
Why revenue management is important for accommodation owners
Revenue management is an important aspect of running any accommodation. It can be hard to know where to start, which is why we’re talking to Jody Sharratt at Rooms Online. We asked her why accommodation owners should care about revenue management, and what accommodation owners can do to improve their revenue management.
Why is revenue management important for accommodation owners?
Rooms Online (ROL): Accommodation operators have a finite revenue earning potential, and once a room is sold, or the property is full for the night, they’ve reached the maximum for that day.
Simply increasing rates because it’s traditionally a high season, or lowering them because it’s a low season isn’t necessarily going to ensure you’re maximising the potential revenue. Accommodation providers need to look at what’s happening in town, look at forward bookings, think about what traditionally happens at the particular time of year and make a strategic plan.
Some tips:
1. Consider booking trends and use historical data to make sound decisions
2. Invest time to plan ahead and continually monitor your room inventory
3. Leverage your most successful booking channels
What are some common mistakes you see with accommodation owners and their revenue management?
ROL: Accommodation providers tend to stick to what they’ve always done when it comes to rate setting, and this is generally whatever the previous owners of the property have done, or what competitors are doing. Often they’ll only look a few weeks ahead, but they should be looking months into the future and planning, things happen quickly and you want the best rate at the right time, every time.
They often worry too much about what their competitors are up to – which leads to price wars.
In peak demand, properties often think that if they’re full and the ‘No Vacancy’ sign is up that they’re doing well. Our questioning in this scenario is;
Is the goal to fill to 100% occupancy, or get the best possible overall room revenue and ultimately make more money?
Have they maximised the opportunity and achieved the best possible average daily rate, or did they perhaps fill too easily.
Tell us a bit about Rooms Online:
ROL: With 12 years’ hotel reservations/revenue management experience, Jody came up with the idea for Rooms Online during her 5 years working for an OTA. She realised small accommodation operators were often new to the industry and they often felt ‘alone’. They had no neutral adviser they could turn to for advice on pricing, promotions, or communications. They also had very little time to do everything.
Thanks Rooms Online for the insight into revenue management. If your accommodation needs help with your revenue management, the team at Rooms Online are the experts!
Subscribe to our newsletter
Other Blogs you may also like

Benefits of Online Reputation Management for Your Hotel
Hotel businesses rely on their reputation to stay in business. A hotel’s online presence and the reviews it receives are essential for acquiring new customers, retaining existing ones and increasing revenue. That is why many hotels have adopted online reputation management (ORM) techniques to ensure that their brand remains positive and trustworthy. Definition and purpose […]

Top 10 Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) of 2022
If you are a hotelier, you’ll know guests book into your hotel through multiple different channels. While direct booking is still critical to your business (a customer calls your hotel directly to make a reservation, emails you, or visits the booking room service on your website), the popularity of indirect booking sites is on the […]

How To Improve Your Booking.com Ranking as a Hotelier
Booking.com rankings can be make or break for hoteliers. In this blog post, we will discuss tips for improving your listing so you can continue to generate more bookings. We’ll also cover which tools on Booking.com’s Extranet you can utilise to help guide you through the process. Use the Booking.com Extranet tools One element that […]

What hoteliers and accommodation owners can learn from Airbnb
With the popularity of Airbnb amongst many travellers, we look into what makes Airbnb such a popular platform and what you as hoteliers and small accommodation owners can learn from them. Why is Airbnb so successful? Airbnb tapped into how a certain generation of people wanted to travel. Their ‘live like a local campaign’ really […]

Why your hotel needs a property management system
Choosing the right property management system (PMS) is an important process that accommodation providers need to consider. Designed to help you save both time and money, easy to understand software will enable you to seamlessly manage your accommodation from your front-desk operations to your accounting and your bookings so you have more time to spend […]

No Restaurant at Your Hotel? How To Serve Food to Guests Without a Kitchen
No restaurant? No worries. At most hotels and resorts, guests can order room service or even dine at a bar or lounge on the property while they’re staying there. But what if you don’t offer either of these services? Or, your hotel doesn’t have any food options at all? There are many possible reasons why […]