Airbnb promotions available in Channel Manager

Oct 28, 2019 | Channel Manager, Connections

Airbnb promotions available in Channel Manager

We are happy to announce that YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager will be supporting Airbnb promotions from now on.

It has been immense product development on our side due to the complexity of how the promotions are constructed. There can be multiple Airbnb promotions created for the same dates and apartments, so YieldPlanet’s Dev and Product Teams have been working on large-scale amount of data with a lot of complex interrelations. Unlike the promotions set in most conventional OTA channels which are set as new rate plan, the promotions in Airbnb are applied as discounts to the main and only rate. What is more Airbnb promotions are managed from a channel manager only.

Promotions supported via YieldPlanet include minimum stay deals, advance purchase discounts, last minute offers, as well as seasonal deals. Additionally, they can be managed for each apartment separately, which makes the entire solution extremely flexible for channel manager users.

Developing Airbnb promotions opens up YieldPlanet Channel Manager plans to develop similar solutions at other big OTAs.

Read our blog to keep up to date with YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager product development.

Channel Manager database sharding for system’s higher efficiency

Oct 25, 2019 | Channel Manager

Channel Manager database sharding for system’s higher efficiency

We have finalized the Channel Manager database sharding project we have been working on at YieldPlanet for the last 12 months.

Sharding is a database partitioning that separates very large databases into smaller, faster and more efficient parts.

Why is sharding so important?

Over the last few years, the demand for the hotels to exchange data year to year has been increasingly and dynamically growing.

Data traffic increases at least twice fold each year, requiring constant effort to keep up with that pace from the channel manager. Sharding has prepared us for supporting big loads of rates and allotments distributed to your OTA channels, as well as processing rates received from revenue management systems which are becoming more and more popular.

The process will, therefore, allow it for our Channel Manager to operate faster even with big amounts of data.

Finalizing the database sharding project required from us moving resources within our database.  We did our best to minimize any negative effects on hotelier daily operations. Now we can take advantage of this milestone project and grow further with you.

You might also be interested in reading:
Technology for small and medium-sized facilities
How to increase your revenue using YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager?
How to map an AirBnb in YP’s Channel Manager?

Meet us at the WTM London 2019!

Oct 25, 2019 | Events

Meet us at the WTM London 2019!

Are you attending the World Travel Market 2019? So are we! YieldPlanet will be at the WTM in London from the 4th to 6th of November.

Our International Business Development Manager, Soraia Letra will be there. Meet us for coffee to discuss on how our distribution and revenue solutions can help you take control of online distribution, increase productivity, lower costs and drive revenue and profits.

During the trade we will be showcasing the latest travel technology innovations and demonstrating Channel Manager – our online distribution solution and Price Optimizer – our revenue management system, built for the hospitality industry.

To book an appointment, email us on sales@yieldplanet.com.

You can also schedule a meeting HERE.

We hope to see you there!

Why is Channel Manager by YieldPlanet the most flexible tool for optimizing room prices and offers in the industry

Oct 24, 2019 | Channel Manager

Why is Channel Manager by YieldPlanet the most flexible tool for optimizing room prices and offers in the industry

YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager is the most comprehensive online distribution solution available on the market. It is used by hundreds of hotels all over the globe. Extraordinary flexibility and adaptability in case you suddenly need to quickly transfer data to online systems, a situation so common in every hotel.

Nowadays the world around us is changing and developing dynamically, so it’s important to choose a channel manager that can easily adapt to changes and meet carious challenges that hotels face. Flexibility is therefore an indisputably essential feature when selecting an optimal online distribution tool.

Enough of the introduction. Below we will take a closer look at the features of Channel Manager by YieldPlanet that make it into the most flexible price and offer optimizing tool in the industry.

Channel Manager by YieldPlanet – flexible tool for price optimization

Defining room/price formulas

In Channel Manager by YieldPlanet you can define formulas for price linkages between rooms and offers, a feature that provides Revenue Manager with flexibility when modifying rates in response to market or season changes.

Loading rate tables (predefined rates)

Channel Manager allows to quickly predefine rates. Moreover, it allows you to load rates using grids which, in turn speeds up the entire online distribution process in weekly cycles.

Establishing revenue rules

“Revenue rules” is another feature of the YP’s Channel Manager that facilitates flexible price optimiziation. Vast majority of the processes is automated, thus saving time spent needed to manage online distribution.

YP’s Channel Manager functions making it into flexible offer optimization tool

Price formulas

Managing offers in YP’s Channel Manager is an easy task, even in a long period. You can create formulas between tariffs. It helps you reduce the error margin and significantly speed up loading new prices.

Formulas for mapping on the channel level

Creating and modifying formulas for maps on the channel level is another advantage of Channel Manager’s flexibility. It will help you reduce time spent on activities in this area.

Narrowing down rates transfer to channels depending on the season

In Channel Manager by YieldPlanet you can establish rates depending on the season, you can even set different rates for every season, all this from one control point. Rates can be calculated automatically according to the room type and price plan, while, at the same time, using various formulas on a room or tariff plan level.

YP’s Channel Manager functions making it into the most flexible tool in the industry in comparison to other available tools

Channel Manager by YieldPlanet is the only tool of this standard on the market equipped with features unavailable in other tools.

Flexible formulas and revenue rules configuration

This function gives Revenue Managers flexibility in their every day work, thus allowing for easily configuring unlimited number of formulas and revenue rules to optimize revenue. Thanks to this functionality, you can program certain automated activities enabled in case of increase or decrease in the number of rooms of a certain type available. The above circumstances can lead to rate change by a predefined numerical value or percentage, or close sales in all distribution channels, leaving exclusively the sales in hotel’s booking engine open.

If you want to learn more about flexible functionalities of the Channel Manager by YieldPlanet, contact us or order a demo version to test our tool.

You might also be interested in reading:
Build a distribution strategy for apartments
Ummarking inactive mappings in Booking.com
Manage each channel separately with the new feature of Channel Manager

Optimizing rates and availability – the strategy for 2019/20

Oct 10, 2019 | Revenue Management

Optimizing rates and availability – the strategy for 2019/20

Already today, distribution strategies based on maximizing the number of sales channels require additional effort and specialized tools. In the times of extremely competitive market environment, increasingly digitalised reality, growing role of OTAs and decreasing number of direct reservations, searching for new ways to support your business becomes an imperative. How to effectively manage rate and availability optimizing in sales channels? Why in 2019/20 you should choose rate and availability optimizing strategy instead of simply maximizing the number of sales channels? How to automate the process?

Effective revenue management is a buzzword, a hot topic in the industry and a subject of interest of every hotel manager. Only a few years ago, in a simpler reality, it was enough to update your rates every once in a while to, more or less effectively, influence your potential guests’ choices. Everything changed when OTAs come came into play as they allowed for quick and incredibly effective comparison of a number of competing hotel offers. On one hand, growing revenue from internet sales was a new advantage for hoteliers as it translated into substantial increase in interest in their offer and, subsequently, increase in booking numbers. On the other, however, it posed a challenge both in economic and organizational sense.

