Pro-Active Prospecting Is the Only Way Hotel Sales Staff Can Do Their Most Important Job: Fill in “Gap” Dates
Doug Kennedy | August 22, 2019
Coast Hotels Selects IDeaS’ Automated Technology to Evolve Its Revenue Strategy
IDeaS | July 11, 2019
Revenue Strategies
Kalahari Resorts and Conventions Partners With IDeaS to Enable Total Profit Optimization
IDeaS | September 12, 2019
Seeking a technology provider to challenge and evolve its revenue strategy, Kalahari makes the switch to IDeaS G3 RMS Tweet This: @KalahariResorts chooses @IDeaS_RevOpt G3 RMS to evolve its revenue strategy and optimize profitability for its guest rooms and beyond. Located in fiercely competitive markets, Kalahari is looking to grow revenue performance and scope. Details: www.ideas.com/news #RevenueScience MINNEAPOLIS—Sept. 12, 2019—IDeaS Revenue Solutions, the world’s leading provider of revenue management software and services, announced today it will implement IDeaS G3 Revenue Management System (RMS) across Kalahari Resorts and...
Revenue Management to Revenue Strategy: The Changing Role of RM in Hotels
Kevin Duncan | September 10, 2019
By Kevin Duncan, Senior Director, Strategic Commercial Initiatives at The Rainmaker Group, a Cendyn company With U.S. hotel occupancy levels registering record-breaking performance, hoteliers must get creative when it comes forging a path toward higher rates and greater profits. And they increasingly look to their revenue managers to chart the course. As a result, we’re seeing a transformation of the revenue management (RM) role – from revenue manager to revenue strategist. REVENUE MANAGEMENT OF THE PAST Hospitality revenue management (RM) began in 1972 when BOAC airlines (now British Airways) began offering discounted fares to ...
SiteMinder Partners With HotelSwaps, Enables Boutique and Luxury Hotels to Trade Unsold Inventory
SiteMinder | September 10, 2019
Dallas, USA – SiteMinder, the global hotel industry’s leading guest acquisition platform, has launched a partnership with HotelSwaps, the world’s first hotel room exchange programme for independently-owned and operated boutique and luxury hotels. Under the partnership, hotels that use SiteMinder and meet HotelSwaps’ membership criteria can now trade their unsold rooms with other hotels using HotelCoins®, HotelSwaps’ proprietary reservation system and digital currency. The partnership is an opportunity for hotels to create an alternative value from otherwise unused rooms. By sharing those rooms with the global hotel community, ho...
Counterpoint: Direct Group Sales Over Indirect Platforms
Robert Post, Chairman and CEO, Knowland | September 5, 2019
More passive RFP platforms are not the answer. Intelligence-based Direct Sales drives 8X ROI for Hotel Group Sales. By Robert Post, Chairman & CEO - Knowland Knowland CEO Robert Post responds to recent articles/opinions that the $50 million investment by Marriott, IHG, Accor, and Hilton in a new Group Booking Platform has signaled “meaningful change” in the painful process of selling event space and room blocks to meeting planners. The new booking platform uses a self-reporting database of hotel group block inventory and meeting space to offer meeting planners an OTA-like environment to shop and book event venues at the lowest ...
Pegasus & Travel Tripper Expand Reach and Capabilities of Powerful Analytics Platform for Hoteliers
TRAVEL TRIPPER & PEGASUS | September 4, 2019
(NEW YORK) - September 4, 2019 — Pegasus & Travel Tripper, a leading hotel technology provider, is now offering its proprietary Distribution Analytics platform to all customers using RezTrip CRS and booking engine, providing enhanced data discovery capabilities to the entire company’s customer base. Pegasus Analytics, which launched in 2018 prior to the merging of the two companies, is a premier business intelligence platform designed for multi-dimensional data discovery, allowing hoteliers to explore their data in detail using rich, interactive visualizations. The analytics platform aggregates data from multiple sources, including...
