This week, we found a number of remarkable studies and guides to share with you. Firstly, Cornell has released a study on the “future of revenue management”. They surveyed 400 Revenue Managers on where the field is going.
Polls show that total hotel RM is the future, and that tech and data will be used in increasingly sophisticated ways to enhance decisions. We recommend downloading the full report below for a great read!
Secondly, we peered into the foggy crystal ball of hotel marketing’s future, and found 6 resolutions for hotel marketers in 2017 from HSMAI. We also discovered 7 tips to succeed with mobile emails.
Snapshot released a short article making recommendations for the way hotel technology must proceed. Most of our current technology stacks are spaghetti, and something needs to change! Finally, Peter O’Connor examines big chains’ book direct efforts.
He looks to 2017 as a year of compromise between the Book Direct movement and OTA’s. What do you think?
The Future of Hotel Revenue Management
A survey of some 400 revenue management (RM) professionals by Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research Publications finds that the application of hotel RM has gradually become more strategic and more centralized. However, changes in RM practices have come more slowly than expected in the past six years. In particular, an earlier prediction that RM would be applied to all hotel revenue streams remains a work in progress, as does the use of mobile technology and social media as distribution channels.
7 Tips for M-Commerce Email Success
With more than half of all email messages being read on mobile devices, there is little question about the importance of optimizing for mobile. To win opens, clicks and sales, merchants should adopt user-friendly best practices and entice mobile engagement with the relevant content.
These seven tips will get you on the right path to mobile engagement success:
Six Must-Make Resolutions for Hotel Marketers in 2017
“Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.” – Charles Kettering
With that it mind, it’s time to turn over the leaves from 2016 to 2017 and make some hotel marketing resolutions. What will you be focusing on this year? HSMAI recommends focusing on the people behind the clicks, looking at the crossroads of marketing and technology, and more:
A fly on the wall of a conversation about hotels and technology will almost invariably hear the word silos. How are technology silos holding us back, for instance?
Data silos are a barrier in any organization, but this term doesn’t adequately convey the true mess that the hospitality finds itself in. The problem is that silos suggest order. Some logical grouping of like things. But this is hardly what we have in hospitality anymore.
The Great Loyalty Rate Debate
2016 was the year of ‘the loyalty wars’, the battle of the century between online travel agencies and hotel brands.
Hilton, Marriott, Accor Hotels and Choice Hotels International heavily promoted loyalty club membership-driven book direct campaigns, granting transient consumers substantial discounts in return for instantly signing up to their ‘loyalty’ programs.
Supposedly designed to combat the ever-growing power of the OTAs, many independent analysts however questioned its purpose, effectiveness and long term effect on hotel profitability.