Digital revolution led to an enormous increase in the significance of internet sales channels for hospitality industry and triggered the need to restructure existing distribution strategies and invest into modern system infrastructure to implement new strategies. Integration with leading OTAs was therefore the first step in the process. It soon brought about a constantly growing share of online bookings and, at the same time, growing client acquisition cost. Soon other, less mainstream OTAs followed, providing the access to completely new while well-profiled client groups. As the number of online distribution channels grew, modifying current offers of individual OTAs and updating room availability information became a challenge. Yet, solutions that facilitated the implementation of distribution strategies and automated the process came to help. Channel manager is one of these solutions.

Maximizing vs. optimizing the number of distribution channels

As soon as a tool providing support on a number of levels was introduced in the hospitality industry, hotel managers would shift their focus to expanding the catalogue of online services they cooperated with by new OTAs to fight their way in increasingly competitive market. Only a few years ago, this approach translated into profit, today turning to this scenario is much less probable to lead to success. This state of affairs was brought about by the progressing concentration on the OTAs market and appearance of Airbnb services that permanently changed the hospitality industry landscape all over the globe. The role of the so called “sharing economy” is growing, proof of which is the fact that even leading OTAs expanded their offer by private apartments. Booking.com included 1,744,000 facilities (as of December 2018) alternative to hotels and guest houses into its offers to effectively compete with Airbnb. The number of traditional accommodation facilities available in the giant’s catalogue towards the end of the last year was as low as 436,000. Developments on the market and an increasingly challenging situation for hotel facilities are well illustrated by the dynamics in the increase of the number of facilities in particular categories. Taking the example of Boooking.com, the increase equals 47% for alternative facilities and only 10% for hotels. But to think that hotels are a lost cause is false. Hoteliers are well aware of the competition staged by the alternative facilities. While the legal regulations for the alternative accommodation used to be much milder than in the case of traditional hotels, this situation has been slowly changing and the sharing economy is subjected to increasingly restrictive rules. Moreover, revenue management in such facilities is much more difficult. Hotels normally have better analytics tools at their disposal and make substantial investments into business management tools.

Taken into consideration developments on the market, as well as the growing dominance of a few leading OTAs already today we should concentrate on designing a new, individualised approach to offer management in every channel. Skilful rate and availability optimization in key OTAs supported by advanced analytics can prove to be the key to success and an alternative for endlessly adding new sales channels or developing own booking engine on the hotel website, as it may turn out to be costly and not always as effective as external channels. According to statistics, popularity of the leading OTAs is so huge that it currently often substitutes hotel brands. This concentration on the OTAs market is illustrated by AHLA report (American Hotel and Lodging Association) – “Impact of OTA Bias and Consolidation on Consumers” of 2017, according to which Expedia and Priceline own as much as 95% of shares in the OTA market. On top of that, the giants built a very strong bond with the travellers which makes the competition, particularly for smaller facilities, truly arduous.

As confirmed by studies and market reports, this dominance is only going to strengthen. Online Travel Market Report prepared by Allied Market Research analysts in 2015 forecast growth dynamics of 11.1% annually and reaching the value of USD 1,091 billion in 2022. Last year’s report by Zion Market Research “Online Travel Booking Market” estimated the value of the market in 2017 at 765 billion and forecast its growth to 1,955 billion in 2026, which indicates towards the compound annual growth rate at 12.1%. We can therefore assume that OTAs strengthen their position and both bigger budget and wit will be necessary to acquire direct reservations via internet websites.

Channel Manager and RMS as competitive advantage factor

If we take a closer look at hotels’ current distribution strategies, as well steps they take in the context of sales, it will be easy to observe their interest in rates differentiation and increasingly more common tendency to adopt strategies customized to particular channels. Yet, it comes as a surprise that it is still most often hotel chains that reach out for and implement modern systems supporting revenue optimization (RMS). Vast majority of hotels still relies on alternative solutions, including hugely popular spreadsheets. While they allow the most vital calculations, it is not possible to quickly transfer and implement the rate policies for particular channels calculated with the use of spreadsheets into cooperating OTA platforms. This is only one of many reasons to create an adequate system infrastructure already today and move hotel revenue management to a whole new level.

Where to start? Indisputably, examining the option to connect Property Management System to the Channel Manager and Revenue Management System is the best starting point. How can they help to implement effective distribution strategy and on-going hotel revenue optimization?

Channel Manager by YieldPlanet offers advanced rate and availability management features, thereby allowing you to create independent strategies for particular sales channels (OTAs). This way it effectively promotes those platforms that generate the most profit – that is, high revenue, but not a high occupancy rate. Advanced analytics facilitates quick understanding, how particular OTAs are different – some excel at providing bookings well in advance, other are “specialised” in last-minute bookings. Once you have this kind of information, you can promote accommodation options that can be most profitable for the hotel at a given moment in time. It wouldn’t be possible without individualised rate plans and availability management on the level of each individual channel. Another advantage of YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager is the broad range of possibilities to define rules governing rates and availability differentiation (so called ‘revenue rules’) as well as non-conflicting data transferred from PMSs and individually prepared rate lists and varied availability for individual channels.

Price Optimizer, in turn, offers a completely new approach to revenue maximization. Price Optimizer by YieldPlanet was created to automate any selected distribution strategy through a dynamic and maximally automated room pricing mechanisms. This tool can not only subject back data for analysis, forecast future occupancy and revenue, but it also offers extended analytics features which, if used by an experienced hotel manager, can translate into considerable business benefits. The greatest advantage of Price Optimizer is its undisputable flexibility thanks to which every facility can adjust PO to its specific needs. Price Optimizer allows you to freely define rules limiting rooms availability, close rate plans and modify restrictions depending on any selected combination of seasons, channels, rate plans, days of the week or room types. All this in near-real time based on the most recent available data.

You might also be interested in reading:
How does overbooking influence hotel revenue?
How to increase revenue from apartment rental
How to maximize your peak season earnings

YieldPlanet at the Bookassist conference next to TripAdvisor and Google

Oct 8, 2019 | Events

YieldPlanet at the Bookassist conference next to TripAdvisor and Google

Direct Booking Congress is an event organised by Bookassist during which world-class experts and hospitality market leaders share their experience through presentations and workshops. The event will gather specialists of the HoReCa sector.

When: 19 November 2019, from 9 am to 5 pm

Where: Qubus Hotel, Kraków, ul. Nadwiślańska 6

The event will focus on finding answers to the questions:

Where is the hospitality sector heading? Do we fully use the potential resulting from the current technological possibilities?
How to construct the strategy of acquiring direct booking? What conversion supporting tools are worth using?
How to increase conversion rates of your own website?

Among the speakers of the morning block, there will be:

Des O’Mahony – CEO and founder of Bookassist
Gianluca Laterza – Territory Manager, TripAdvisor
Satyan Joshi – Hotel Ads Business Leader, Google
Kris Glabinski – Chief Business Development Officer, Lybra.tech

In the afternoon part of the congress, there will be workshops in the scope of, among others: revenue management, CRM, ways to increase conversion rates, communication with a guest or the use of social media.

We are encouraging you to join the workshops: “Price Optimizer: RMS which supports direct booking (and not only)” which will be run by Agnieszka Chacińska, Key Account Manager and Piotr Olesiński, Product Manager, YieldPlanet.

For details of the event and registration go here.

Technology for small and medium-sized facilities

Oct 3, 2019 | Channel Manager

Technology for small and medium-sized facilities

Not long ago, advanced hotel system infrastructure was a domain of big hotel chains. Today, in the era of digital revolution, ignoring technologies, services and solutions provided by software producers can prove to be an enormous obstacle on your way to development. In a longer run, it can even lead to serious difficulties in the context of maintaining high occupancy. What system are worth considering? Can small hotels afford their implementation and maintenance?