Hotel BI: Applying Data Analytics to Real-Life Situations / Len Wasserman
Len Wasserman | August 28, 2019
By Len Wasserman, Vice President, Customer Success at the Rainmaker Group – a Cendyn Company When it comes to analyzing your data, relying on manual methods – i.e. using Excel spreadsheets or Google Sheets – takes too much time and is often inaccurate, fraught with human error. Hotel owners looking to accurately and efficiently improve business performance should consider implementing an automated business intelligence (BI) solution.1 BI reporting and analytics quickly integrate data from your property management system (PMS), central reservations system (CRS), revenue management system (RMS), sales and catering systems, as well a...
Pro-Active Prospecting Is the Only Way Hotel Sales Staff Can Do Their Most Important Job: Fill in “Gap” Dates
Doug Kennedy | August 22, 2019
By Doug Kennedy In the current market, most hotels, resorts and other venues are experiencing a significant softening in group demand. However, this does not necessarily mean that hotel salespeople are fielding fewer inbound leads, but rather multiple leads are coming in for dates that are in peak demand for transient and for other group business. Here in the era of electronic RFP’s, where one piece of business generates a proposal request for 8, 10 or more properties, hotel salespeople are perhaps busier than ever simply keeping up with what often feels like “lead spam.” Unfortunately though, the time spent responding to electron...
Rainmaker, a Cendyn company, Ranks on Inc. 5000 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies
Cendyn | August 21, 2019
Boca Raton, FL. — August 21, 2019 — Cendyn is proud to announce that The Rainmaker Group, a Cendyn Company, has ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the U.S. for 2019. This marks the eighth year for Rainmaker to achieve this honor since 2010. With a continuously expanding customer base and an industry leading platform of revenue & profit solutions, Rainmaker continues to rank on the Inc. 5000 list due to its impressive growth in the hospitality space. Founded in 1998 by Bruce Barfield and Tammy Farley, Rainmaker was recently acquired by Cendyn. As the leading innovative cloud software a...
J Hospitality and Development Implements ProfitSword Portfolio-Wide to Streamline and Enhance Data Management, Forecasting
ProfitSword, LLC | August 20, 2019
Development and management company overseeing collection of independent hotels implements ProfitSage to maximize operational and decision-making efficiency. NEW ORLEANS – (August 20, 2019) – ProfitSword, hospitality’s premier developer of business intelligence software and data integration services, has announced the implementation of its ProfitSage operational and financial reporting solution by J Hospitality and Development LLC. A New Orleans-based development and management company that focuses on creating innovative solutions for hospitality, residential and commercial properties, J Hospitality now leverages ProfitSage to ensure ...
RM Strategies & Best Practices for Pre-Opening Your Property
Dan Skodol | August 20, 2019
By Dan Skodol, Vice President of Revenue Analytics at Rainmaker, a Cendyn company Despite reports of a weakening global growth rate through 2020,1 research from IBISWorld shows that the hotels and motels industry has outperformed the broader economy for the past five years, and total industry revenue so far this year has reached $206 billion.2 Globally, there are 100,535 businesses, with a slate of new project openings continuously being added to the lodging landscape. We saw an increase of 669,460 rooms in 2018 in the U.S. alone.3 Whether renovating a building, buying an existing hotel, or building from the ground up, a hotel owner is ...
Rainmaker, a Cendyn Company, Has VP Lead Session on Measuring the Success of Group Business at Hotel Data Conference
Rainmaker | August 13, 2019
ALPHARETTA, GA. — August 13, 2019 — Rainmaker, a Cendyn company, today announced that Dan Skodol, the company’s vice president of revenue analytics, will be leading a session at Hotel Data Conference on August 15, 2019 at the JW Marriott in Nashville, TN. Dan will also participate in a panel on August 16 discussing The true price and value of loyalty at the. conference. The company is a Presenting Sponsor of the event. Skodol’s session titled, “Group Revenue Management – Measuring Success” will take place from 4:15-4:40 on August 15th and will highlight key metrics hoteliers can use to evaluate the success of a Revenue Manage...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Service Takes Many Different Forms in Hospitality
David Lund | August 12, 2019
By David Lund "If Service is Beneath You – Then Leadership is Beyond You.” I cannot find an owner on Google for this statement, so I am going to claim it as mine. If someone already coined this phrase I will let it go, if not it is mine. The reason why is because it is the foundation for the transformation I experienced as a financial leader. It is also the basis for the work I do with hospitality financial leaders and their non-financial departmental managers. Let me explain to you what I mean and how these words are the very essence of creating a financially engaged team in your hotel. I worked inside hotels for more than 30 ye...
