Revenue & Yield Management Blog

Our role as Xotels has developed over time from revenue management into a full hotel management company, we are now looking way beyond pricing and distribution for hotels. We are actually also developing new hotel concepts, and for this it is important to keep up to date with the latest developments in the hospitality industry.

So by now we should all know that Millennials represent the largest consumer demographic group in the world today. And more importantly for the hotel sector, they love to travel. For these reasons, it is critical to the success of your hotel management strategy to appeal to the millennial market.

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?

The hotel industry generally suffers from a victim mentality. AirBnB is the big bad wolf that is not playing according to our rules. Them and other sharing economy business models are bringing damage to our hotels, and it isn’t happening in a fair way. But let's turn the game around and find out what we can learn from them to become better at our own business, hotel management, a.k.a. hospitality … Let’s have a look at their strategies to find some disruptive ideas and see how we can apply them in our hotels. Ready?

With around $300 billion spent every year overseas, Chinese market is incredibly tempting for hotels, but it's probably the hardest one to penetrate as well. We are always looking to develop our revenue management and distribution strategies for new opportunities. Talking with some of the experts in the market we have put together a top 10 list of tips and best practices to make your hotel ‘chinese friendly’ and attract this massive growing market segment.

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. 

Independent and boutique hotels have the opportunity to capitalise on traveller appetite for unique experiences. Big hotel chains simply can’t compete on this front. And your hotel is also able to completely differentiate itself from other independent hotels. Coupling this with the implementation of hotel revenue management best practices gives your hotel ample opportunity. Read our 10 hotel revenue management tips here to drive the success of your organisation.

Driving your profitability in the most efficient manner is a challenge that all hotels face. But here at Xotels, we have found that there are certain key performance indicators (KPIs) that are particularly powerful. Some of the commonly used KPIs include Average Room Rate (ARR), Bedroom Occupancy Rate (OCC) and Cost per Occupied Room (CPOR). But, in this article we focus on the three hotel revenue management KPIs that experts use to maximise profitability in particular.

Reading the industry press over the last couple of months, I could not help but notice, all the upheaval about the large chains and the mergers and acquisitions happening. After Marriott acquired Starwood the industry is talking about the era of the mega hotel chains.

However, I see actually rather a big opportunity for the independent hotels in the current marketplace. Independent hotels thrive currently and from my experience are outperforming chain hotels in results.

Reading an online hotel industry news publication this month, I came across a statement that kind of threw me off. An industry veteran I greatly admire was suggesting hotels should consult with OTA for revenue management advice. Of course I probed as to what he really meant by this, as it seemed to me a tip that may lead hoteliers down the wrong path.