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Why hotels can’t afford to ignore business intelligence in 2015- Part 2

Why BI can do what current tools don’t ?
The current kind of retrospective – your rate shopping or production data analysis is no longer adequate to ensure the best business decisions. Yes, you can see your competitor set’s rate movement in your rate shopping report, but at a time when competition is cut-throat, you need to be always prepared for sudden increase / decrease in demand. An advanced business intelligence like RateTiger Analytics gives you high quality market insights for your revenue strategy to respond to opportunities and threats in real time for optimizing business outcome. Benchmark your competitors on key parameters to make informed pricing decisions. Plan and forecast with greater precision with historical and future data analysis.

Quality data is essential for producing accurate forecasts. Production Reports, which comes with booking pace, reservation and budget gap analysis, provides revenue managers with booking demands from all sources of online distribution broken down into market segment. Compare demand and booking pace to identify whether your sales strategy should be in promotional or allocation mode. Analyze forecasted revenue and occupancy and compare the forecasts to the same time last year. By analyzing the performance metrics, they can get a clear understanding of what makes travelers to book the property. Which channel delivers the most booking? Which OTA provides the highest RevPAR? And which delivers the most advanced bookings? What type of package are people buying here? This helps hotels identify their most valuable guests, their demography and the channel they are using for booking, and adapt strategies accordingly to maximize revenue.

Whether it is using analytics to predict customer behaviour, set pricing strategy, optimize ad spending or manage risk, analytics is moving to the top of the management agenda.
To progress on their analytics journey, hoteliers will need to focus on ways to generate insights from their technology investments, connect the insights to the relevant processes, and then link them to tangible business outcomes. Those, who implement business intelligence as an ancillary activity to a routine and integral part of doing business will make it to the finishing line faster than others.
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Why hotels can’t afford to ignore business intelligence in 2015- Part 1

There are two types business organizations today – one who rely on incorporate business intelligence in their decision making process and another who still relies on ‘gut’ feeling. At a time when we live in a perpetual state of hyper-competition, organizations which are using business intelligence to get key insights are responding more quickly to correct things that may be problematic.

Business analysts predict that bad data or poor data quality costs US businesses $600 billion annually. According to Gartner, poor data quality is a primary reason for 40% of all business initiatives failing to achieve their targeted benefits. With advanced analytics, they can improve their revenue by 10 – 20%.

Wikipediadefines Business Intelligence as the set of techniques and tools for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes. BI makes easy interpretation of large volumes of data which helps businesses identifying new opportunities and implementing an effective strategy based on insights. Sharlock Holmes has summed it up long time back, “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay”. BI does exactly that – builds insights by placing data at the right place.

Internet has been a great leveler in narrowing the information gap. Today’s customers are empowered with ample sources to get information on almost everything they want to know, social media for peer feedback and mobile connectivity to stay up to date even on the go. To say that we at hospitality industry are finding it challenging to cope up with changing guest behavior would be an understatement. British Airways paid a heavy price when a disgruntled customer bought promoted tweet to complain about their customer service, which became global news. In recent times United Airlines and Air India had to face lot of flak when videos on their customer service went viral in social media.

This constant scrutiny has forced us in the hospitality industry to continuously adjust and refine our marketing strategies. Let’s face it – we are dealing with the multifaceted traveler whose preference changes depending on type of trips. He might not need high-speed internet during his family vacation, but for his business trip that’s an absolute necessity. The way people plan trips is also changing.

Google, which has done a detailed study on consumer’s purchase path, has identified how different marketing channels such as email, social media, display ads, direct search, referrals, paid and organic search add different values to the customer at different stages. Some channels will act more as an assisting interaction, i.e. by building brand awareness – these are the channels which make a customer consider a brand while others will act further downstream, when the customer’s decision and transaction, is made. For hotels it has become imperative to understand guest buying behaviors, price elasticity and changing market dynamics for yielding the optimum rate from the most desired consumer set.

Organizations need to capture information at every stage and correctly analyze it to get the right strategy in place. However this is easier said, that done. In this era of information explosion, hoteliers are overloaded with data, but not enough understanding to map them to business needs. Clearly the problem has shifted to making sense of the data which is far more complicated than gathering information.


