast

Data-driven and customer segmentation, which are main pillars of revenue management

Predicting customer behavior can help revenue managers optimize revenue. The basis for forecasting is data such as historical occupancy, room rates, income and current customer activity.

2, Price:

Depending on market demand and desire of client to stay in a certain type of room. To set price

Revenue managers must analyze market, competitive prices, and their products. Hotel prices will be optimized according to different pricing strategies

Includes demand-based pricing strategies, corporate pricing, package pricing, contractual agreements, and dynamic pricing strategies.

3, Inventory management

In a hotel's revenue management system, inventory numbers are vulnerable products if guests don't stay

The hotel will lose money, so revenue manager needs to make sure rooms are filled with guests

4, Marketing

The goal of all marketing activities is to increase sales. Marketing activities such as promotions, discounts and loyalty programs are designed to ensure a constant flow of guests to hotel while selling rooms and attracting new guests.

5, channel management

When managing revenue, inventory must be sold to customers in a specific market segment, and channels are usually closely tied to segments of customer segments

Depending on type of product, yield manager can select channels and set prices for a specific target audience

PART 2

How to effectively manage income

1, demand forecast

①Information Collection

The first thing a hotel needs to do is obtain and collect relevant information and data

Mainly includes historical data, competitor data and market segmentation data, 3 small parts

1. Hotel historical data

May include room reservations, occupancy and room rates for each month of previous year

Booking for different types of clients, preferred rates and room types, etc.

2. Competitor data

May include competitor prices, room types and numbers, available services, sales channels, etc.

3. Market segmentation data

It can include information about what types of hotel customers exist, what is proportion of each type, etc.

②Data Analysis

The hotel may further analyze collected information to clarify direction of pricing

1

Use historical data for same period last year as a reference for historical trend analysis

Are you predicting same number of bookings this year? Or number of bookings will increase

2

According to competitor information, if a competitor's price is lower than your own hotel price

Will client be able to book a cheap opponent's room?

3

For different types of hotel customers, what type and rate of rooms do they need?

③How to get this data

Many sections of back-end data center provide extensive data support, and hotels can use this information to optimize their OTA operations

And serve as reference data for sales through other channels (e.g. individual shoppers in stores, etc.)

Example:

The hotel can see current popularity of business district and city in which hotel is located in [Market Analysis] section under ebk data center

The hotel may use this information to adjust price according to current occupancy

Example:

And in

[Business Status] Medium

You can not only see current situation of hotel (for example, rating, number of guests, occupancy, etc.)

You can also find out about situation in circle of competitors (starting price, reviews, etc.)

A link to an example looks like this:

2, price optimization

The theory of revenue management is summarized in one sentence. In fact, it is to do these three tasks well

Sell to right people at right time at right price. Therefore, overall pricing strategy can also be implemented around this part.

First of all, hotel needs to formulate its own pricing guidelines depending on type of room it owns

Comprehensively consider sales channels, geographic location, self-positioning and other information and use it as a basis for reconciling price differences.

Then make dynamic price adjustments based on low and peak seasons, booking times, customer demand, competitors, and more.

In addition, hotels can also develop special price reservation strategies according to their needs and characteristics to attract different types of consumers

We will take OTA platform as an example

①At right time

Different prices are shown depending on booking time of clients. These early booking customers can help hotel complete revenue growth sooner

It is convenient for hotel to specify a follow-up income plan

To enable hotel to select relevant promotional products such as "early booking" and provide best discounts to attract these guests

In following way:

Before channel. Promotion? If done well?

②The right guest

Different customers have different booking habits, so when offering products, you can also set prices based on their habits

A relatively loose policy may choose a higher price, a relatively strict policy may set a lower price for different groups of people

For example, travel plans for business travelers may also change due to job changes

Currently, hotel can provide them with a room with more lenient cancellation policies (e.g. stairway cancellation, free cancellation within 30 minutes)

Example:

In ebk promotion → event center

③Pair price

Because booking times and booking habits only differ when user meets certain conditions

To see corresponding price

This requires hotel to combine above two points in order to properly adjust price to ensure that price matches needs of different customers.

3, demand management

When market situation is unfavorable, hotel can open all channels, participate in promotional activities aimed at target customers, reduce prices, improve competitiveness, try to attract more customers from competitors, and sell more rooms.

When hotel business is very good, we should pay attention to price control. If current price is too high

This is much more than historical data, so price should be raised accordingly, policy should be tightened and profits should be maximized

4, data monitoring

The hotel must constantly monitor data to understand what promotions were carried out during this period

After adjusting pricing strategy, how did revenue and room status change, and then check if hotel's overall data is in line with original forecast?

This data can not only help to adjust current strategy

They are all valid evidence of subsequent development of income stream, so each special situation should be clearly recorded in place

For example;

Ctrip star sellers stay at hotel

They prepared an "Income Analysis Form" and a "Next 7 Days Occupancy Monitoring Form" for income.

Wait 5 tables and report monthly, weekly, daily or even hourly to make sure your every action can be tracked on spot

Example link:

▲Laizhu Hotel Income Analysis Table

5, Summary

Why revenue management? Because number of rooms in hotel is fixed, and demand in market changes at any time

Guests book rooms at different times, through different channels and at different prices. The cost structure of hotel is such that if you sell one more room you can make more money and vice versa if you don't sell enough rooms

The hotel must be prepared for losses

Thus, in overall work of managing hotel's revenues, I hope that a relatively virtuous circle will emerge in end

It is necessary to have a reasonable forecast for current market, and in accordance with forecasted results, plan and optimize hotel room prices and occupancy limits

At same time, through OTA platform promotion or hotel price management, hotel can maximize its revenue

Of course, most important thing is all revenue management work of hotel

We need to go back to prediction stage to test it, because that's only way we can form our own circle of auspicious action