Many dream of running their own accommodation facility, however opening and managing a hotel is much more difficult than it might seem. The main challenge is to raise capital to be invested into launching the facility of your dreams. But to think that this is where challenges end is false. Quite to the contrary. Real challenges and obstacles start hoarding the moment you launch your hotel. Small facilities are normally in the hands of a family business or a partnership with a handful of investors owning shares which most commonly leads to fragmentation of decision-making, blurred responsibility and thereby general organisational chaos. Further, lack of formal and centralised facility management as well as lack of professional employee training are among the most common mistakes of small hoteliers.

Small and medium hotel facilities also tend to shy away from modern technologies and solutions that help optimize and automate every-day workload of the reception. To a certain extent this behaviour is understandable – the majority of hospitality facilities avoid investing into technologies as they constitute an additional burden on the budget, a difficult issue especially for small hotels. In particular today, when short-term rentals reach new heights of popularity, forcing hotels into more and more fierce competition to win clients. There is no denying that the enormous number of apartments for short-term rental takes a toll on all types of facilities present on the market; competing with lower rates is normally not an option due to a high and still growing cost of running a hotel. The industry is subject to strict regulations and ever more dependent on internet sales channels – OTAs – each of which charges between 10 and 30% commission. Moreover, in many cases entering into agreement with an OTA results in signing an agreement with so called wide rate parity clauses, restricting hotels from offering rooms at rates lower than those on the OTA’s platform. While many countries banned wide parity rates by now (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland), in Poland their use is still legally accepted. In principle, leading OTAs apply harmonised rules throughout the EU and do not demand rate parity, while exceptions happen.

In the wake of digital revolution, virtually all of hotel services sales moved to the internet. Therefore, in today’s world building a multi-channel distribution strategy that includes a wide range of OTAs is not an option, but a necessity. It’s to be or not to be in hotel industry – both for chain giants and small facilities offering merely a dozen rooms. Yet implementing this strategy can be an arduous task without the support of modern technological solutions.

Technologies for small hotels

It is a common misconception that full and automated information flow in a hotel is only possible in large facilities as it requires an elaborate combination of a bunch of systems – among others, Property Management System, Channel Manager to help manage large numbers of channels (such as hotel’s own Booking Engine and OTAs) and, more and more often, Revenue Management System to facilitate room rates management. Today, all large hotel facilities depend on broad infrastructure systems like the one described above. In their case manual sales and booking management systems simply wouldn’t do. As in small hotels the scale of activity is much narrower, they can still be successful while refusing to invest into modern technologies out of fear of investing large sums into implementation and maintenance of the technological solutions.

Is this fear justified? Is it true that only the largest facilities with big budgets and professionally trained staff can afford expert technological infrastructure? According to statistics, as little as 14% of all hotel facilities in Poland are chains (in Spain the share equals 34%, in Portugal 26%). Vast majority is in private hands, most of them are small or medium sized. Bearing in mind the above numbers, hotel software producers adjusted their solutions to the industry reality and implemented rate policies that allow for wide distribution. It is clear that the cost of building system infrastructure is unavoidable, yet its scale is much smaller than many owners of hospitality facilities (hotels, hostels or apartments) expect.

Fixed rate vs. commission model

The key element in information flow is the Property Management System, the essential tool of every hotelier. Maintenance of the cheapest systems costs as little as a few hundred PLN a year. Extended PMS for the largest facilities can cost as much as several tens of thousands PLNS a year. Yet, it is worth mentioning that such a system helps automate many everyday duties of the reception, such as accepting reservations and introducing them into the calendar, thereby saving considerable sums of money and enhancing service quality.

When considering an investment into hotel technology, you might want to take a closer look at both affordable PMS solutions (e.g. KWHotel or Hotelgram) dedicated to small and medium-sized facilities and sold in a subscription model, as well as a wide range of services and solutions commonly available against a commission fee. It is crucial to make your facility well visible online and provide fast and smooth reservation experience in the times when majority of booking come from online distribution channels. PMS as a strategic system for the hotel should be a starting point, yet it shouldn’t be the only solution you rely on. You will also need a Channel Manager and a Booking Engine. The commission rate for the suppliers of the above solutions normally starts from 2% of the handled reservation. For managers of small-sized hotel facilities YieldPlanet prepared a START version of the Channel Manager. In this purchase option there are no fixed monthly fees. It is also worth noting that nearly all, if not all, OTA platforms rely on charging commission from their partners. This, in turn, means that the hotel only pays for the results, i.e. a successful reservation done via a booking platform. Commissions of the largest companies on the market normally range between 10-20%.

Knowing that strategic compounds of information distribution chain are available at the cost of a few hundred PLN annually (PMS), solutions of the Channel Manager and Booking Engine type can be purchased in a commission model, and OTAs charge their fees exclusively for actual results (value of successful reservations), we can safely state that investing into hotel technology does not constitute an obstacle for the business nor a burden on the budget for already existing facilities of any size. If you want to balance the cost invested into technologies, you can supplement the above mentioned system infrastructure by an RMS or choose a Channel Manager equipped with a feature to aid optimize hotel revenue. Owner of every facility offering over a dozen of rooms should seriously consider investment into a technological management system. A reliable RMS can help effectively boost hotel revenue and reduce to minimum the cost of unsold rooms – according to hoteliers the biggest cost born by every facility manager.

Solutions and features for small hotels

Small and medium hospitality facilities can nowadays pick and choose from among a wide range of solutions to automate processes and optimize revenue, available at affordable prices and in convenient payment models. Many software providers pay great attention to the smallest businesses on the market and offer interesting solutions adjusted to the needs and wishes of small facilities. Example? YieldPlanet offers a solution dedicated to facilities whose reception does not run 24h or is closed on holidays that allows them to block guests arrival on the same day or on a holiday within selected time-frame. Thinking of the needs of small and medium hotels we also designed a feature protecting against human error (e.g. too low or high rate, publishing online higher than actual room availability by mistake). Apartment owners can easily manage rates depending on the number of guests using the rented facility, hostel managers will easily publish rates for beds in shared rooms.

You might also be interested in reading:
Automating your facility with PMS and Channel Manager
New Channel Manager features: MaxLOS and CTD
Property management system (PMS) and Channel Manager – the perfect duo

How to increase your revenue using YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager?

Sep 26, 2019 | Channel Manager

How to increase your revenue using YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager?

YieldPlanet is a Channel Manager founded on the Yield philosophy. As the name implies, its function is yielding, or, in other words, ensuring maximum profitability of your rates and hotel distribution in an optimised and effective manner.

YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager is focused in its entirety on clients’ profits. This premise is as valid as ever, the objective of monthly software updates is to comply with industry requirements and revenue management specialists’ needs in order to boost the revenue.

YieldPlanet is one of the most prestigious business partners for Booking.com, on top of that, it also offers the highest possible standard for connections reliability, which, in turn, translates into fast connections and makes the Channel Manager into the most powerful revenue management tool.

As we are well aware how difficult it is to continuously increase hotel’s revenues,
month after month, we decided to draw up this article. Here we will walk you through the features of the Channel Manager and explain how to use them to increase your revenue. We will also provide you with some tips and professional tricks on the use of the software.