The Key to Profitability: Understand Your Demand Forecast
Dan Skodol | August 7, 2019
By Dan Skodol A hotel that is constantly jam-packed with guests is not automatically a profitable one. The goal of a successful hotel is not necessarily to achieve 100 percent occupancy, but rather to optimize revenue. And developing a way to more accurately forecast daily demand is a key operational challenge for hoteliers.1 Today’s hospitality landscape is characterized by increasing room supply and tight margins. In addition, stiff competition makes it imperative for hotel revenue managers to continuously adjust strategies to remain relevant. Predicting how many customers your hotel will have on any given night, anticipating the sa...
Revamp Your Casino Revenue Strategy With These Trends
Kacey Bradley | July 31, 2019
By Kacey Bradley New trends are continually disrupting the hospitality industry. Casinos can revamp their current reach and revenue strategy by understanding these trends and what they mean for the future of gaming. 1. Young Marketing If you're only marketing to baby boomers, you're behind on the times. Even a millennial approach to advertising fails to look ahead. Generation Z — those born in the mid-1990s to early-2000s — are about to make a huge impact on the business world. By 2020, they will account for 40% of all consumers, and together, they have $4 billion to spend at their discretion. Social media, including the use of in...
Maximize Hotel Profitability With Group Business
Matt Curry | July 24, 2019
By Matt Curry An analysis of the U. S. meetings and events market by PwC,1 revealed that the U.S. meetings industry generates approximately $30B – or just over one in five dollars – in hotel room revenue, while another $110B in revenue is generated from ancillary services such as food and beverage, event space, equipment rental, ground transportation, audiovisual (AV) support, and other services. Unfortunately, current revenue management practices tend to evaluate hotel group business performance based on the revenue per available room (RevPAR) index, which is not the best metric for determining a group’s overall profitability. There ...
Coast Hotels Selects IDeaS’ Automated Technology to Evolve Its Revenue Strategy
IDeaS | July 11, 2019
North American hotel chain chooses the industry’s leading revenue management solution to remove manual processes, provide greater connectivity and enhance overall efficiency Tweet This: @CoastHotels selects @IDeaS_RevOpt to enhance its revenue strategy and overall efficiency with IDeaS G3 RMS www.ideas.com/news MINNEAPOLIS—July 11, 2019—IDeaS announced today that after a thorough review of revenue management system (RMS) providers and products, Coast Hotels has selected them as its trusted technology partner and is implementing IDeaS G3 RMS at 20 of its Canadian properties. Coast Hotels’ selection process involved a full team o...
Rainmaker Announces New Website Launch
Rainmaker | June 26, 2019
ALPHARETTA, GA. — June 26, 2019 — - The Rainmaker Group (Rainmaker), a leading provider of cloud-based hospitality revenue and profit optimization software, is proud to announce the launch of its newly redesigned website at letitrain.com The new comprehensive website brings together the Rainmaker platform of solutions into a more visual experience while providing customers and site visitors access to a wealth of content, webinars and learning resources. "We are excited to debut our new company website,” says Mike Cowles, Rainmaker CEO. “The new design and improved readability will be a much more enjoyable viewing experience ...
Rainmaker VP to Participate in Panel Discussion at HSMAI ROC
Rainmaker | June 13, 2019
ALPHARETTA, GA. — June 13, 2019 — The Rainmaker Group today announced that Dan Skodol, the company’s vice president of revenue analytics, will participate in a panel discussion at HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Conference, which will be held June 18-19 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, MN. The company is a Platinum Sponsor of the event. Skodol will take part in the panel discussion entitled, “Think Differently About Revenue: Building a Better Room Merchandising Plan.” In this session, a group of industry professionals will discuss potential benefits of dynamically yielding at a granular, room type level. They ...
