In 2018 I would love to see hotel marketers regain control over the customer decision-making & booking process. There are now so many hotel brands with a lack of clarity as to what each brand stands for. And I have no doubt that this has played a huge part in the increasing commoditisation of Hotel bedrooms and the ongoing growth of the Online Travel Agents (OTA’s). Marketers have allowed the OTA’s to in essence take control of their inventories and pricing because customers don’t understand what each brand delivers. They subsequently prefer to choose a Hotel based on price and
Read More... →I have been involved in Revenue Management (or Yield Management, as it was originally known) in hotels since the early 1990’s. Back then it consisted of an Excel spreadsheet, manual input of data, and a few basic rules that complimented the pricing strategy. It took off very rapidly across Europe, but 2 UK hotel chains refused to get involved initially I.e. Travel Inn (which became Premier Inn) and Travelodge. Their rationale was that their prices were highly competitive and available to everyone at any time, which enabled them to run powerful, price-led advertising. They even refused to negotiate with high-volume-producing
Read More... →
Latest Comments