The importance of revenue management for your hotel
After three boom years of post-Covid bounce-back, things have started to feel a little tougher again for the UK hospitality industry in 2024.
The staycation market has been hit with a perfect storm: an oversaturated market and ongoing cost of living crisis, compounded by rising operational costs and persistently wet weather driving holidaymakers abroad through the first half of the year.
With the added pressure on hotel profitability, keeping a tight focus on the importance of revenue management is more crucial than ever to ensure your business remains buoyant.
How important is hotel revenue management for tackling rising costs?
A good revenue manager will have the tools, knowledge and experience at his or her fingertips to be able to segment, forecast and price rooms according to the season, week, day and time.
Getting a proper revenue management strategy in place is the difference between setting a couple of rates then hoping for the best, and having sound and holistic financial analytics, historical data, information on pace of bookings and a track on the competition all acting to establish and corroborate price points that change on a daily or, if necessary, hourly basis.
This constant ‘finger on the pulse’ can make a world of difference to optimising hotel revenue and profits – enabling hoteliers to withstand rises in operating expenses as and when they arise.
Revenue management – where to start
The first step when implementing any new revenue management strategy is to make sure you and your staff have the necessary training and knowledge in place.
Even if your hotel happens to have sufficient resources for a dedicated revenue manager, the more personnel with an awareness of the importance of revenue management, the better.
This is just one of several ways that Octopus Revenue can help. We offer both classroom-based and online revenue management training courses, suitable for all levels of expertise. Whether it’s a refresher course on current practices for an experienced revenue manager, an introduction to key systems and procedures for an absolute beginner, or anything else in between, we have a course to suit.
Get in touch for information on the classroom-based courses we can tailor to suit your business.
Another option, particularly for hotels that don’t have dedicated revenue managers, is to outsource. Again, Octopus Revenue can help with this, with affordable and flexible revenue management solutions that can be tailored to your individual needs.
Alternatively, you may just need our expertise on a short-term basis as a stop-gap to cover long-term absence or recruitment issues.
See our Services page for a full breakdown of the many services we can offer.
The importance of revenue management isn’t just about keeping your head above the water as operating costs spiral – it’s about empowering your business to be as successful, robust and profitable as it can possibly be at any one time, whatever the current economics.