This is where business intelligence comes in. Data becomes valuable only after it is shaped into insights, and when those insights inform the key decision processes that lead to better outcomes. We at eRevMax, view business intelligence as something much more than a technology with an ROI; it’s a transformational phenomenon that will fundamentally change how business will be conducted and decisions made. 
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eRevMax Customer Satisfaction Survey: 9 out of 10 customers trust RateTiger & Connect solutions for accurate & up to date information

eRevMax, the leading distribution, channel connectivity, market intelligence and revenue management solution provider for travel industry, has announced the results for its annual customer satisfaction survey. The results show that 90% of the customers who took part in the survey think eRevMax solutions are reliable and provide accurate & up to date information.

“The survey is important to gain an objective perspective on all aspects of the business. The findings are an instrumental guide for our strategy. We continue to work on our mission of providing customers with the best technology supported by exceptional service and training to remove the complexity out of their eDistribution business. The result only deepens our commitment to helping hotels improve their channel management, competitive positioning as well as optimize revenue,” said Greg Berman, Chief Operating Officer, eRevMax.

The survey results collected from 500 responses shows that 86% of RateTiger customers are satisfied with the service delivery cycle time, while 90% of Connect users think the time taken to resolve issues meets their expectation.

Read full story here
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Spa & Golf Resort Weimarer Land Selects eRevMax for maximising online sales

The four-star-superior hotel Lindner Spa & Golf Hotel Weimarer Land, a luxury hotel brand in Germany, has selected eRevMax to streamline its online distribution. The property, is using CONNECT by eRevMax to ensure real-time connectivity between the property and online travel agents, meta-search agencies, travel agents and corporate clients.


“eRevMax solutions give instant control over yield management, allowing our properties to handle more product types while automating the distribution process. We were able to identify the best producing websites, while also improving our overall online booking,” said Mark A. Kühnelt, General Manager, Spa & Golf Resort.

Opened in 2013, the 160 hectare complex, including a 36-hole-golf course Lindner Spa & Golf Hotel Weimarer Land offers 94 rooms on 5 channels. From now they can utilize eRevMax’s superior connectivity with over 100 global and regional distributors including OTAs, Tour Operators and Wholesalers to reach out to new markets.

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Trust Customer Conference

Being a Trust Partner, we got invited to the Trust Customer Conference in Amsterdam recently. This year’s event theme was “Blossom your distribution”. It was very well organized and provided a great platform to engage with hoteliers and also showcased the upcoming plans that Trust has for its product range.

The forum was designed mainly to exchange ideas and conduct informative, lively and interactive discussions between the Trust team and its business partners. Speakers were invited from leading companies including Google, TripAdvisor, Kayak, ICEPortal, and Essec Business School and shared key insights on industry issues, business opportunities and market trends.


Our COO Greg Berman was invited to present on the upcoming trends and technologies in Channel Management. It was an interactive session where Greg laid stress on eRevMax’s partnership with Trust Voyager and how it simplifies the distribution process to boost the revenue funnels.

Overall the event was a great chance for me to interact directly with multiple hoteliers, revenue managers as well as sales and marketing heads.
Pilar Sanchez Aita is Director Strategic Account Management at eRevMax. She can be reached at pilars@erevmax.com 
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HMH Partners with eRevMax to Improve Online Sales for its Hotel Portfolio

Hospitality Management Holdings (HMH), a Dubai-based property management group, has announced that it plans to expand its portfolio with five new hotels opening this year alone, which has meant an urgent need for a rate and inventory management system to ensure all properties, both old and new, are digitally standardised. HMH CEO Laurent A. Voivenel was familiar with RateTiger Suite via word of mouth (WOM) marketing, and has recently completed integration with the software that allows for two-way real time ARI updates for all properties which meets the group’s growing demand for efficient and effective management systems. HMH anticipates that RateTiger Suite will boost revenue whilst being simple to execute.


Read full story here

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What is Revenue Management?

