Are Reviews Part of Your Revenue Growth Strategy in the New Era of Travel?
A new era of travel calls for a revenue strategy focused on adaptability and connected data. Here’s how our partnership with IDeaS will help you convert reviews into insightful data and, ultimately, into revenue.
Rethinking Revenue Management for a Changed Industry
COVID-19 has brought its share of changes to the hospitality industry. In the short term, we saw a dramatic decrease in travel volume that affected demand worldwide. In the long term, we’re talking about a new era of hospitality, with technology and complex data being deeply embedded into every decision.
Revenue management also adapted to the market challenges. Low and often inconsistent demand during the pandemic, inflation, and staff shortages have been shaping the pricing strategies in the industry.
Coming back to “normal,” European and American hotels are experiencing a profitability paradox: increased room rates, a continuous recovery in demand, and staff shortages led to higher margins. An automated RMS that can make effective pricing decisions to maximize business and revenue, even in a disrupted market, is no longer a “nice to have” tool. It’s a business necessity.
Alongside complex and evolving challenges, travelers’ preferences have evolved in these pandemic years. This new breed of traveler looks for more meaningful experiences and high-quality and digitalized services to make their stay more pleasant. Price is also an essential topic on the traveler’s agenda. TrustYou’s analysis for Q3 2022 shows that Price is the category most likely to impact a hotel's performance score negatively. Now more than ever, guests evaluate their stay based on price.
Heading into a new year, quick adaptation to emerging trends and ongoing challenges will make the difference revenue-wise. Exceptional times call for exceptional analytics. Having the right data by your side is crucial. Ideally, this includes a combination of historical and up-to-the-minute insights that would help create flexible strategies in times of uncertainty. It’s also about the bigger picture. The more data you can connect to understand how it affects your performance, guest experience, and revenue, the better.
The last few years have underlined the need for a fully automated revenue management system. In a post-2020 world, forward-looking data proves more critical than ever. However, accurate revenue forecasting still depends on data from the recent past. When implemented correctly, revenue optimization can provide a competitive advantage that helps hospitality organizations minimize uncertainty, increase revenue, and save valuable time.
Tatiana Taylor - Marketing Manager, IDeaS
Guest Feedback as a Driver for Revenue Growth
How do you turn reviews into revenue? When you start treating reviews like valuable data, you unlock their potential to bring more new and returning guests.
Reviews can overpower brands. A negative review can be a deciding factor for travelers, even if hotels have a carefully crafted brand. Specifically, for leisure travelers, having a happy stay is more important than choosing a hotel with a powerful image.
André Kaufmann, Director of Business Development, EMEA
The latest data from TrustYou shows the increasing importance of online feedback for travelers.
Guest feedback is crucial when searching for accommodations. 95% of travelers read reviews before booking. On average, they read nine reviews before making a decision.
Looking for ways to increase guest satisfaction and loyalty? Make sure to reply to your negative feedback. Two out of three authors of negative reviews stated that they are more likely to return if the hotel addressed their issues.
If you want to explore more benefits of managing reviews as part of your online reputation strategy, listen to our expert André Kaufmann in this live discussion.
The information extracted from reviews can also serve as a benchmark for calibrating the price. By looking at metrics such as the Reviews Score, Performance Score, and Impact Scores, you get a clear picture of the areas that need more attention.
The Comp Index will help you find a unique position in the market to differentiate yourself from the competition and understand how much you can charge for your services considering the local market.
“Revenue managers rely more than ever on data and technology to calibrate their daily rates. When increasing the daily rates, the Review Score and the Comp Index can give hoteliers great insights into how far they can go. Connected data is crucial for price fairness.”
André Kaufmann, Director of Business Development, EMEA
Bringing Reputation and Revenue Management Together
TrustYou and IDeaS have combined the power of reputation insights and revenue management. This connected data set will help you adapt quickly to market changes, improve the guest experience, and drive optimal revenue performance.
Through this integration, hotels can automatically incorporate reputation data into IDeaS’ pricing analytics, improve guest experiences, and drive optimal revenue performance. This partnership enables you, as a hotelier, to align your pricing strategy with the competition and guests’ perceived value of your products. This will enable data-driven decisions for more robust pricing.
Stepping into a new era of travel, make sure you have the right technology and intelligent data by your side. This will better prepare you to react quickly and face uncertainties in the future.
Contact TrustYou or IDeaS to get more information about our data integration.
