Revenue Management Blog

Total Revenue Management is a much-discussed concept in hospitality, but in reality it has produced a great deal of confusion. Put simply, it is the revenue management of all revenue sources in a hotel. From your RevPAR and GOPPAR to the hotel restaurant, and from the bar, spa and gym to activities and excursions, it encompasses every single hotel income stream.

Let's dive in and see how this can be done ...

The rooms of your hotel are one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal as a revenue manager. It allows you to segment and position the hotel product, differentiating yourself from the competition. If segmented correctly it also allows you to build a revenue management strategy based on a comprehensive demand based yield or rate grid. 

What can you do in your hotel or resort to generate additional income? It often sounds easier than it is in reality. We have been brainstorming and have come up with some great hotel management tips to sell extra services. And then there is the next challenge with upselling and cross-selling. There are several extra services to offer in our hotels but how do you know what is most profitable. Which ancillary revenues bring more income while require less effort in terms of investment, time spent and people dedicated?

OK, so last year we sold 1.836.117 rooms at Xotels. Not bad. To be honest I am even impressed by these kind of numbers myself. But how did our team of hotel strategy experts maximize revenue and profit for these? We have put together 4 revenue management and marketing challenges, with their case studies and checklists highlighting our best practices and proven techniques.

Con Air: what is brandjacking?

The neologism brandjacking was coined over a decade ago, by astutely combining the words branding and hijacking. In our industry, when we talk about brandjacking, we usually refer to all those activities whose lowest  common denominator is the exploitation of another company brand's equity, such as the creation of fake social network profiles or mirror-websites. The most frequent use of brandjacking is, however, is the one  that goes under the name of Affiliate Brand Bidding. This mischievous tactic consists in investing in search engines advertising campaigns and bidding on terms that are related targeted company. Ever googled your  hotel’s name and found Booking.com, Expedia, trivago and TripAdvisor before your official website? Well, that’s ABB. 

I have been in this hotel revenue management game for more than 2 decades now. And after all these years it still gets me anxious when I see hotels not performing at their full potential. So I have put together a list of 5 common mistakes made in revenue management in hotels, resorts and hostels.

Here is the fact, Direct bookings have become a key objective for hotels large and small, and is one of the top recommendations at an efficient Revenue Management strategy. In an ultra-competitive sector, through moving room reservations away from online travel agencies (OTAs) and other third parties, direct hotel bookings make possible to take advantage of important opportunities such as repeat bookings, cross-selling and up-selling, and increased brand loyalty, which all ultimately lead to higher revenues and higher profits.