Changes in traveler habits in recent years mean that revenue teams have seen great changes in market mix and segmentation.
Traveler behavior has altered, length of stay has increased, and convenience and ease of use are now a prerequisite of a hotel stay.
Here, three hoteliers talk to Duetto about how they have adapted their product and their revenue strategy to better tap into the new demands of today’s traveler:
Clare Bastiman, VP Commercial Operations, Yotel:
Everyone's market mix has changed. There's been no international travel. So that's had an impact on incoming corporate and leisure business. We look at the fact that there was a ban on the mixing of households and groups of six or more, which impacted the meetings and events industry, as well as weddings and events. But then on the positive side, we've also seen the craze of staycation, which has caused an increase in leisure demand.
So yes, we have adapted our business to consider those things.
We've implemented the use of upselling packages throughout our kiosk check-ins. So, the guests can buy an early check-in or a late checkout. They can buy a breakfast upsell.
We've also partnered with a transport company to implement a taxi app into our app. So, with guests not wanting to necessarily use public transport in overcrowded cities, it gives them the confidence that they can use a self-service app to order a taxi. And that comes with a pushback of a commission for Yotel.
Ryan Dance, Group Revenue Director for Malmaison Hotel du Vin & Frasers Hospitality:
A lot of our customer base on weekends is leisure, and midweek we benefit from our corporate mix. Before the pandemic, we had a lot of promotional, and tactical activity. Through what happened with COVID, we were able to streamline the level of discounting, and the level of promotional activity we deployed into the market. That was quite critical for us. What we also looked at was lengthening the length of stay. Any tactical activity that we did deploy into the market was length-of-stay based: two-night packages, three-night packages, four-night packages, etc. That was a key change for us.
In terms of the other mix, we still were able to maintain our group base. We also maintained some of our corporate mix, which is now coming back, which is nice to see. But I think the biggest change was to reduce the tactical deployments that we had in the business and to lengthen the length of stay, which we did use Duetto's functionality in terms of discount pricing rules that allowed us to do that.
Victoria Curley, Group Revenue & Distribution Manager, Roomzzz Aparthotels:
We're seeing more of a market mix coming through that are people traveling for longer periods. But people that want more flexibility, people that would ordinarily go and rent an apartment for a year somewhere, wanting the flexibility that they can get with us of booking for a month at a time or two months at a time that isn't offered in residential apartment world. We've benefited from the kind of spotlight that our products had throughout the last 18 months.
We've built new rate plans that have focused on the length of stay. And we've been able to utilize the pricing strategies in Duetto more to squeeze down as that occupancy increases, which isn't something that we looked at pre-COVID.
It's given us a chance to step back and look at our rate mix as a whole. And we've put some new and exciting things out there that have done well for us in driving more direct business.
Discover more on this topic. Watch our Industry Insights video for more insights: https://www.duettocloud.com/videos/how-have-hotels-adapted-market-mix