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The Evolution of
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How we sell rooms - More changes
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This article is from the Summer 2012 issue of Hospitality
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By John
Burns June 2012 Not so long ago reservations from electronic channels – principally the global distribution systems – arrived routinely. The process was one of rip and re-enter – typing bookings in the hotel’s property management system or in the manual future reservations file. Weekday and weekend rates changed once a season, hotel availability was open or closed. Terms like rate parity, channel management, last room availability and best available rate (BAR) were not in our professional vocabulary.
Fast forward to the present and the world of hotel inventory management and pricing optimization is a much different place. The most senior staff at the property is now closely involved in distribution and pricing decisions, the brand or hotel website is the preferred reservation creation venue, but it battles for users with online travel agencies. Competitive rate shopping services and adoption of revenue management techniques (and sometimes revenue management technology) prompt near-continuous examination and frequent adjustment of each day’s room rates. New sales outlets, many within the social media universe, demand evaluation and the investment of time, money or both. In the midst of all of these options, activities and unrelenting performance pressure, hotel reservations and revenue staff still need to make decisions, fill rooms and meet their property performance goals. In this operating environment with its pervasive sense of urgency the objective I suggest, is fundamentally to strike a balance between the innumerable opportunities and the need to successfully control the hotel’s core asset – its guestroom inventory. In essence the balance is between opportunities on the one hand and control on the other. Opportunity
comes in innumerable, ever changing and not necessarily
“hotel friendly” forms. Opportunities demand
identification, evaluation and selective use. One day's successful
opportunities adoption might not be productive the next month, or even
the very next day. For
the full article please click: The Evolution of Distribution
For
the full sidebar please click
here. John Burns is the president of Hospitality Technology Consulting. He can be reached at [email protected]. More articles by this author:
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