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Return To Market: Planning 30 Days Out

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  2. RETURN TO MARKET 30 DAYS

In this, our final blog in our Revenue Recovery series, we are exploring the revenue strategies you might employ 30 days out – whether that’s 30 days from stay date, re-opening date, or a forecasted uptick in demand.

Following on from your 60-day strategy, consider concentrating your efforts on those segments that are producing last-minute demand and looking at how you can react to them. We all know hotel teams are having to do ‘more with less’, so now might be the time to consider Controlled Automation. After all, you cannot be monitoring pick-up 24/7.

[Discover more about the measures you need to take to be proactive in your revenue management right now. Download our Special Report, How To Build A Net New Revenue Strategy, today.]

Duetto users can opt to set a conditional AutoPilot, for example, to run for weekends when you are not in the office but very last-minute demand could be coming through.

AutoPilot enables revenue teams to unlock more efficiencies. As well as turning it on for the entire property, revenue managers can specifically control when AutoPilot runs and for what segments/sub rates it runs for, for example, you may set AutoPilot to only publish rates beyond 90 days, giving you more time in your day to focus on your immediate booking window.

Your 30-day strategy should also focus on upselling and encouraging direct booking for that second visit. Encourage guests to stay on-site. Reward your book direct customers with a food and beverage credit voucher and preferential treatment at the restaurant and spa so that they get the reservation slots they want.

Similarly, a ‘buy one get one free’ on drinks does not cost you much if your average cheque is $100. Giving people the incentive to spend on a property is always a great strategy.

And for the immediate short-term window, target your local drive markets.

Make everyone part of revenue

Now is the time to break habits and make new standard operating procedures. We need to empower staff and make all team members a part of revenue. For example, make sure your front desk team is trained and feels confident to upsell on arrival. Empower them to deviate from stringent lock-step rates between room categories and find the price point of the customer in front of them. Giving $5 or $10 off the rate on a suite or a superior room should still bring in more revenue than the standard double they had originally booked. Incentivize the front desk for sell-out nights or the highest upsell. That could be a cash bonus or why not strengthen that team spirit and give them a pizza party or team dinner?

Similarly, train your housekeepers to recognize that somebody is going to be a late checkout. Create an incentive for the housekeeping team to notify the front desk so that they can step in with a call offering the guest a late checkout at a fee of $10.

It’s about connecting the operations team to revenue. You may have had to discount the original room rate to get the booking, but these ancillary spends can help recoup that lost revenue.

Tapping into pent-up demand

We can see from our Pulse Report data that there is a lot of pent-up demand. Be ambitious with your transient rates and you may see them go up to levels you have never seen before.

Secure a good level of base business with opaque rates that are not available to the general market and then yield aggressively on the remaining inventory for transient travel. This protects your public rate.

There is demand out there and there is a willingness to pay. But you need to be strategic. 

This blog is part of a series outlining what measures you need to take to shore up your revenue strategies 90, 60, and 30 days from guest arrival or reopening date. Read the previous installments: Planning 90 Days Out and Planning 60 Days Out.

 

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Sarah McCay Tams, Director of Marketing Communications.

Sarah joined Duetto in 2015 as a contributing editor covering Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). In 2017, she was promoted to Director of Content, EMEA, and in 2022 promoted to Director of Marketing Communications. An experienced B2B travel industry journalist, Sarah spent 14 years working in the Middle East, most notably as senior editor – hospitality for ITP Publishing Group in Dubai, where she headed up the editorial teams on Hotelier Middle East, Caterer Middle East and Arabian Travel News. Sarah is now based back in the UK.

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