SCENARIO 1:

You have a 300-room hotel in Revelstoke. It is February 2021, and you are forecasting for the next 90 days.

March and April look very soft with very little OTB.

On the booksis a measure used when looking ahead to see how occupancy or revenue is booked in at a hotel.

What 3 tactics would you employ?

SCENARIO 2:

You have a 500-room hotel at an airport. Your Sales Manager receives a call for a piece of group business that will take 200 rooms every Friday and Saturday night for the next 2 months.

How do you determine whether you should take the business or not?

Name 3 things you would look at to help you with your decision.

Scenario 3

You have a 100-room hotel in Nelson. At the end of Q1 2021 your average rate is $50 below same time last year, but your occupancy is up by 10 points.

Your occupancy this year at the end of Q1 is 45%, last year it was 35%, the rate was $175, this year the rate is $125.

Name 4 things you would consider when deciding whether to sacrifice occupancy for more rate or not.

Calculate the RevPar last year versus this year.

REFERENCE:

High and Low Demand Tactics Descriptions

High Demand:

Close or restrict discounts:

You can manage your lower rated business by turning off discounted rates in all your booking channels. You can also just turn off the lowest discounted rates. Close essentially measn "turn off"

Minimum length of stay restrictions:

You are busy on a Saturday night but not on the Friday night and Sunday night. By using stay restrictions you can force the guest into booking the way you want. So if you put a 3 night stay restriction on Saturday the guest cannot book just Saturday night alone. They have to book either Friday for 1 night or Friday for 3 nights therefore helping your occupancy on Friday and Sunday.

Reduce group allocations:

This is a longer term tactic. You can limit the amount of Group business you will take for a certain time period because you believe you will high demand for higher rated business.

Reduce or eliminate 6pm holds and tighten cancellation policies:

6pm holds are when the guest is able to cancel up until 6pm on day of arrival without penalty. Since hotels have become more sophisticated, during high demand periods hotels can put more detailed cancellation policies on different pieces of business. So, for instance if you have an offer that is a good deal you want to put in the market, you can make the booking non-refundable. So once booked, the guest cannot cancel without having to pay for the room. In high demand you may want to put lengthiercancellation rules in place so you have more time to re-book that room should the guest cancel.

Raise Rates and Suites and Executive Rooms:

This is self explanatory, you want to check what the competition is offering and based on your availability of room types you may want to raise the rate more on the lower end product and less on the higher end product or vice versa

Closed to arrivals:

This another tactic like minimum stay restrictions. You can put into the system that no one can arrive on that Saturday night, for instance.

Low Demand:

Offer Packages:

You can build all kinds of different packages that are value added for the guest. This can be as simple as a B&B deal that you can put on Social media. Packages can also be very complex but serve multiple purposes, they can drive revenue into streams other than Rooms so for instance, a Golf Package that offers a deal to drive business onto the Golf course.

Keep Discounted Categories open:

In low demand you want every offer you have open to all the booking channels to drive as much volume as possible recognizing that it will be reduced rates

Encourage Upgrades:

Low demand is a good opportunity to show the guest the better room product you have, making clear that it is a one-off upgrade.

Offer stay sensitive incentives:

You can offer vouchers or other deals if a guest stays on specific dates. You might consider offering a gas card with their stay if they book Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between certain dates.

Remove Stay Restrictions:

Remove all stay restrictions so that a guest can book any time and any pattern during your low demand period.

Involve your staff:

Ask for ideas on how to create more volume

Lower rates:

This is self explanatory.