Hotel Revenue Management: Key Questions Answered

Revenue management undoubtedly plays a vital role in long-term success in the hotel industry. It impacts every area of a hotel business - branding, reputation, public perception, marketing, food and beverage, finance and operations, sales and catering. It uses hotel performance data, data analysis and tools to identify customer behavior patterns and predict future behaviors. Right from setting rates of rooms to managing distribution channels, revenue managers use these valuable insights to make every decision. Revenue management of the hotel will help in projecting the future volume of business and revenue generated by the hotel

Maximizing revenue is always the top target for hotel revenue managers, but trying to achieve it while managing hundreds of guests becomes a tough nut to crack. Perhaps getting answers to some questions can make the process easier. Successful revenue management strategy starts with having a clear understanding of guests and market demand dynamics. I know you might have a series of questions regarding this. So let’s help you get answers to all of your queries today.

How Hotel Revenue Management Questionnaires Can Help You?

The more you question, the more clarity you will receive and save yourself from significant market uncertainty in the hotel industry. Every hotelier struggles with some questions that create more issues during their revenue management practices. Hoteliers must address whether their revenue management systems and pricing strategies are offering business growth and driving profitability. And to make this happen, every hotelier should get the required answer to their question. The true purpose of the questionnaire is to ensure effective internal controls are in place.

We have gathered 15 important and most likely to be asked questions in hotel revenue management.

Hotel Pricing Strategy Questionnaires

1. What are the 3 facts best used for determining hotel room pricing?

Creating an effective plan is necessary to balance ever-changing room rates and keep them competitive.

The factors that determine the hotel room pricing:

The state of the economy
The room type
The location of nearby attractions
Overall cleanliness of the room

2. Are there any limitations to your pricing structure?

Driving profitability is the top priority of a revenue strategy. The real challenge lies in how you price different rooms through different channels across different days to different guests. Since every guest has unique preferences or demands, the job gets a little difficult. But with proper revenue technology, this can be fixed. Revenue management software will determine ideal prices, overbooking strategies, and inventory controls by studying different types of buying behaviors.

3. What influences the pricing of a hotel?

Here are a few things that influence hotel pricing:

Online reviews
Access to room service
Hotel guest and staff technology
Local competitor’s pricing

Demand Forecasting Questions

4. What data is required in forecasting hotel demand?

Events calendar, historical data, booking pace and segmentation, On the books are the crucial date you need for forecasting hotel demand. The most useful information you get is the Booking Pace. It lets you see exactly when and how fast bookings are coming on any date.

5. What are the 2 types of demand forecasting techniques?

You can do demand forecasting in two different methods: Survey Methods and Statistical Methods.

Survey methods include market research, sale force opinion, and the delphi method

Statistical methods include trend projection, barometric forecasting technique and econometric forecasting technique.

6. What are the 5 objectives of demand forecasting?

Objectives included in demand forecasting are financial planning, pricing policy, manufacturing policy, sales, and marketing planning, capacity planning and expansion, manpower planning and capital expenditure.

Distribution Channel Management Questions

7. What are the core distribution channels for a hotel?

Hotel distribution can involve any platform or method by which a hotel sells its rooms. The core distribution channel includes a booking engine (website social media), online travel agents, phone/email/walk-ins, metasearch and global distribution

8. What are the different sales strategies distribution channels can use to maximize revenue?

The six essential hotel sales strategies hotels can use for increasing revenue are direct bookings, group bookings, cross-promotional sales, destination marketing, revenue management, and guest rewards strategies. Other room-selling techniques include cross-selling, upselling, re-marketing, promotions, packages and local partnerships.

9. How to create a profitable hotel distribution strategy?

Some of the best were to create a profitable hotel distribution strategy:

Set business objectives
Invest in a direct channel
Get to know your best guests
Use dynamic rates across all channels
Maintain price integrity

Revenue Performance Evaluation Questions

10. How do I evaluate the performance of my hotel?

Some of the metrics you can use for evaluating the performance in a hot:

Revenue per available room (RevPAR)
Average Daily rate (ADR)
Average Occupancy Rate (OCC)

Here are the 6-x factors on which hotel performance gets evaluated:

Finance
Asset management
Sales performance
Innovation
Service Excellence
Health and Safety

11. Name the 7 key Hotel KPIs that drive profitability goals.

Here are the 7 key indicators of hotel revenue management:

Net Revenue Per Available Room (NREVPAR)
Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room. This is considered to be one of the most effective methods for measuring hotel performance
Total Revenue Per Available Room (TREVPAR)
Market Penetration Index (MPI)
Online reviews
Occupancy rate
Average Length of Stay (ALOS)

12. What do hotel revenue managers use to evaluate performance in a hotel?

Revenue managers use an RMS (revenue management system) for determining the ideal price, to analyze the available supply of hotels, in the market and property-level demand.

Customer Segmentation Questions

13. What are the 5 key hotel guest segments?

The five ways to segment markets are psychographic, demographic, behavioral, geographic and firmographic segmentation.

14. How to evaluate customer segments?

Here are the steps to conduct customer segmentation analysis:

Identify your guests
Divide your customers into groups
Create your guest personas
Articulate the specific needs of your guests
Connect your products and services to guests’ needs
Evaluate and prioritize top segments
Develop specific marketing strategies
Evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies

15. What should be the top criteria for choosing a guest segmentation?

Top criteria that you need to focus on for effective guest segmentation:

Measurable
Accessible
Substantial
Differentiable
Actionable

Key Takeaways from Hotel Revenue Questionnaires

The questionnaires about hotel revenue will help you get a clearer picture of the hotel revenue. It will ensure that more revenue is driven to your hotel.

You will be able to maintain a high level of performance by adopting new strategies and systems
Knowing the distribution channels will let you have the strong marketing power
You will experience a more secure and advanced level hotel revenue management system for maximizing revenues and yields
Understand the pricing strategy that is suitable for your hotel property
Learn key components for an effective hotel demand forecasting
Get a better analysis of how to benchmark against your competition

PARTING THOUGHTS

As a revenue manager, you should never stop being inquisitive and curious. A questionnaire will lead you to continuous improvement in your revenue and pricing domain. The more clarity you get, the more power you have to make quick decisions and develop new rate plan structures. The hunger for knowledge will keep you moving towards revenue growth in the hotel industry. You need to instantly feed answers to the questions that pop into your mind. Only then you will be able to stay at the top of the latest industry trends, monitor the competition and keep your hotel ahead of the game.