On seasonal management strategy from the perspective of hotel revenue management

On seasonal management strategy from the perspective of hotel revenue management

Hotel is an industry whose life is to provide service, so the most essential form of its product evolution is service. However, all products have certain timeliness, and hotel service products are no exception. Here, I will show you the timeliness of hotel products in words, hoping to have a reference for your hotel management!

The most direct manifestation of hotel timeliness is the difference between off-season and peak season. The business strategy of each stage is necessarily different, which requires us to adopt the necessary business strategy in the peak season to improve the profitability of the hotel. And what strategies should be adopted in the off-season that are different from those in the peak season? Here we can take two factors that affect the hotel's rate of return to elaborate:

Rent and average house price:

In the off-peak season, the occupancy rate is an important and controllable variable factor, but it can't be said to be an important standard to measure the quality of a hotel. When the occupancy rate is good, the business of natural hotels is very good. This sentence is a true proposition to people who don't understand, but anyone who has really worked in a hotel will know that the occupancy rate reflects only one aspect of hotel management. I'll give you a formula, and everyone will understand:

Occupancy rate * average room rate = rate of return (actual occupancy rate/total number of rooms = occupancy rate, total room income/total number of rooms = average room rate)

Many times we will use this formula to reflect the revenue management of a hotel, which is the "five best"; That is, hotel products can be sold to the most suitable customers at the best time, at the best price and through the best channels, so as to maximize hotel revenue.

The following is the analysis and summary of these two variables:

In the peak season, we naturally don't worry about the rent rate, but in the peak season, our rate of return must be increased. It is not a smart idea to blindly increase the occupancy rate, because the hotel's floor area ratio will have a certain limit, and the scope of the floor area ratio is there. No matter how to improve the occupancy rate, it is unlikely to achieve a breakthrough (the simplest statement of the floor area ratio is the maximum passenger flow of the day). I think the occupancy rate of hotels in peak season should be limited to a certain range. If it exceeds the warning value, we should pay enough attention to it, otherwise it will cause a lot of unnecessary troubles and even direct economic losses. The most important thing for hotels in peak season is to maintain long-term stability within the early warning range, and the most important task should be our average house price. On the whole, although the mathematical relationship shows that the rental rate is inversely proportional to the average house price, it will be of great help to our profitability if we can maintain a reasonable rental rate in the peak season and strive for the improvement of the average house price. What aspects of the average house price should be considered most specifically, and how to improve the average house price? Let me summarize from the following aspects:

1. First of all, analyze the tourist structure of our hotel. In the tourist source structure of the hotel, which can raise the price in the peak season and which can't be adjusted, we should proceed from the interests of the whole hotel and make targeted choices. For example, the house price of the conference tour team is low, and we can raise it appropriately. The specific improvement depends on the actual situation of each hotel. Careful analysis shows that there is a lot of room for price increase. If you are worried that the price increase will lead to a certain loss of customers, don't worry, this is the best opportunity for us to optimize the customer structure. Just classify some customers with lower prices at ordinary times, make a price adjustment notice with them according to their contribution, and decide to stay.

2. In the process of price adjustment, we should do some publicity and promotion to assist the rise of house prices, leave a psychological buffer and transition for customers, so that the psychological gap between customers is not too big, and let customers continue to maintain an expectation for your products. For example, we can carry out some preferential activities on official website for the member's house price increase, such as electronic deduction coupons, booking scenic spots tickets and train tickets, so that the customer's attention can be shifted to the services she can enjoy, so that the house price will not increase, and the customer will not have the idea of not spending again.

Specific revenue management can also be considered from the following aspects:

1, segment market and customers, and forecast demand.

The idea behind revenue management is to effectively manage revenue and inventory through pricing differences, and its basis is the demand elasticity of the selected market segments. "Every hotel has its own market positioning, but there are still many differences in customer classification, source channels and consumption characteristics. The consumption demand, price and consumption characteristics of different types of guests are also very different, so their consumption patterns are different. Scientific segmentation of markets and guests can provide accurate information sources for hotels to control resources and improve revenue. On the basis of market segmentation and guest information, we can make relatively accurate predictions of different types of guest needs, adopt different pre-sale methods and price differentiation control, implement dynamic management and marginal revenue management, and minimize the risk of resource use. If the risk of resource use can be minimized, the expectation of hotel revenue can be optimistic.

2. It is necessary to control the occupancy rate of individual guests in front of the door.

Average room rate and average occupancy rate are two major factors that affect hotel room service income. The personal rental income in front of the door has a great influence on the average price of the hotel. Therefore, it is necessary to properly control the occupancy ratio of agreement guests and individual guests in front of the door in order to maximize the average hotel price. In hotels, the price of general agreement guests is lower than that of individual guests in front of the door, and the agreement guests are generally contacted by the marketing department. Due to the incentive of market competition, the hotel management attaches more and more importance to the marketing department and the work pressure is increasing. The marketing department will continue to do everything possible to expand the coverage of the agreed guests and regard it as the work performance of the department. With the increase of customer coverage agreed by the marketing department, the occupancy rate of individual customers in front of the door will go down all the way. If we want to ensure the maximum average price of the hotel, we need the coordination of the hotel authorities, analyze the market situation and the historical data of the rental income of the marketing department and the front office respectively, sort out the appropriate occupancy rate of the individuals in the front office, and prevent the downward trend of the occupancy rate of the individuals in the front office. When implementing the front office revenue management, this problem should be paid enough attention by the hotel management authorities.