Distribution strategy – setting and frequent optimizing

YieldPlanet Channel Manager allows for creating distribution strategy that will help you manage monthly data analysis executed to make informed and reasonable decisions about the revenue, prices, bookings or intermediary commissions.

Before you get started, take your time to contemplate and set your objective. Next, decide which distribution strategy you are willing to implement and what profits you will expect it to bring. Based on these data you can make decisions on the best integrations, channel management and price strategies fine-tuned to individual seasons of the year.

Connect to nearly 500 integrations to expand your global reach

As opposed to other Channel Managers, YieldPlanet Channel Manager provides integrations to nearly 500 OTAs, tour operators, wholesalers, PMS, CRS, GDS, RMS, metasearch engines and booking systems.

These integrations will help you strengthen your visibility and global reach. Integrating your hotel prices with the most important integrations according to the revenue management and profit analysis data will translate into an increase in hotel revenue.

In-depth intermediary cost analysis (OTA, IDS)

One of the most prominent advantages of our Channel Manager is the amount of data it can access for analysis to later help you make informed decisions.

As you can manage each channel separately, you can also run an analysis on every channel individually and verify its cost, the intermediary commission rates and what improvements can be introduced to increase its profitability.

According to YieldPlanet, using many OTAs or adding new sales channels on a regular basis does not always prove to be good for your business. We suggest that you adhere to a few main channels (max. 12) and manage them in an active and informed manner. Do not let the number of channels and their costs get out of hand.

Manage each channel individually with YieldPlanet Channel Manager

Channel Manager not only provides integrations to a large number of channels, it is also fitted with a series of functions to let you manage each channel separately.

The difference lies in the revenue. It is therefore advisable to run each channel individually to achieve better results. Joint management of the channels can cost you valuable data and trigger bad decisions.

Using YieldPlanet Channel Manager you can submit various rates and inventory to different channels, and, consequently, achieve your revenue objectives.

There is an alternative way to boost the revenue. Revenue Rules module opens and shuts channels named by you to increase rates should the availability drop.

In this way you can activate the channels you don’t normally use for sales and, for instance, only use them in the period preceding the peak season. Moreover, with this function you can also limit the room availability in certain channels or diversify the availability in different channels so that some channels have more rooms to sell than others.

It is a way to stimulate direct sales by, for instance, increasing room availability in your own internal booking system.

Increase or reduce prices as often as you wish in a segmentary mode

To boost revenue you need to always be vigilant, always ready to asses and analyse prices.

With YieldPlanet Channel Manager you can incorporate into your strategy a complete tool helping you to manage your rates and pricing policy in an easy and effective manner. You will notice that your pricing decisions are more precise and better-informed.

In YieldPlanet Channel Manager you can identify 20 rate types depending on room type and pricing policy, which translates into flexibility when setting pricing strategies for individual segments.

On top of that, you can programme sales in individual sales channels to automate the process. Revenue Management Rules function is designed to set automatic price change in any direction, depending on the room availability at a certain period.

Additionally, it will help you plan price changes at any time, so you don’t need to worry about forgetting to do so as the changes will be implemented fully automatically, saving your time.

Summary

Ready to boost your revenue? Contact us to learn more about options to increase your revenue with YieldPlanet Channel Manager. Our team will be happy to provide you with advice and support whenever you need it.

You will also be shown concrete case studies showcasing our clients’ stories of how implementing Channel Manager in their properties helped boost the revenue.

You might also be interested in reading:

8 revenue management tips to boost your hotel
How to choose the best Channel Manager?
Changes in Revenue Management that can help improve the hotel’s performance

How to map an AirBnb in YP’s Channel Manager?

Sep 19, 2019 | Channel Manager, Connections

How to map an AirBnb in YP’s Channel Manager?

Airbnb is one of the key platform that allow you to reach out to your potential customers from Poland, as well as the most remote locations of the world. Airbnb is a hugely popular platform and, for many travelers, the first choice in the search for a place to stay. It is therefore a good idea to include it into your distribution strategy. Particularly, because you can easily map it with YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager. How do you do this? Let us walk you through the process.

Step 1 – create and Airbnb account

To map Airbnb with Channel Manager by YieldPlanet, you need to create an account on your partner’s platform. To do this, go to www.airbnb.pl and select the tab “Register now”. You can register using your own email address. While completing the profile, you will be asked to submit some key information, such as: payment method and information on the VAT. You will also need to verify you account’s data – identity, email address and telephone number. Don’t worry, it will only take a few minutes. Creating an account is free.

Step 2 – prepare your offer

YieldPlanet does not transfer data to individual sales channels connected to the Channel Manager, so you will need to create offers for you facility directly in your Airbnb account. Remember to do it before connecting Airbnb to Channel Manager – all offers can then be automatically loaded and you can start monitoring the efficiency of your new sales channel. How to create offers? Go to the “Host” tab in your profile and click on “Create New Listings”.

Step 3 – connect your Airbnb account with YieldPlanet

In the last step you will connect your new Airbnb account with Channel Manager. To do so, make sure that you’re logged in to your Airbnb account, then log into your account in YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager. Go to the “Partners” tab, find partner labelled AirBnBXML2 and go to editing. Fill out login data (user name and password) as well as Hotel’s ID (Airbnb account ID that you will find after logging to extranet in the “Profile/Account Settings” tab, in the URL address). In the field “Partner Class” select „AirBnBXML2 (145)” from the list, then fill out “Hotel ID” field – here you should put Airbnb account ID (you will find it in the URL of your Airbnb profile). After you have completed filling out the profile, you can authorize YieldPlanet as your Channel Manager.

Having authorised the YP, go again to the “Partners” tab and click on “Get all rooms” to connect AirBnBXML2. This procedure will let you load all listings that you’ve created in the previous step to the Channel Manager. Next, following the same procedure, source all price lists. In the next step prepare AirbnbXML2 mapping and activate your partner in the Channel Manager by clicking on “Activate” button. Your account should be active within 8 hours. In case your offers are not active in the Airbnb extranet after 8 hours, inform us about this fact immediately by writing to support@yieldplanet.com

Why should I connect to Airbnb?

Every day over 2 million customers stays in facilities booked via Airbnb. Airbnb will help you reach out to a new group of customers, who are not frequent hotel guests. However – though the portal was created for owners of apartments and representatives of the short-term rental market – hoteliers can also use the Airbnb offers, provided they offer extraordinary conditions in their facilities and tend to the customers personally. This solution is particularly appealing to owners of boutique hotels and guesthouses, as Airbnb attracts mostly customers searching for unique experiences. Therefore, chain hotels can find using Airbnb as a sales channel much more difficult. Read more on Airbnb website.

All Airbnb offers can be assigned to one of the three following home types:

Entire place: guests have the entire space to themselves (usually includes a bedroom, bathroom and a kitchen).
Private rooms: guests have their own private room for sleeping and may share some spaces with others
Shared rooms: guests sleep in a space that is shared with others and share the entire space with other people.

Connecting Airbnb with YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager helps you automate your sales on one hand, and better protect yourself against overbooking on the other. Airbnb checks facility / room availability with Channel Manager before completing the booking. Should the response sent in real-time be positive, it will pass all the bookings further.

