The Time is Now to Maximize Holiday Income for your Hotel

Just last month, AAA reported travel volume for Thanksgiving was the highest since 2005. Nearly 50 million people traveled more than 50 miles for the holiday.

 

That’s right, even more people are traveling in 2018 than during the height of the last economic cycle in 2007. In fact, all economic indicators are pointing toward this year’s holiday season as being a powerful one for your bottom line. That is, if you leverage your hotel’s rate opportunity.

 

Create Minimum Stays

With both the Christmas federal holiday and New Year’s Day falling on Tuesdays this year, these holidays are disrupting the typical flow of weekly business travel. That means hoping your holiday guests will be sticking around as long as the typical transient business traveler. But a Tuesday also means guests may be coming in one day and checking out the next, rather than staying multiple days.

 

In high demand markets, it may make sense to require a multi-night stay for guests. This ensures you’ll sell more rooms to a smaller group of people. With the SkyTouch Hotel OS® property management system, hoteliers can create special event packages over specific dates. Aside from creating a minimum two-night stay, for example, hotel operators can add other amenities into the package such as champagne for New Years, special F&B or drink deals for Christmas Eve, or whatever package elements are desired in that market.

 

It’s a great way to increase income while providing customers with perceived value they’re potentially more likely to want to experience. Plus, package elements can be saved in the system and used or adapted for next year too.

 

Automatically Push Rates

Another way to maximize holiday income is ensuring your property is asking for market bearing rates. Too often we see hoteliers unsure if they can push those rates higher. It’s not the hotelier’s fault, it’s very difficult to do it manually in such a complex operating environment. Fortunately, SkyTouch utilizes automated rate management features that do all the math for you.

 

The SkyTouch Hotel OS® comes with derivative rates based on Best Available Rate (BAR) rates, which automatically adjust every time the BAR rate changes. Rates can also be changed manually from anywhere where there’s an internet connection. Plus, the PMS automatically adjusts BAR based on occupancy for any given evening, or number of rooms sold for a specific night.

 

In all, the system features up to nine BAR levels, as well as four demand types, and unlimited seasons. This provides hoteliers with the ability to set basic rates throughout the year, which are easily adjustable to compensate for peak demand periods leading up to the holidays, while also compensating for the shallow demand period typically found immediately after the holiday season.

 

Go Wide

Another way to maximize holiday income is by casting a wider distribution net. Rather than place your hotel rooms on a few select OTAs, the SkyTouch Hotel OS, for example, provides two-way channel management via XML connections with OTAs and the GDS. This feature allows for inventory pooling, so all available rooms are seen on every distribution channel simultaneously. Once a room is booked, it’s removed from the inventory on all channels. Now you no longer have to allocate a certain number of rooms to a specific channel.

 

One unexpected benefit: as we’ve talked about previously, when rooms are sold on lesser known OTA sites, commissions paid are typically lower. So, the more sites on which rooms are available the more likely they’ll be booked on sites that are less costly to you than the most common OTA sites.

 

Finally, the system allows for the creation of local-only rates available by calling or visiting the property, helping to further boost RevPAR. For example, you can discount an available room slightly below the OTA rate but since you won’t pay commission on direct booked rooms, those bookings create higher revenue for every room sold direct.

 

Be sure to prepare for the holiday season by maximizing your rate opportunity. Learn more now and contact SkyTouch Technology about modernizing your hotel’s technology to fully leverage the holiday season.

 

Ready to see how a partner like SkyTouch can impact your operations and your revenue? Contact us today and book a demo of the SkyTouch Hotel Operations Platform.