News for the Hospitality Executive |
Wanna Raise Your ADR? Audit Your Revenue Channels |
This article is from the Summer 2010 issue of Hospitality Upgrade magazine.To view more articles covering technology for the hospitality industry please visit the Hospitality Upgrade Web site or to request a free publication please call (678) 802-5307 or e-mail. |
By Cindy Estis
Green June 2010 click to view magazine
version of this
article Digging
out from the recession of 2009–it
requires a systematic review of your segments and channels. Now is a
good time
to take stock and evaluate every revenue opportunity as though you are
opening
your hotel for the first time. It
can take five years for a hotel
to regain the rate lost from discounting during a recession. That was
certainly
the case in 1991 and 2001.The faster the management team breaks out of
the
recession mindset, the better. It is almost time to start work on the
2011
marketing plan and wasn’t that the year the pundits told us business
volume
would be back? They say there is now a light at the end of the tunnel.
While
the industry succumbed to intense rate pressures and stole business
from each
other with reckless abandon, the consumers continued to expand their
use of
online resources for travel shopping, purchases and to have
conversations about
their experiences. And those experiences included a lot of deals. If
the
industry plans to shift consumers away from the deal mentality, it will
take
some planning to move to a more profitable business mix. An audit of
each major
revenue stream and the levers that turn them on can reveal new
opportunities. Revenue
comes in the form of market
segments that are named for the customer’s trip purpose. Typical
market
segment categories in hotels are corporate transient, leisure
transient,
meetings, conventions, wholesaler/tours and long term contracts. The
customers
are influenced by content in information and media channels, and their
bookings
come through reservation channels. The recession didn’t slow the
explosive
growth of the media and booking channels. If you want to affect
your
volume and your rate, you can examine your business mix by segment
and/or by
channel. Be where your customers are; in order to do that you have to
make sure
you have compelling messages to attract, inform and engage and tools to
facilitate booking (in reservation channels). Every
customer group is now online
checking you out on the aggregated online travel agency sites, on the
so-called
non-transactional sites such as Trip Advisor, meta-search, social
media, travel
guides (many of which have booking links) and of course, the major
search
engines are a powerful driver of traffic to all online destinations. What
kind of traffic do you want?
Preferably the kind that converts to definite business at good rates.
High
traffic volume is not the objective-it’s the old quality vs. quantity
argument.
You want qualified prospects coming to your Website and your call
center that
are inclined to book. Since almost seven in every 10 travelers conduct
at least
one step of their shopping/purchase process online1, this needs to be a
high
priority. There has to be a distinctive plan for each major guest
category that
a hotel pursues: corporate, leisure and group/meetings. It is a great
time to
take a fresh look. Revenue Channel Audit This
is an excerpt from the Summer 2010 edition of
Hospitality Upgrade. To read the method Cindy suggests above please
visit http://www.hospitalityupgrade.com/_magazine/magazine_Detail-ID-515-Wanna-Raise-Your-ADR-Audit-Your-Revenue-Channels.asp About the Author: |
Contact: Geneva Rinehart Managing Editor Hospitality Upgrade Magazine and the Hospitality Upgrade.com website www.hospitalityupgrade.com/ [email protected] |