IDeaS Celebrates 30 Years of Innovation, Revenue Transformation and Global Momentum at HITEC 2019
IDeaS | June 13, 2019
Following a wave of unprecedented growth and major client wins, IDeaS continues worldwide, multi-vertical expansion plans Tweet This: @IDeaS_RevOpt is turning the big 3-0 and never felt better. Join us at HITEC and ROC on our home turf of Minneapolis—we have a lot to celebrate. www.ideas.com/news #RevenueScience #30YearsYoung MINNEAPOLIS—June 13, 2019—HITEC Booth #1415 (Minneapolis Convention Center)—IDeaS Revenue Solutions, the world’s leading provider of automated revenue management software and services, will showcase its cutting-edge revenue science technology products at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition ...
The Transformative Power of BI in the Hotel Industry
Kevin Duncan | May 30, 2019
By Kevin Duncan, Senior Director, Strategic Commercial Initiatives at The Rainmaker Group "Perhaps the most critical component for success of the modern enterprise is its ability to take advantage of all available information both internal and external."1 This quote captures the essence behind an increasing emphasis on business intelligence (BI) among the world's top sectors. An emphasis that stems from the exponential growth of data now created and collected in organizations, with no signs of a slowdown. The International Data Corporation predicts that the collective sum of the world's data will reach 175ZB by 2025.2 Unfortunately, man...
Hotel Revenue Leaders to Convene at HSMAI’s ROC Americas in Minneapolis
HSMAI | April 25, 2019
ROC Americas is the world's largest gathering of travel industry revenue professionals (McLean, VA, April 25, 2019) The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) is convening hotel revenue professionals for two days of education, collaboration, and innovation at its ROC Americas in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ROC 2019 will be held June 18–19 and is co-located with HITEC 2019. The event is the world's largest gathering of revenue professionals in the travel industry with more than 650 in attendance. With powerful educational and networking opportunities, ROC is the must-attend conference of 2019 for learning...
Rainmaker Enters Q2 With High-Growth Momentum and Exciting New Advances
Rainmaker | April 16, 2019
Alpharetta, GA – April 16, 2019 - The Rainmaker Group (Rainmaker), a leading provider of cloud-based hospitality revenue and profit optimization solutions reports continued growth coming out of Q1, a steady pipeline and new advances to their revenue and profit optimization suite of solutions. "We're excited to kick off 2019 with a strong sales quarter," says Mike Cowles, CEO at Rainmaker. "We've added a lot of great names to our growing customer list, continued to make strides in expanding our global footprint, and are making great product enhancements to help our growing all-inclusive customer base." Rainmaker had a very successf...
Perception Is Reality: Pricing Psychology for Hotel Revenue Managers
the Author | April 9, 2019
By Dan Skodol, Vice President of Revenue Analytics, The Rainmaker Group "All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions." ~ Leonardo da Vinci Is a pair of $50,000 Sennheiser Orpheus headphones really fifty times better than a pair that costs $1,000? Expensive items and experiences are often branded as high quality, exclusive, or bespoke. But are they really better than their less-expensive counterparts? And what truly motivates people to pay more for something? In the hectic daily life of a hotel revenue strategist, coming up with optimal pricing presents the greatest challenge – a challenge that's typically handled through r...
Hotel Booking Engine Launched by Bedvine
Bedvine | April 1, 2019
Bedvine today announces the launch of the company's new booking engine platform, suitable for all categories of accommodation: hotels, hostels, B&Bs, apartments and villas. The new offering allows potential accommodation providers to register and operate a fully featured booking engine at no monthly cost and no commission fees. Developed entirely in-house, the platform gives accommodation owners access to an on-line account where they can centrally set up and manage all of their properties. Other than the multi-property support, the platform also supports multiple currencies, multiple languages and unlimited rooms and room rates...
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Kalahari Resorts and Conventions Partners With IDeaS to Enable Total Profit Optimization
Cendyn Announces New Leadership Team
That “Something Extra” You Offer to Make Customers Love You
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