How do independent hotels formulate revenue maximization strategies?

Independent hotel managers often find themselves in trouble. They lack huge resources of large hotel chain groups, marketing budget, investment in developing third-party booking channels and widely recognized brands to cooperate with these promotional activities. However, independent hotels can still adopt a series of strategies to maximize revenue and maintain customer loyalty. As an independent hotel manager, it is very important to maximize the return on investment (ROI) of all resources. Collecting data about small independent hotels is an effective cost-saving method, which allows you to set the best room price in the next few months and establish corresponding strategies. Independent hotel managers need to master historical and forward-looking detailed data. Historical data should include: occupancy rate, market segment income and daily room income, and ensure that the above data are included in at least 90 days in the future. Collecting the above data every day allows hotel managers to establish simple booking forecasts according to market segments and time, and compare them with historical data. If this work can continue, when the market demand increases, hotel managers can capture the changes in the market more quickly and adjust their strategies accordingly. The trend of independent hotel industry circle is becoming more and more obvious. Independent hotels must have a good understanding of team activities and income, and it is important to have a stable source of team business. It is also very important to determine the profitability and net contribution rate under different customer composition for your income optimization work. Information is one of the main "commodities" of hotels and even the whole hotel industry, and collecting competitors' information has become one of the most urgent tasks for hotel managers. Evaluating competitors should start with typical factors such as price, product and overlapping market. Theoretically, you need to reduce the number of major competitors to five, so that you can keep a close eye on their movements. If local laws do not allow you to view information between hotels, external suppliers such as STR GLobal can provide you with daily hotel information tracking service. Measure the gap between you and your competitors with RevPar index. Know your channel. First of all, please make sure that you have a good performance in all major channels. This includes having high-quality photos and timely updated information, which should directly reflect the market segments of specific channels. Establishing a win-win relationship with distribution partners can stimulate your business growth and prevent you from falling into inflexible long-term contracts. These long-term contracts may bring harm to your hotel when your business starts to resume. You should use the benchmark information of the past and future hotel industry provided by third-party companies to understand your shortcomings compared with competitors and when they will change prices. Independent hotels should also pay attention to search engine optimization and marketing, and also ensure that these promotions can reach the most suitable market segments. After the Great Depression in 2009, the hotel manager drastically lowered the room price in the first quarter. If demand grows strongly this year, price fluctuations may be the opposite. However, corporate customers may be reluctant to raise house prices. Therefore, you need to adjust your sales contract, either reducing the added value or stopping the special discount when necessary. When hotel managers have the necessary information and employees have a very accurate understanding of it, dynamic pricing methods can be established. Dynamic pricing has been widely used in the industry, but in the past 12 months, we have seen too many hotels offering discounts or very low prices. The hotel can try to increase the hotel price slightly, and then evaluate the effect quantitatively. We are sure that in many cases, hotel managers will be surprised to find that some market segments are quite sensitive to price. The key is that the hotel should be prepared to make changes when necessary. Independent hotel managers should encourage employees to sell more upscale rooms to their guests as much as possible when they check in, which can bring obvious contributions (3% or more) to your income statement. At the same time, when the booking peak comes, you should find out your VIP customers as soon as possible to ensure that they can get the room smoothly, especially when your hotel is overbooked. At the same time, make sure your hotel has enough staff to face the peak booking period. It is very important for the hotel to have enough staff to handle check-in or check-out procedures and clean rooms, which can make the hotel experience better and better. Only after improving the input of process, technology and personnel can independent hotel managers occupy a place in the market. Small-scale operation means that independent hotel managers can respond to changes more flexibly and quickly in the face of active and changeable market environment.