You might also be interested in reading:

Airbnb – switch to a new connection
The best apartment rental websites

Automating your facility with PMS and Channel Manager

Sep 12, 2019 | Channel Manager

Automating your facility with PMS and Channel Manager

KajWare, PMS KWHotel

The perfect duet of the hospitality industry

Automation is a key term for the hoteliers of the 21st century. Only slightly over a decade ago relying on a notebook and your own memory was a standard procedure in property management. Yet memory isn’t always reliable and a pile of papers doesn’t necessarily provide an easy insight into the hotel’s current condition.

As the technological development progressed, new tools for better organised handling of the facility and data storage emerged, thereby remarkably limiting the hotel staff workload. In the HoReCa sector, Property Management and Channel Manager systems lead the way. While they are two independent systems, they first show their true potential once combined together. You will learn more about this here.

Channel manager is the orchestra, PMS its conductor

Every performance of the “Channel Manager and PMS” duet helps you to more effectively coordinate the operation of the entire facility. What areas are involved? Below we have gathered six areas that can be automated with the use of the two tools.

1. Quick availability and price lists synchronization with OTAs

Manual rate and availability updates in every portal individually will soon become a thing of the past. Now you only need to enter a new booking or rate into the PMS and it will immediately send them to the channel manager system for further distribution. You can use the time you just saved to take better care of your customer.

2. No more manual register book

Knowing how many check-ins and check-outs are scheduled for the day is the essence of every hotelier’s work. Good quality hotel software can clearly present these information. What’s more, every customer is automatically registered in an electronic register book. Quick, easy and safe!

3. Access to statistics and reports – optimize your strategy!

By analyzing the information on the channel that brought the customer to your hotel and what real profit the booking will bring you can perfect your marketing and sales strategies. Both PMS and channel manager dispose of an enormous number of reports “for every occasion”. Reports are also automatically send to your email address – this feature will make sure your always up to date!

4. Automatic email and text message notification – for you and your guests

Sending out notifications manually can be a back-breaking task, especially in the high season. PMS and Channel Manager will do that for you. Starting from automatic booking confirmations, through generating discount codes and sending “thank you for your stay” messages. You can also send notifications to your staff.

5. Optimum occupancy management

Have you ever been forced to walk your guest from one room to another because there were no more vacant rooms? Some property management systems will handle booking to as to avoid this inconvenient situation. The system will make sure the way rooms are assigned to guests will maximize facility’s availability and your profit.

6. Improved payment handling

Automated payments are another area that can enhance the service provided to the guest and reduce human error factor on the part of the staff. Cooperation with property management systems will improve communication between the reception and hotel restaurant. Using terminal will make the check-out faster and automatically generated hyperlinks to the payments will help you collect the payments.

Conclusions

PMS and Channel Manager system facilitate the hotelier’s work. But there’s more! This software will also give you the access to crucial information, such as customer’s preferences on virtually every stage of their stay.
You can learn more from our upcoming article!

The discussed facility automation areas are fully handled by, among others, KWHotel software.
Below you can watch an animated presentation of the modern facility management model with the use of the above described PMS.

Watch animation now

Alternative Hotel and Vacation Rental Listing Websites

Sep 5, 2019 | Connections, OTAs

Alternative Hotel and Vacation Rental Listing Websites

You’re probably familiar with the top listing sites for your region. But do you know these alternative sites? Check these categories to see if they can make your distribution more effective.

1. Specialists in set Markets

Looking for channels popular in North America? Are you familiar with CanadaStays or HotelTonight? They are popular in Canada and the US.

Having good weather all year round and fabulous beaches in their country, Brazilian travelers are rather interested in glamour, prestige gastronomy, as well as cultural and historical attractions. And they love shopping. How about Despegar to reach travelers from Latin America?

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Ostrovok, a very well-known OTA in Russia.

Being a company operating globally, but established in Poland, we know all of the biggest players in our region. Looking for channels from the CEE to work with? Check Szallas.hu/Nocleg.pl Group or Noce.pl.

For Scandinavian guests, try HotelSpecials or BookingSweden.

Customers in Spain often use El Corte Inglés to book their trips. You can also go even more local and connect with Barcelona Turisme or BarceloViajes. For more tourists from the Iberian region check Jumbo, SEHRS, Marsol, edreams Odigeo or Europlayas.

Last but not least, Asia. According to the World Travel Monitor, outbound trips from Asia increased by 8% between January and August 2018 and has kept good dynamics ever since. Maybe it is time for you to include Ctrip, AsiaTravel or Traveloka in your strategy?

2. Specialists for specific Travellers

If you offer weekend packages, then Wonderweekend would be an option.

Business travelers spend on average more than leisure travelers. To reach business clients check one of these channels: Hotelbeds, Jac, Miki Travels, OuiBusiness, MagicStay

As your income raises, so do the standard expectations. To reach the most demanding group of well-off guests, take a look at: Prestigia, LifeStyleHotels or Mr & Mrs Smith.

3. Specialists for specific Properties

Are you a property management company? Check ServicedApartmentsWorldwide as an alternative to Airbnb to have more reservations for your apartments.

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You might also be interested in reading:

7 things you should know about Brazilians travelers
Russians hunger for travel

New Channel Manager features: MaxLOS and CTD

Aug 29, 2019 | Channel Manager

New Channel Manager features: MaxLOS and CTD

Paweł Rytel

MaxLOS or maximum length of a stay defines a maximum number of days a guest can stay at a hotel, while CTD or Closed to Departure blocks a guest from checking out a property at certain dates.

Both MaxLOS and CTD can be already found in channel manager sections in charge of inserting rates and restrictions.

This is how these new restrictions can boost revenue of your property:

SUPPORT IN CREATING PROMOTIONS: Interested in offering attractive discounts only for stays no longer than 2 or 3 days at exact dates when you need to increase your occupancy? Discount your prices appropriately and use MaxLOS and CTA (Close to Arrival) to sell promotional offers for stays from Saturday to Tuesday for example. Combine MinLOS (minimum length of stay) and MaxLOS parameters to sell promotional offers for precisely defined length of stay.

EASE OF CREATING PACKAGES: Interested in selling packages of only 7 or 14 day stays in your peak season? Combine CTA and CTD to sell, for example, Saturday to Saturday stays only during your high demand season. Sell packages of an excact length of stay.

ADDING SHOULDER DATES TO RESERVATIONS: There is a conference in your property starting Wednesday ending Saturday and you are worried your hotel would be empty on Sunday? Use CTD and MinLOS to sell and accept extended reservations from Wednesday to Sunday only.

MANAGING HIGH DEMAND DATES IN MORE EFFICIENT WAY: Wish your guests stay in exact dates during holidays like New Year’s Eve or main events in your city? Combine MaxLOS with CTD to achieve that goal.

These features have been introduced for the for leading OTAs. We will keep you informed on adding distribution of MaxLOS and CTD to next major OTAs. Please, contact us on sales@yieldplanet.com if you would like to request for this feature to be introduced in any particular connections.

Malvern Group ceases trading

Aug 28, 2019 | Connections

Malvern Group ceases trading

Malvern Group incorporating Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited and Late Rooms Limited has filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator on 1st August 2019 and have ceased trading with immediate effect. Both firms had about 53,000 customers between them, involving 20,000 bookings. The collapse has been widely commented in the British media.

Malvern Group said about 400 Super Break customers were on holiday in the UK or overseas.

Super Break was a member of Abta and, according to the travel trade body, most customers should be able to get a refund. Those already away should be able to continue with their holiday as normal.