Revenue management is a term that’s often thrown around the hotel industry, but what is it, exactly? Some believe that revenue management is all about ensuring a capacity of 80 percent or more at any given time, regardless of what it takes, but does this really equal good revenue management? Perhaps not. Instead, revenue management is about understanding past trends, having a good overview of the current market, sensibly forecasting the future, and addressing rates based upon these aspects combined. It’s about knowing what people are willing to pay, rather than what they want to pay, and not succumbing to cheaper rates for fear of not meeting targets. Overall, revenue management could be described as ‘the art of turning business away’.

Read full story here

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Harbor Hotels select RateTiger for optimizing online revenue

Harbor Hotels, one of the leading hotel chains in Brazil catering to the superior and economy segment, has selected eRevMax to increase their online sales and boost distribution exposure. RateTiger Channel Manager will help them to update rates and inventory in real-time across all third party channels simultaneously from a single platform, while bringing down the cost of booking acquisition.

“RateTiger gives us instant control over inventory distribution, allowing us to handle more product types while automating the process. The diversification of product and exposure will have a positive impact on hotel bookings.” said Josmar de Almeida Director, Commercial, Harbor Hotels.As the FIFA World Cup kicks off in Brazil and over 4 million tourists expected to arrive for the event, Harbor Hotels is looking at increasing their online presence and target new markets to reach out to more potential customers.

Read the full story here. 

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Citybaseapartments.com uses RateTiger Corp for optimizing rate strategy

UK based agency Citybase Apartments, an online sales channel catering to serviced apartments, has selected eRevMax to enforce rate parity and best rate guarantee for all connected properties. The company will be using one the most sophisticated business intelligence tool in industry RateTiger Corp for monitoring suppliers’ rates across competitor sales channels to analyse its market position and identify any discrepancies.

“As an online booking agent specifically tailored towards serviced apartments, it’s imperative that our customers can trust that we are offering them the best rates possible.” said Louise Rogerson, Supplier Relations Team Manager, Citybase Apartments. Through RateTiger Corp, Citybase Apartment will be able to automatically capture and analyse rate parameter data and can improve brand position on all connected channels.

Read the full story here. 
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HITEC 2012


So the countdown begins… one more week to go and Baltimore will have Ryan C Haynes included in its list of tourist arrivals. And why just me? There will be thousands more who would be swarming the BWI Airport over the weekend to make it in time for the big hospitality technology show of the year – HITEC, starting 25th June 2012.

I have a firm understanding that this is where deals are made and where the technology for the industry takes tip-toes, steps or leaps forward to meet the demands of the ever-changing hotel operation environment. I’m really interested to learn who the big players are, it’s not an event like the consumer shows, this is business, so interested to see what will happen?

So what’s on offer? Well of course RateTiger will be there at booth 1716 speaking to the attendees, and I am there to meet the press.  After 5 very enjoyable years educating the journalists on channel management this is my time to say “Hello”, shake their hands, thank them and find out where we go next.

The conference part of the show starts with various boot camps, educational sessions as well as CHAE and CHTP exams on Monday. Day 2 looks exciting with an interesting key note session by professional hacker Josh Klein, who will speak about ‘Self Defense in the New Media Age’ (a dose of this should come in handy!).  Day 3 includes the much talked about ‘Search, Mobile and Social media’, ‘Reinventing CRM and BI as Revenue Drivers’ and ‘Gleaning Business Intelligence from Social Media’. Given that RateTiger dabbles in all three offering relevant applications, we are very excited to hear what the speakers have to say.

Still – seamless, two-way connectivity will be on the lips, as we continue the discussion to the next level looking deeper at simplifying the complexity of the “Push, Pull, Push, Pull models”. And we will be looking at how OTAs will be changing their sales model and the future role of social networks, Google and flash sales sites in hotel booking strategies.

Other than this, there will definitely be a lot of networking and some nice evening dinners with the team. So, time for a few last minute preparations and then off I go. More when I am back. See you at HITEC.

Ryan C Haynes is VP – Marketing Communications at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities for RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at ryanh@ratetiger.com