Data is an integral part of running and managing a hotel today. Data on the demographics of your guests, lead times, price points, room preferences, which channels your bookings are coming through… the list is long, and includes almost every aspect of your hotel’s operations.
Understandably, that amount of data can be overwhelming. It’s tempting to ignore it because you have no practical ways to integrate it into your day-to-day decisions. The flip side of that coin is grimly sorting through your data manually, using a few dozen Excel spreadsheets, a calculator, and most of your revenue manager’s time.
Fortunately, the industry’s reaction to this slew of data has been to develop tools and strategies to analyze and use your data in a smart, useful way. These articles all deal with either analyzing data or have examples of great actions built on data, and will hopefully give you the inspiration and tools to start using your data more efficiently.
Let’s get started!
Modern Hotel Asset Management, Part 1
At its core, asset management is looking after something on behalf of someone else.
It’s really as simple as that. And within the hospitality industry, asset management enables the communication between an owner, an operating company, and the team on the ground in the hotel, making sure that in between those three parties, people actually understand each other and each other’s goals. This is all within the overriding goal of maximizing the value of the hotel investment in such a way that all parties benefit.
How can you best use data in your quest for better asset management?
Modern Hotel Asset Management, Part 2: How The Internet and Data Has Transformed Hotels
To understand how the technology, the internet, and data have transformed the hospitality industry, we need to understand in what ways these things became important. And at the crux of all of it is data.
In part one of this series, Asset Manager Alex explained what it’s like to be an Asset Manager in the hospitality wold today. The fact that technology has changed his line of work and the industry at large seemed to be a common thread in the article. So, Snapshot asked Alex to explain his thoughts on that in further detail. Just how has technology transformed the hospitality industry from the perspective of a seasoned Asset Manager? Read on to find out.
5 ways to Maximize Hotel Revenues in the Era of Mobile Bookings
A growing number of people are using mobile devices to book hotel rooms and the percentages will keep rising.
A Criteo study found that, in the first half of 2014 for the travel segment as a whole, bookings via mobile devices grew by 20% increase in , while the growth in bookings from desktop sites was only 2%. During this period, 21% of all hotel bookings were made through mobile devices (phones – 11% and tablets 10%)
The rapid growth of bookings via mobile devices means only one thing for your hotel…
You need to make inroads into the mobile world to maximize your revenues in the years ahead.
How Marriott Delivers Seamless, Consumer-First Experiences
A Marriott executive at the MMA Mobile Marketing Leadership Forum explained how the hotel company broke down media silos for a people-first attitude and discovered that 30 percent of attribution was bleeding away by not looking at cross-device numbers.
During the session, Changing the Center of Gravity, the executive detailed how the company eradicated segmented silos and the traditional advertise-at strategy, and instead put the point of view of the consumer in focus to provide more relevant and helpful experiences. As part of this strategy, Marriott is leveraging Facebook and dynamic ads, and is using data to steer its marketing decisions to where the numbers are most effective.
Marriott looks at data to help drive marketing pushes and decisions, instead of the opinion of high-up personnel. This makes for a more effective strategy with better results.
10 Keys Trends for Modern Revenue Management
The past few years have given birth to a wide variety of revenue management ‘best practices’ and tools. What’s the equation for success? Two of the major factors affecting a modern revenue manager’s success are the tools they are using, and how well RMs are integrating their knowledge with the ‘big picture’.