However, people who booked accommodation-only through Super Break are being asked to pay again, because Malvern Group has cancelled those bookings and only package trips are financially covered through Abta.

Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited

Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited is not accepting any further bookings.

For customers with bookings due to travel beyond 1st August 2019 or currently on a break: if you have made a booking with a travel agent/partner, you should contact the travel agent/partner in the first instance.

The contact center is no longer operational and therefore will not be available for further queries.

Hotel-Only Breaks

Forthcoming bookings are now cancelled. If you are currently on a break, you may be asked to pay again, so ensure you keep your receipt.

As your reservation was Hotel-Only, it is recommended that where you have paid by credit/debit card that you contact your bank/credit card provider.

Package Bookings (Excluding Flight Inclusive Breaks)

As you had made a package booking with Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited, your break should be financially protected by ABTA – The Travel Association.

Further information can be found at ABTA.com/SuperBreak.

Flight Inclusive Breaks and Incredible North Iceland Charter

As you have made a reservation for a flight inclusive break which is covered by the Civil Aviation Authority ATOL scheme, you should visit page for more information.

Super Break Gift Vouchers and Entertainment/Attraction Tickets Only

These services are no longer valid/accepted. It is recommended that where you have paid by credit/debit card that you contact your bank/credit card provider.

This service is now cancelled. As your reservation was for entertainment/attraction ticket only, it is recommended that where you have paid by credit/debit card that you contact your bank/credit card provider.

Late Rooms Limited (Trading as LateRooms.com)

In relation to your forthcoming booking(s), LateRooms.com acted as an agent on behalf of your accommodation supplier, therefore it is anticipated that your reservation is secure and your payment will be taken by the accommodation supplier either in advance (for non-refundable reservations) or at the property.

LATE ROOMS LIMITED HAVE NOT TAKEN ANY PAYMENT FOR YOUR BOOKING.

It is recommended, however, that you contact your accommodation supplier directly prior to travelling to confirm. To amend or cancel your booking you will need to contact the accommodation supplier directly.

The contact center is no longer operational and therefore will not be available for further queries.

For more information, click here.

Hotel trends: what not to miss in 2019/2020

Aug 22, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

Hotel trends: what not to miss in 2019/2020

Bookassist

For the hotel industry autumn is a time to reflect on marketing plans for the coming year. It is a particularly good time to analyse trends. Looking forward, we should not forget that there is little sense in trying out novelties before we have implemented universal solutions that are popular today. The surge of innovative online tools focuses on direct bookings and increasing margins. Before taking a new course, it is worth to focus on optimising operations that are within our reach today and secure basic tools.

Millennials and Generation Z

The purchasing power currently belongs to Millennials and Generation Z, who will represent almost 60% of global workforce in 2020. Millennials are oriented on experiences and individual activities. They spend 70% more on experiences than on tangible goods. Generation Z is a generation of digital natives who do not know the world before the internet. Always online and up to date, they are used to immediate results and instant feedback. Members of Generation Z need fast and uncomplicated solutions since the time they are able to maintain focus is shorter that for people from previous generations.

The message is clear. We live in times dominated by “experience”. Hotels need to remember that it is up to them if they will establish a required relationship with the customer and then strengthen it during the stay. The customer’s experience on site is the reason why hotels have huge advantage over other companies selling their products or services online.

Even faster mobile Internet

Data transmission speed will soon be 10 to 20 times faster than currently available. 5G network will have a significant impact on the mobile users’ behaviour and expectations. Video files and augmented or virtual reality will be immediately available to the user. This has to lead to radical changes in the process of searching for bookings as users will be able to visualise themselves in the room which they plan to book, opposed to only looking at pictures and exploring the property using a virtual tour.

The mobile first strategy will irreversibly replace the approach expressed in the “mobile version also available” message. New Google crawling method prioritises hotels that invest in the mobile first strategy and severely punishes hotels that neglect mobile users. No hotel can afford to ignore the mobile sphere. OTA platforms are eager to take over bookings at the hotels which are not implementing the mobile first strategy.

Bookassist’s statistics prove that almost 60% of the hotel website traffic is generated by mobile devices (UK and Ireland). There was also a surge in mobile transactions observed in recent years. Revenues are still dominated by desktop channels, however, revenues from mobile channels are growing rapidly. We should remember that the path to purchase does not always start on the computer and the customer journey consists of at least several steps. Failure to optimise in terms of mobile channels is a risk that no one should be willing to take.

Augmented and virtual reality

The possibilities of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) continue to grow with the spread of 5G network. VR requires additional technologies, such as VR headphones. AR involves providing additional digital components accessible via smartphone. For practical reasons, hoteliers should turn to the augmented reality.

Some hotels already use AR to improve the attractiveness of their folders. Maps with the AR function offer the possibility to check out hotel’s surroundings. Some hotels use AR also to make the hotel itself more attractive. This is a great chance to improve guest experience before and during the stay.

Video dominance

Video is definitely the favourite format for Millennials and Generation Z. People currently prefer to watch than read, especially on mobile devices. It is worth to remember that YouTube is now the second largest search engine in terms of volume. Video content is not limited to YouTube – Facebook averages 8 billion views of video content daily. With the advent of 5G era this trend will gain even bigger importance.

Thinking forward, hotels need to invest in attractive, informative video content and ads. Google estimates that by 2021 video content will account for 80% of used media. Video materials and ads are more expensive but soon the cost of not having them will be even bigger.

Chatbots and artificial intelligence

Chatbots are the most widespread form of artificial intelligence. Many hotels have live chats on their website, however, thanks to automation and short response times, chatbots are more practical and reduce strain on employees. Chatbot is used for solving simple issues and respond via a messenger to questions frequently asked by the customer who is visiting the hotel website. The time saved thanks to this tool can be used by the employee to focus on an individual approach to the customer.

Intelligent chatbots feature a machine learning function. This means that they use knowledge acquired in previous interactions with customers to reply to inquiries. Most chatbots use text communication but voice input will soon be very common.

When deciding on chatbot service, it is worth to consider the possibility to integrate it with a booking search engine to share rates and availability with customers. Bookassist offers such combination in the Zoé chatbot by Colossal Factory. Other key characteristics of a chatbot:

·        Possibility to „train” the chatbot by adding personalised questions and answers

·        Multilingualism

·        Self-learning function through machine learning – increasing chatbot’s expertise

·        Availability on all devices

·        Option to connect with live chat

·        Option to call back or continue the chat if an answer is not readily available

·        Most importantly, the ease of providing information that helps to make a booking

Voice assistants (DVA)

We are observing a surge in the popularity of voice assistants, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri or Microsoft Cortana. Hotels also increasingly use DVA to make their guests’ stay more enjoyable.

Voice assistants and the Internet of things are designed to improve the comfort of stay at the hotel. Hotel guests can use voice input to adapt room facilities to their needs, for example to control lightening or temperature. Voice commands are also useful for setting the alarm clock, playing favourite music, ordering meals or calling housekeeping, as well as for reporting shortcomings. Hyper-personalisation of services is a sign of our times.

AI robots with voice recognition function are already being used at hotels, for example, in the Yotel chain. They are used to welcome guests, answer simple questions or order room service. This is still new today, however, robots will become regular travel companions in the coming years.

