Revenue Management & Channel Opt

In response to the post-pandemic demand surge and faced with constricted inventory due to labor shortages, rising supply costs, and other challenges, hoteliers pushed their prices back to pre-pandemic levels in record time. It was understandable that hoteliers would push rate - a hotel’s goal is to maximize revenue and profit, and they had a lot of missed opportunity to make up for. People were so happy to be traveling again that they paid.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard artificial intelligence or “AI” mentioned over the last year, well, you know the rest of that saying. And much like when you repeat a word so many times, it starts to lose its meaning – the discussions surrounding the blistering proliferation of artificial intelligence technology have begun to lose some of their impact. Working within the realm of hospitality technology, I understand – rather intimately – the transformative effect of digital tools that leverage the power of AI and machine learning (ML).

For those of you who don’t know....like me what The Last Bastion is. It is a boardgame. Yes, lol. And a complicated one at that.

Here’s the scenario: Imagine you run a lodging business and the news just dropped. Taylor Swift is coming to town! A surge of Swifties are impending. Your competitors are already upping their nightly rates. You’ve got roughly half an hour to decide what average daily rate ought to be for your soon-to-be-sold-out room inventory. Your average revenue management platform can make an algorithmic guess on what you ought to charge, based upon historical data plus whatever information other users on the platform chose to disclose. Is it a crime to click that tab?

Have you ever considered the true impact of traditional booking systems on your business’s ability to meet the sophisticated demands of today’s travelers?

Lately I’ve been coming across a lot of content online that appears to be AI generated. I’ve seen it in articles, blogs and whitepapers, on news sites and social media, and in email, product marketing, and media releases.

In the latest Thematic World Panel, we posed the question of how primary data extractions from the property management system (PMS) can be used for machine learning (ML) to the grow a hotel or heighten productivity. With a range of astute viewpoints from respondents, there are two main themes that the answers revealed.

Effective financial management is paramount for the success of a hotel business. One of the critical aspects of financial management is budgeting, a process that traditionally involves significant time, effort, and coordination among various departments within a hotel organization. However, with the advent and adoption of modern budgeting technology, hoteliers can streamline their annual financial budgeting processes and dedicate fewer resources toward building an accurate budget.

Guest data: Your greatest asset … and potentially your greatest liability.

Scaling demand for location-based services and personalized guest messaging is forcing hotel owners and operators to rethink the strength and reliability of their wireless networks. To compete effectively and support guests’ mobile devices and a property’s IoT devices, hoteliers must upgrade their network infrastructure. This is not only table stakes by which guests, conference attendees, and other visitors choose one hotel over another, but it dictates whether or not guests will return.