3. Dynamic price setting

Price is the most sensitive consumption factor for customers, the most direct management lever for sales, and the main means to increase or decrease hotel profits. At present, under the market situation of oversupply and fierce competition, the price management of almost all hotels has developed from a single static price to a multi-price, competitive and optimized price. The dynamic price includes the discount price of individual customers of the agreement company, the house price of travel team, the house price of conference team, the house price of long-term guests and the floating price of individual customers. For hotels, when making dynamic prices, the most valuable data is the classified prices of rival hotels in the same region and star rating.

4. Oversubscription control

Because there is a certain difference between pre-sale and actual check-in, hotels usually implement a certain proportion of overbooking to reduce the loss when pre-sale and actual check-in are different. The proportion of oversubscription depends on the cooperation between the front desk and the marketing department, analyzing historical data and determining a basic reasonable probability.

This work can be started from several aspects:

Check the reservation. Some guests reserve rooms long in advance. For some time before check-in, some guests can't arrive or cancel their trip in the near future for various reasons, but not all guests will take the initiative to inform the hotel. The front office should check with the guests by phone many times before they arrive, and make adjustments quickly if there are any changes, and notify the relevant departments to re-book or sell the rooms to other guests.

Increase the guaranteed reservation. Pay a deposit in advance or ask for a credit card guarantee to transfer the risk to the guests reasonably, especially during the peak hours of hotel business, such as holidays and major local economic and trade activities.

Strengthen coordination with the marketing department. Because most of the booked guests are generated by the agreement unit of the marketing department, and the salesmen of the marketing department generally relax their requirements for the agreement unit in order to expand their performance, so in the case of overbooking, it is necessary to strengthen communication with the marketing department, strengthen the control of overbooking and reduce hotel losses.

The general oversold formula is as follows:

Number of rooms overbooked = number of rooms cancelled temporarily+number of rooms expected to be booked but not yet arrived+number of rooms expected to be checked out early-number of rooms expected to be checked out late.

Each factor in the above formula has the word "prediction". To solve this problem, it is not easy to be as accurate as possible, which depends on the accumulation and analysis of historical data (business figures of each business period), strengthen the communication between the front desk and the marketing department, and determine a generally suitable proportion.

5. Price demand control for holidays and major events

Holidays and major market events are often the best time for hotels to make profits. How to make good use of this time is the time for hotel management and front office to give full play to the management income efficiency system. The management motto of this period should be "Do it when it is time to do it", and raise the price when it is time to raise the price, without thinking too much about other subsequent influences. Otherwise, the machine won't come again without waiting for me. In a short period of time when the market is in short supply, the most basic consumer psychology is "demand" rather than "supply".

6. Management of team sales and sales agents

For group sales, for example, the price of travel teams of travel agencies should be adjusted and controlled in time according to the market changes at various stages, mainly the total consumption of travel agencies, the average occupancy rate of hotels, the fluctuation of average house prices, and the economic prosperity index of local markets. For sales agents, such as online booking center agents, they can re-adjust the newly issued prices after analyzing the market situation once a year.

7. Make full use of the resources of online reservation and reservation center.

The emergence and development of online booking and booking center is the inevitable and progress of economic marketization, and it is also a result of economic marketization industry segmentation. At present, Ctrip and E Long, two major online booking companies in China, account for more than 80% of the online booking business. They introduced strategic investors and went public through capital operation, and established a solid market position. The emergence of these online booking "middlemen" is an available resource with low cost and good income for single hotels or hotel group members, and it is a useful supplement to the original marketing methods of hotels. These online booking companies have gathered at least thousands of hotel booking networks. On the one hand, they provide customers with more choices and are close to their psychological needs. On the other hand, the scale of the reservation network operated by a single hotel or hotel group is incomparable. Even the largest hotel group in China manages only a few hundred hotels. There is absolutely no need for us to mind that the existence and development of online "booking middlemen" will take away part of the hotel's profits. There is no such thing as a free lunch. We should adopt the attitude of "from each according to his ability, to get what he needs" and encourage member hotels to cooperate with him for common development.

According to the latest report written by Bill Carlton of the Hotel Industry Research Center of Cornell Hotel Management College in the United States, in the next few years, more than 20% of customers will make reservations online. This proportion was 8.34% in 2002. In the operation report of Oriental Garbo member hotels, we can find that many hotels have made reservations through Ctrip, E Long and other reservation centers, which have reached about 10%- 1 1%. Therefore, for hotels, both individual hotels and members of group companies should make full use of the resources of these online booking agents to increase the profitability of hotels.

8. Management of hotel affiliated resources

The ancillary resources of the hotel mainly refer to catering, entertainment facilities and conference facilities outside the guest room. These attached resources are also good product resources for sales at the front desk. When implementing revenue management, the front office staff should be invited to be familiar with the hotel's affiliated resources, sales price policies and price rules, and be trained in marketing to master marketing skills, so as to develop the sales of these resources in a targeted manner.

9. Comparison and analysis of operating conditions

The front office department should compare the monthly operating data, including occupancy rate, various rooms, customer segmentation and sales of various supporting resources, with the data of the previous year, and then make a detailed analysis with the data of similar competitor hotels in the market. Take these valuable marketing data as the decision-making basis for the front office to formulate housing price policies in various periods and report them to the hotel management.

10, revenue management combined with customer value

The value of different customers is different, and sometimes the value of customers cannot be simply defined by a profit index. For example, hotels in second-tier cities have fewer foreign guests. At this time, if the hotel knows how to attract more foreign guests with more favorable prices, even if the check-in price of these foreign guests is lower than that of domestic guests, the comprehensive value they bring to the hotel, such as courtesy, familiarity with and reference to foreign guests' consumption habits, such as the spread of consumption concepts and humanistic feelings, including the change of foreign language practice atmosphere in the hotel, will have a good comprehensive effect.

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