Voice search

The statistics are surprising. Comscore studies show that by 2020 more than half of the searches will be conducted via voice. Mediapos estimates that by 2020 around 30% of all searches will be done without a screen. The age of searching via text is slowly fading into oblivion.

Focusing on voice search has to entail changes in the e-marketing approach. SEO strategy and content management have to be compatible with it. It is necessary to assess the character of possible inquiries. Will the user ask general questions since he is at the beginning of his path to purchase, or will he ask questions suggesting that he is ready to book? Does the website content facilitate conversation and provide accurate and clear answers?

Well edited FAQ site is a good step towards optimisation in terms of voice search. It is also worth to add schema validators to show content in Google snippets, customise My Business website and improve page load time as well as its mobile user-friendliness.

Visual search

Visual search is not new, however, it gains attention especially since the introduction of Pinterest Lens and Google Lens tools. Users hold their smartphone to a given item/object and in this way get the information or search for images in Google by clicking on the camera icon in the search window.

In response to this trend, hotels need to examine their visual content. Key aspects include high quality materials, stirring imagination, relative uniqueness, consistent style on different platforms and presence on the most important sites, such as Instagram and Pinterest.

You need to be a visual content creator and manager at the same time. You need to follow Instagram and Pinterest, share interesting pictures related to the property and add them to your website, with the authors’ consent.

There are many ways to appear in visual searches. For example, it is worth to add attractive pictures of tourist attractions in the surroundings to reach tourists planning future trips.

Discovering new markets – China

The number of Chinese tourists in Europe grew by 65% in the first half of 2017! Number of visas issued to the Chinese for visiting Europe amounted to 2.5 million, while 5 years earlier it was only 1.2 million.

Before you take on Chinese tourists as your target, remember that they rarely travel alone and their trips are organised by Chinese intermediaries.

You do not need to make big investments to reach the Chinese market. For example, Wego platform has decent visibility in China and can be accessed through the Bookassist Meta Search service. As good results are achieved, you can experiment with other portals and further engage in advertising in China and localising your content for this market.

Biometric technology

Biometric technology and new methods of recognition are gaining interest in the hotel industry. They allow hotels to improve quality of their guest service and effectively customise offered services. Main tools used by hotels include face recognition, fingerprint recognition and retinal scanning.

Hotels value the promptness and discretion of such facilities as opening rooms with a fingerprint scan or face recognition check-in. Biometric technology may become an indispensable hotel component in the near future.

Blockchain

Blockchain is a secure distributed database used to register modifications of data and performed transactions. It is a register in which each block of data is secured and transactions are added to time-stamped transaction journal with all information and record of changes. Transactions linked into block chains are irreversible. The system is very secure; it is virtually impossible to break the blockchain network.

Blockchain technology is in its infant stages in the mass market but it is expected to be used in the hotel sector in the future. For example, the travel industry is based mostly on the transfer of data between companies. Blockchain improves protection of customer data which in turn has a positive impact on the travel experience and customers’ trust when it comes to sharing personal data.

It all depends on how this technology will be taken on by the market. The system is not free and it does not speed up transactions. It can only be useful to different industries, including the hotel industry, when it is used more commonly.

From new technologies to new measurements

Traditional method of calculating return on investments for each medium individually is no longer reliable as it only shows the result for a single channel and does not consider its impact on the overall success. We suggest that you analyse the total income increase to assess the impact of all paid portals.

There are many different attribution models available, however, we need to have a good understanding of attribution before we decide on the multichannel model. This can be explained with a simple analogy. When a football player scores a goal, does he get 100% credit or does the defender who passed the ball to the midfielder who then passed it to the striker share the credit with him? The first answer would suggest that other players are redundant, which of course is not true. Thus, if we translate it into marketing, there are no grounds to discard assisting platforms and focus only on the campaign that the customer clicked on last.

Assessing the value of each channel is not easy, but tools such as Google Analytics significantly improved the system of reporting assisted conversion and attribution. Those reports should be the starting point for any calculations.

Summary

Today we can observe much more technological advances than at any other time in history. We gain more possibilities every year. However, what still matters the most is the optimization of current actions. Mobile channels should remain a priority. Most of the new tools are focused on mobile channels, thus, we have to keep up to date, continuously improve our property’s online presence and only then gradually implement new solutions.

How does overbooking influence hotel revenue?

Aug 16, 2019 | Channel Manager, Revenue Management

How does overbooking influence hotel revenue?

Booking cancellations and no-shows are common phenomena throughout the hospitality industry. While they disrupt normal functioning of a hotel, they also afford an excellent opportunity to generate additional income. Unfortunately, using this opportunity to your advantage is harder than it seems – you need to be able to identify certain regularities, trends and patterns in guests’ booking behaviours. You will also need to forecast such trends and behaviours with precise accuracy based on available data. Yet, the potential benefits for the hotel may prove big enough to be worth the risk. How to make extra revenue and turn overbooking into success? How to create an effective overbooking strategy?

Mission: optimization

Generally speaking, the most fundamental task for a person in charge of hotel’s revenue, that is executive director or revenue manager, is to take all possible actions aimed to maximise yield for the hotel owner. It takes well-planned strategies and bold improvised decisions on many levels to achieve this challenging aim. Broadly understood optimising and managing hotel revenue, including mapping out the overbooking strategy, is a good example of a hotel management field that requires an extensive experience, industry knowledge as well as up-to-date advanced analyses and prognoses. Properly defined revenue management strategy can boost hotel’s financial results and sustain clients’ loyalty and satisfaction on a stable level.

In the recent years issues concerned with revenue management and overbooking have been broadly discussed. While a few years ago hotels would mostly shape their own price policy and continuously adjust it to the changing market, today this process is largely automated. This was achieved through including Revenue Management Systems into standard hotel system architecture consisting of PMS, Booking Engine and Channel Manager. Yet it’s wrong to assume that investing in innovative technological solutions will be an answer to all problems. While Revenue Management Systems facilitate the work of both reception and management staff, their operation needs to be continuously controlled, optimized and adjusted to the changing environment and individual business objectives.

Cancelled bookings and overbooking

In principle, hotel policy is to avoid confirming more rooms than the available capacity of a hotel at a certain time, yet hotels often take the risk of overbooking and confirm more reservations than they can in fact accommodate. Why is that? The answer is simple – overbooking is probably the most efficient way of boosting hotel’s financial results. Booking cancellations happen in every hotel, to a greater or lesser extent. If done early enough, chances to sell the room again are fairly big. The situation is more complicated if a client decides to cancel their reservation last-minute. Situations like this one are not uncommon. On one hand, hotels accept a certain amount of reservations not guaranteed with advance payments, business travellers, on the other hand, happen to change their plans, while tourists can fall victims to flight delays or other chance events. Hoteliers are also well acquainted with the type of customers who do not show up despite having booked and paid the room.

Taking the above factors into consideration, it is clear that achieving 100% occupancy and, consequently, using full economic potential of the hotel is virtually impossible. To reduce revenue loss, hoteliers increasingly decide to implement overbooking strategies in their establishments – it means that some of the rooms are sold twice as it is calculated that otherwise the rooms would remain unused due to booking cancellations and no-show guests. The challenge here is to implement a strategy that would, on one hand, boost the hotel profitability as expected without compromising guest satisfaction on the other. Unsurprisingly, it is not an easy task. Tourism industry tends to be capricious and tightly correlated with weather conditions, economy and chance events that can turn long-traced tendencies upside down. All this makes estimating cancellation factors and no-shows all the more difficult and complex. What’s worse, defining separate factors for different types of rooms or time remaining until arrival is recommended to obtain possibly accurate data. Estimates accuracy plays a vital role in the process and it’s dependent, first and foremost, on the amount and quality of back data – preferably collected in a central property management system (PMS). Based on this data it is possible to forecast the number of booking cancellations, no-shows, understays or stayovers.

