3 Hotel Revenue Management Tasks Before Peak Season

The winter period brings many changes and challenges for accommodation providers. One of the most obvious problems is the decline in tourist traffic, especially in regions where winter tourism is not common. Cold weather and possible snowfall may make people less willing to travel to these places, which can lead to a drastic decrease in occupancy for hotels and other accommodation providers. At the same time, the drop in hotel traffic during winter can also create an opportunity for accommodation providers. Although fewer tourists visit during these months, quieter periods can be ideal for hotels to focus on tasks for which there is not enough time during the seasonally busier periods.

Opportunities in the quiet season

To prepare properly for the next season, we need to make use of quieter periods when we have the opportunity, time, and energy to do things that are not so easy during the busier months. Below, we highlight three tasks that can make a major contribution to a successful 2024 season. The list is naturally not exhaustive, but these are the areas closest to RoomRaiser’s expertise 😊:

1. Review your sales, marketing, revenue-management and pricing processes—and your market.

Identify areas for improvement, opportunities, tasks, strengths, and weaknesses. Our in-house research should certainly cover the following topics and areas:

Review occupancy and prices.
Examine the customer base and identify opportunities that can be used.
Sales channels—how does our own website perform? Is it worth opening new channels?
Identify and examine competitors. (There is no such thing as a hotel without competitors 😊, and existing competitors also change continuously, so it is worth revisiting this from time to time.)
Examine pricing processes—should we define a new pricing strategy?
Review the hotel’s online reputation. Read reviews and prepare statistics from them.
What is the unique characteristic of our accommodation that guests like most? What makes it special and provides something to build on?
Prepare occupancy and revenue plans.

If you are interested in a comprehensive audit covering the areas above, contact us!

2. Introduce a new dynamic pricing strategy.

It is now well known in Hungarian tourism that good dynamic pricing can maximise a hotel’s revenue. But why is this so important? Based on our experience, many accommodation providers still miss opportunities by doing the following:

They use fixed prices or seasonal prices.
They sell their rooms too cheaply.
They do not price the days of the week differently.
They do not respond to market changes—whether in demand or supply—or respond only slowly.
They do not respond, or respond too late, to important events and holidays, which may not always be domestic holidays and can include those of neighbouring countries.
The difference between their lowest and highest prices is too small.
They either do not use length-of-stay restrictions or use them excessively.

We often hear nowadays that hotels are implementing hidden price increases—for example, mandatory heating surcharges paid by guests during the winter season. A properly designed dynamic pricing strategy that also considers competitors’ pricing is a much better solution. Guests have also become accustomed to dynamic prices because they encounter them in other areas of life. With its help, we can achieve the highest possible profit without upsetting guests with hidden price increases.

Well-designed dynamic pricing

Is based on a suitable strategy.
Always adapts to opportunities created by demand.
Is based on knowledge. It understands the guest base, how it changes over time, and its booking habits, and times price changes accordingly.
Is based on data rather than subjective factors.
Continuously considers competitors’ offers.

The result: 10–30% growth in revenue. There are several ways to implement it. Naturally, we recommend automation, where there is no longer a need to account for human resources and the related costs.

If you would like to introduce effective dynamic pricing, increase your revenue, and achieve all this with less work, contact us and use RoomRaiser’s digital pricing service!

3. Introduce new software solutions and replace old ones.

The Previo PMS shown in the image works in integration with RoomRaiser’s pricing system. Click to learn more!

In Hungary, where winter tourism is not significant, the first two months of the year are the most suitable time for most hotels to complete the task above, because introducing new software involves a great deal of work. This may include the following types of software:

PMS (hotel property management system)
RMS (Revenue Management System—systems that support pricing and sales, such as RoomRaiser 😊)
Channel Manager
Booking engine
Restaurant systems

Considering the following can help you choose the right system:

What do we need? What problem do we want the software to solve?
What result do we expect from the new system? (Time savings? Better service? More revenue?)
Which features do we need?
Which solutions are available on the market?
What features do they offer?
What are their advantages and disadvantages?
What experience do users have with these systems?
Which integrations do they provide?
What do they cost? Do we need to sign a fixed-term commitment?
Can they be tried free of charge?
What training and product support will we receive?

If we succeed in choosing the right software and then allow time to implement it and learn how to use it, life will be easier in the next season—we will achieve more revenue with less work because the machines will work for us 😊.

Interested in dynamic pricing?

If you would like to explore the world of dynamic pricing in greater depth, we invite you to visit our website (www.roomraiser.com), where you can find more expert content. On our site, we provide information and advice that can help you take advantage of all the benefits of dynamic pricing and show you how to apply it at your own hotel.

If you need personalised advice and consultation on introducing or optimising dynamic pricing, do not hesitate to contact our team. We are happy to offer a free consultation so that we can understand your business’s unique needs and goals.