Amidst the constant work of managing a hotel day-to-day, being bogged down by data might seem like the last thing you want to do, but it can be one of the most beneficial.
By analysing the facts and figures across your hotel operations, you’ll be able to find plenty of opportunities to grow your revenue stream and further the success of your business. Often it can only take a small tweak to have a big impact on your annual revenue.
To help raise your bottom line, use these data strategies at your hotel to become more efficient and increase cash flow.
Evaluate your channels in the correct way
When it comes to your hotel distribution channels, it may seem like your path to glory is the channel that drives the most demand and highest number of bookings.
However, to truly know which channels are your most valuable you need to look at them from a net revenue perspective. This means you need to ask how much return are you getting on each channel after you’ve taken away any associated costs? What’s the average daily rate?
If you find that your most profitable channel is one you place less focus on, you have an opportunity to grow the demand for this higher quality channel and make each booking worth more for your business.
Many industries, including travel, still suffer today from low quality data hidden away in proprietary systems
Click to tweet
Balance the pros and cons of channels over time
It’s important to constantly track the performance of marketing and distribution channels. While one strategy may have worked perfectly two years ago, you need to investigate if it’s still giving you the same benefit today. Perhaps the spend has gone up, and revenue down.
On the other hand, some channels may have added benefits like brand awareness that counteract a lack of revenue creation, and are still very useful. An example is holiday deal sites that you might advertise on. The rate is going to be low and the commission is likely to be high, but the exposure will also be significant. In this instance you would have to weigh up whether it’s worth it to be on a website like that, and for how long.
Use your hotel guest data to optimise your offering
The insights you can gain from each guest that books and stays with your hotel are invaluable. If you can detect trends in who your guests are, what their preferences are, how long they typically stay, their purpose of travel etc. you can start to meaningfully shape a successful marketing and distribution strategy.
You’ll be able to identify any superfluous strategies and replace them with a more targeted approach, using tactics like emails or social media campaigns, to make your conversion rates much stronger – saving and generating money overall.
Eliminate unnecessary expenses
Your hotel probably uses a huge amount of power, costing you a lot of money. Any saving you can make here is like finding gold.
If you can discover how much time guests are spending inside and outside of their room, and when, you can adjust your ventilation and air conditioning systems accordingly. The same applies for when your amenities are being used. You could also consider when and where you need lights to be on throughout your property at all times.
Use technology to your hotel’s advantage
A lot of the data you need to make informed decisions can be gleaned from the technology your hotel uses such as your channel manager or booking engine and website. Run reports and generate insights that you can act on almost immediately.
Of course, a revenue management system is one of the best solutions to keeping on top of your income, profits, and data. The right tool can ensure the revenue management at your hotel is down to a science and offers real-time automation.
One such tool is Pace, and CEO Jens Munch makes a pertinent statement about the state of hotel industry today:
“Many industries, including travel, still suffer today from low quality data hidden away in proprietary systems. However, there’s a trend emerging with modern cloud providers to alleviate those problems by enabling connectivity layers for their customer’s data. This lets solutions like us democratise our services and give hoteliers better access to state-of-the-art revenue management.”
Pace, and other machine learning services, generate significant optimisations and competitive advantages for their customers, and should be a serious consideration for any hotel wanting to boost their revenue.
