1. Think again on OTA connections

You need to have the right DISTRIBUTION of the rooms to sell the right room at the right prices. For that reason, you have to give a fresh thought to your OTA connections:

1. 1. Select the regional as well as international OTAs
2. 2. Consider your property type and your target audience
3. 3. Last but not least, OTAs that fall into your budget.

Let me give you an example to have a better idea:

If you’re a B&B in Europe, then you should connect to regional OTAs like eDreams Odigeo and global OTAs like Expedia, Booking.com. Since you are a BnB, you also need to consider OTAs such as Airbnb and bedandbreakfast.com that help you target your potential guests.

Moreover, you should not limit yourself to 2-3 OTAs. More the OTA connections, the wider is the exposure. And more exposure means more bookings and more revenue.

2. Adopt uniform distribution method

Besides selecting the right OTAs, it is equally important to select the right distribution method as well.

Now, many of you still prefer the allocated inventory distribution method in which you allocate a fixed inventory to a particular channel. However, you may lose potential booking opportunities in this scenario.

Instead, you should apply uniform inventory distribution method and list all your inventories on all channels. As a result, you get bookings

from all the possible channels and your inventory is utilized to the fullest.

3. Perform guest segmentation

Segmentation is a key element of hotel revenue management. Targeting all types of customers for your hotel is a waste of time and money. Therefore, segmenting and pitching the right set of guests is important.

One of the best ways to segment your audience is by their reason for travel. It could be a family holiday, wedding, tourist event, adventure, relaxation, business, etc.

Not only that, identifying your guests and evaluating their habits; for example, the kind of rooms, hotel facilities and location they’re looking for. Of course, there are several other factors which will help you optimize your room rates and showcase your services accordingly.

Besides, you can analyze and drill down the segment that is giving you more business. In this way, you can strategize to make more revenue from them.

Hence, knowing your target audience is important to plan and execute your hotel’s revenue management strategies.

4. Do competition analysis

I’d say competition analysis is one of the fundamental hotel revenue management strategies. You may ask how?

Basically, with competition analysis, you can understand yours and your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. You can know your position in the market and eventually work to stand out.

But first things first, not every hotel next door is your competitor. You have to define your competition set (AKA compset). There are certain parameters that you should consider before considering any property as your competitors. Some of them are:

1. 1. No.of rooms
2. 2. Room types
3. 3. Accommodation type
4. 4. Size of property
5. 5. No. of OTA connections
6. 6. Number of services
7. 7. Average ratings and reviews

Once the RIGHT compset is defined, you can analyze their rates via tools like Rate Shopper. You can check and compare their current pricing strategy and update your rates accordingly.

This will not only help you in strategizing and managing revenue, but it’ll also provide you with proper forecasting. As a result, you can attract the right kind of guests at the right time and maintain the revenue you earn.

5. Make your hotel website responsive

As the facts stand in 2019,

Having said that, you have to focus on your hotel’s website. And get one made if you don’t have a hotel website.
Ensure the following characteristics of your website:

1. 1. Is responsive and easily navigable
2. 2. Has attractive photos and videos
3. 3. Is optimized using different SEO strategies
   (If you’re clueless about the hotel SEO, here’s our step-by-step guide to hotel SEO. Optimize your hotel website, rank higher, and get more bookings.)
4. 4. Has an integrated booking engine to gain direct bookings
5. 5. Provides all the required information about your hotel and your offerings

If your website doesn’t have these parameters, there are chances of losing significant bookings and revenue. So having a full-fledged hotel website will definitely pose as an assured revenue management strategy for hotels every year.

Once you have your hotel website made, ensure that you measure its performance from time to time.

6. Emphasize on getting more direct bookings

Needless to say, OTAs are a great platform to advertise your hotel and services. Though, a significant chunk of your revenue is deducted as a part of their commissions

That is why, you can get a booking engine that allows your guests to book with you directly from your website. Certainly, that means you get commission-free bookings. So, you can take the following actions to increase direct bookings:

1. 1. Get listed on metasearch engines like TripAdvisor and Trivago
2. 2. Give discounts on direct booking
3. 3. Showcase your online reviews
4. 4. Have a chatbot to attend to all your guests’ inquiries
5. 5. Highlight your amenities

…and there are many other ways to increase your direct bookings. You can find out more from here.

7. Practice yield management

Yield management is an inseparable part of revenue management for hotels. There is a common misconception that revenue management is the same as yield management.

But, that’s not the case. Yield management for hotels encompasses the revenue generated through the room charges or occupancy. Whereas revenue management involves a whole lot more than just occupancy.

Yield management is all about demand and supply. You have to set different rates for different occupancy levels.

On top of this, it is considered as the most important tool to balance the revenue that you earn, especially when the demand is less. Hence, yield management proves to be the most practical way to increase your revenue.

