Only 10% of hotels are practicing Revenue Management

12 May 2016 – SINGAPORE – Although no one can say definitively, industry consultants believe that only 10% of hotels are using revenue management to maximize their profitability. To saturate the market, revenue management tools are becoming more affordable.

“Affordability in analytics will bring Revenue Management to the level of a utility, a powerful tool for profitability,” said Patrick Andres, Managing Director for Asia for the Rainmaker Group at the recent Revenue Optimisation Conference hosted by HSMAI Asia Pacific in Singapore.

Rachel Grier, Managing Director, Asia for iDeaS Revenue Solutions, concurred with Andres saying, “Understanding information is critical. Hotels aren’t willing to invest in the suites of systems that enable them to do such analysis today. There is an investment involved in deploying big technology systems.”

“The guest experience is merging with technology, happening on the mobile phone,” says Bhanu Chopra, an entrepreneur and the CEO of RateGain. “When are hotels going to outsource technology? It is often a lack of skillset in the hotels that is inhibiting the use of revenue management systems. Service providers need to make the installation of their products frictionless as there is still a lot of manual input after the software is installed.”

Grier thinks that hotel owners and managers need to move the question away from what do I need to know to “What do I need to do?” changing their attention from looking specifically at days that change occurred to day-to-day change.

Andres says, “There’s no star power associated with Revenue Management yet. We need to get it from a support role to revenue-critical; it's the most exciting part of making money for a hotel, but management doesn’t yet see it.”

Jeanette Ho, Vice President of Revenue Management and Customer Analytics at Fairmont Raffles Hotels International (FRHI), says “The problem is, its very complex. No one really knows what the Director of Revenue Management does or that they do it well. Business intelligence systems as they are, are good enough to do day-to-day pricing, but how do you make sure that you have the critical metrics in front of as many people at the hotel as possible? If the staff feel like revenue management is a collective decision, it will go a long way to helping overcome perceptions about the discipline.”

Michael O’Connell, SVP Business Development forLodgIQargued that the barriers to entry to do revenue management for the smaller hoteliers were too high. “They need a simple, efficient dashboard, that looks as familiar to them as a phone, because design is important, to help them make informed decisions. That way, the 80% of hotels that are not served now can be served.”

Philip Niemann, Director of Customer Success APAC for Duettoagreed with the notion that giving hoteliers more control and enabling revenue decision makers to save time meant new revenue management tools had to integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) tools to pull customer spend information.”

New revenue management tools are focused on end-to-end integrated solutions, but Grier argued that, “The reality is that hotels need something that is complex, almost to the extent of moving to an airline model of ownership of pricing, giving visibility to the way that commission for online travel agencies (OTA’s) are handled.

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HSMAI Revenue Optimization Conference ROC

The HSMAI Revenue Optimization Conference(ROC), held annually in Singapore and in 2016, is being scheduled in Bangkok as well, as part of the Digital Travel Exchange Asia series of events. ROC is the industry's essential resource for the information and best practices your hotel needs to master Revenue, Distribution & Pricing and help you deliver the highest return.

The program is created by HSMAI’s Revenue Advisory Board, which comprises of the heads of Revenue & Distribution for local and global brands in Asia Pacific. The program is designed to bring you up to speed on the latest trends, and issues and help you plan your revenue and distribution strategy.

The HSMAI difference: We’re non-profit, we are hoteliers creating a program for hoteliers. This is an event organised by Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International – Asia Pacific Region (HSMAI).

www.hsmaiasia.org

About HSMAI Asia Pacific

HSMAI Asia Pacific is the industry’s leading advocate for intelligent, sustainable hotel revenue growth. HSMAI is an individual membership organisation comprising more than 7,000 members globally with a presence in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Brasil and the Middle East.

HSMAI Asia Pacific’s mission is to be the leading source for sales and marketing information, tools, insight, business development, and networking for professionals in the hospitality industry. With a strong focus on education, HSMAI has become the industry champion in identifying and communicating trends in the hospitality industry while operating as a leading voice for hotel sales, marketing and revenue management disciplines. Activities in the region are held in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Melbourne, Bangkok, Jakarta and Bali.

For additional information, refer to our website at www.hsmaiasia.org or follow us on Twitter @hsmaiasia or join our LinkedIn group at HSMAI Asia Pacific.