Here’s how you can practice yield management strategies to get more revenue.

8. Perform demand forecasting

Analyzing your past and present data is important as it helps you in channelizing your marketing efforts. How to figure out which strategy is working for you? Although, extracting the right data and actually going through them in detail is quite hectic.
Here’s when demand forecasting comes in the picture. It is the prediction of future business performance. In which, data is of utmost importance. This is how you can perform demand forecasting:

1. 1. Data Collection: Gather data such as peak and weak season, long weekends, festivals and so on.
2. 2. Analysis: Find out how you’ve performed on these occasions. Then predict how you’ll be able to perform the coming year.

In that case, a comprehensive hotel management system helps you get detailed reports and business insights that include the revenue you earned, your best selling factors, your ADR, and more. These reports will help you make the precise decisions in your hotel revenue strategy.

In the end, this data analysis will help you come up with better revenue management techniques to implement.

9. Try multiple pricing strategies

Pricing strategies play an important role in hotel revenue management. There are different pricing strategies, some of them are as mentioned:

Segmented rates:

In this strategy, segment your customers and offer different rates to each customer segment.

For example:

1. 1. Following the rate parity strategy, the rates for the open market should be the same.
2. 2. On the other hand, offer negotiated rates to the corporate segment and in return ask them to commit a certain number of rooms for the negotiated rates.
3. 3. Connect with a tour operator and sell them some rooms at special rates.

Rates as per the length of stay (LOS):

Adjust your prices on the basis of your guests’ length of stay.

For example: Mandate the length of your guest’s stay by offering them good prices.

Offer packages:

A package is a room rate clustered together with other products and services
For example: Free meal package
If your guests have selected a European plan, then offer a free meal for the first day as a package.

10. Partner with local business

You may have not considered it important enough, but partnering with local businesses can actually pose as a promising revenue management strategy for hotels.

Local partnerships can expand your revenue streams and provide authentic experiences for your guests. And don’t forget – those businesses around your property will also be open for such a partnership.

If you are located in a place with scenic destinations, offer your guests a city-tour. If you are nearby an amusement park then you can tie up with them, and offer tickets at some discounted rates to your guests.

Likewise, you can explore many such additional avenues of extra revenue.

11. Adopt latest technology solutions

Now take a look, technology is all around you. It’s in the payments you make (digital you know), the shopping you do, the services you consume, basically everywhere. The current and the future generation is tilting towards innovative technology. You know why? Simple – the ease of use.

Hence, providing quick service through the latest technology is key to increase bookings and hotel revenue. However, the question is: which technology solution you will use to streamline your operations and increase productivity?

I’d say a complete suite of seamlessly integrated solutions can be a shot to your arm. With automated solutions, you can provide quick and better services. Besides that, these days technology such as a hotel chatbot is being used to assist with basic operations and information and improve guests’ experience.

Other than that, hotels can perform the quick operation at their voice command with a digital assistant, thus reducing their time and effort in getting a task done.

Moreover, these days, a few hotels have started practicing the Internet of Things (IoT). For example, there are IoT solutions that adjust room temperature depending on room occupancy, energy management systems, in-room concierge and what not.

Here’s how the next-gen technology like IoT can increase your hotel revenue and expand your business.

12. Manage your reviews

The first thing guests check before visiting a hotel is its reviews. With the increasing number of online platforms, guests often communicate and interact online to share the experience they had.

That’s why hotels these days need to focus on their hotel reviews and reputation. This also forms as an essential part of your hotel revenue management strategies.

Managing your online reviews is a crucial part of a hotel’s revenue management.

You see,

How? Well, today people can search and find all the travel and hotel information provided by the different sites. Let’s take TripAdvisor for example. TripAdvisor provides the information and reviews written by the guests about the particular hotel and its services.

And this ultimately influences the guest’s final decision to book a hotel. This way, hotel reviews have a greater impact on the current and future guests that you may welcome at your hotel.

Thus, it is necessary for you to respond to all the reviews (especially, the negative ones). You can utilize our free and ready-to-use review response templates to regulate your review management.

13. Redesign your loyalty programs

Guests often need to travel to the same location again. Mostly these kinds of guests are business travelers who prefer to utilize services from trusted hotel brands. Hotels need to face this fact as soon as possible and make good use of it by running some good loyalty programs.

Now, don’t you think guests will prefer hotels that offer discounts or rewards to value their frequent guests? Well, hotel loyalty programs are the best way to do that and increase repeat guests as well as direct guests. This makes them an undeniable aspect of your hotel revenue management strategies.

The sad thing is – only a few hotels consider loyalty programs as an important part of their marketing strategy. But the truth is loyalty programs can be a key factor in the guests’ decision-making process. Especially, those who frequently visit your hotel. Employing a stable hotel loyalty program software can strengthen a hotel’s reward programs.