Auto-replenishment

Accurate factor estimates are a key to success only in theory. Experience shows clearly that, to implement overbooking strategy, we need to assume a broader perspective on the situation. Nowadays hospitality services are sold through a range of channels, directly (through reception staff, call centres and hotel booking systems), as well as via multiple OTAs. The latter sales channel is guilty of complicating our task, as many OTA services have designed and implemented a series of tools allowing for active handling of the cancelled reservations. One of the most common tools is the auto-replenishment. In a fully unattended, automated way it puts rooms vacated due to booking cancellations back up for sale. According to Booking.com statistics, as many as 73% of such rooms are successfully sold again, thus having a positive impact on the hotel’s financial results, yet it seriously inhibits effective implementation of the overbooking strategy.

How to solve this problem? Not all repeated bookings done via OTAs are welcome at a certain moment but have to be accepted due to certain agreements in the cooperation terms. To avoid repeated booking you can raise the price of the room or limit the demand on the room otherwise – e.g. setting MinLOS to 3-5 days. Taking such action should bring the expected result, yet it requires higher staff involvement. It would be much more reasonable to implement solutions bringing the same effect with minimum staff involvement. We will discuss it further in the text.

Optimal system infrastructure vs overbooking

A precondition for an efficient and smooth operation of a hotel is the automation of its repeatable processes with technological solutions available on the market. It is no different in the case of overbooking as it can be effectively managed via the products offered by YieldPlanet.

Our Channel Manager uses centralised allotment to continuously implement overbooking strategy, at the same time avoiding the situation when some guests need to be walked to another establishment. This system allows for overselling the hotel capacity, yet it preserves the auto-replenishment blocking rule which means that rooms vacated through booking cancellation are not put up for sale again. Revenue rules are another new function to do the overbookings in a controlled manner and manage them effectively. You can execute this strategy by differentiating room availability and prices in various channels. It is vital that the prices are high enough – in the worst case scenario the staff will be able to walk the guests to nearby establishments of the same or higher category without paying extra costs. At this point it is worth pointing out that if you decide to start implementing overbooking strategy in your property, you need to have detailed procedures for situation when you need to walk your guests. This includes a list of trusted hotels that will accept your guests.

Therefore, you might want to consider adding an advanced Revenue Management System to your hotel system architecture – e.g. YieldPlanet’s Price Optimizer. RMS will further automate auto-replenishment avoidance process in individual OTAs through adequate price or MinLOS manipulations, as described earlier in the text. As the burden of manually modifying room offer parameters will be taken off of the revenue manager, they can gain save a significant amount of time to optimize currently applied strategies, perform in-depth analyses of customer behaviour patterns and search for new ways of boosting the property profitability.

How to forecast apartment occupancy and prices

Aug 2, 2019 | Apartments

How to forecast apartment occupancy and prices

Much like managing a hotel, managing apartments consists mainly in anticipating and managing the future. Naturally, this is no easy task as financial results are influenced by numerous factors. Despite the obvious difficulties connected with development of a forecasting model, it is not a good idea to give up on creating a system which will help to determine when occupancy will be higher and when lower and what prices should be assumed for a given period considering all relevant parameters. Even an imprecise forecast will be a better basis for making business decisions than pure guesswork. How can you successfully forecast the demand for apartments? What tools will enable automation of the entire process?

Many owners of apartments for short-term rental make no demand forecasts whatsoever, putting all of their effort into creating an effective distribution strategy, i.e. simply deciding what channels they should use to offer their apartments for rental and making the apartments available in those channels. An effective strategy can be understood in different ways – for some owners it is the most important to get as many bookings as possible and for others to get bookings at the lowest possible cost. The latter scenario, meaning the one where the greatest focus is placed on analyzing booking sources with regard to the cost of acquisition thereof, seems much more justified, as far as sales strategies are concerned. After all, it is not hard to sell all of the apartments one has – publishing an offer in leading channels, such as Booking.com or Airbnb at an attractive price can lead to this in a very short time. On the other hand, making use of a property’s full economic potential, i.e. acquiring bookings at a low cost while generating the highest possible gains, is no mean feat. It is impossible to achieve this goal without effective forecasting? Why is that? Forecasting of demand allows you to dynamically optimize the pricing policy and sell apartments at reasonable prices. By charging the same prices all year round or changing them only sporadically you are using only part of the potential of the apartments you manage.

Where to start when forecasting the demand?

The first step should be to refer to historical data, i.e. analyze the bookings from corresponding periods in the previous years. This will allow you to quickly identify trends: periods of increased or decreased interest in the offer or months in which rooms were sold at a higher or lower price. Analysis of bookings made in the previous years is a much more reliable method than basing forecasts on intuition alone. However, it is not enough. Regular price fluctuations caused, for instance, by seasonality as well as the trends observed at your competitors with regard to changes in the pricing policy may serve as a guideline and a starting point; however, you should also consider a number of other parameters which will constitute variables in the model when forecasting the demand. This means that you need to take account of events which may have a considerable impact on customer behaviors – these can include major cultural, entertainment or sport events, among others. Furthermore, much depends on the nature and location of your apartments, your target group, direct competitors, etc. It is also good to consider if the prices for the same rooms should differ depending on the distribution channel. Should the price on Booking.com be higher than on Airbnb? Or maybe the other way round. This is another situation where data, for instance data on how your apartments sold in these channels in prior periods, comes in handy.

Are there any shortcuts?

Preparation of a precise model which takes account of all important variables takes a lot of time. Developing a pricing strategy for apartments poses one more challenge: normally, each facility is located in a different place, has a number of unique features and therefore attracts different customers. Therefore, it becomes necessary to create multiple independent models for each of the rented properties. Sounds like hard work. Luckily, this is where technology comes to the rescue. Forecasting demand is part of the online distribution process, which is why purchase of a professional system of the channel manager class, will help to streamline a large part of the process with minimum involvement on your part. However, it is important for the selected tool to work smoothly with the systems you use.

The Channel Manager from YieldPlanet is integrated with more than 400 Property Management Systems, Booking Engines, OTAs and others. Check the list of our integrations to see if it includes the systems you use.

You may also be interested in reading:
The best apartment rental websites
How to build an on-line apartment distribution strategy
Build a distribution strategy for apartments

Google Hotels – a new tool for hotel marketing

Aug 1, 2019 | Revenue Management

Google Hotels – a new tool for hotel marketing

There are many different models of working with Google for hoteliers to promote their property. You can choose the most common way of promotion – the Google Ads. You pay and a link to your hotel’s website appears directly in the sponsored links in the browser. However, now Google offers you a possibility to appear on a widget designed especially for hotels – the Google Hotels. What exactly is it and what do you have to do to get there?

Google Hotels is part of Google Travel – a platform which integrates all of the tools which help a traveler book their trips. Initially, Google had a Trips mobile app and Google Flights. Lately, these services were spread to include also and the forementioned hotel search engine and grouped as part of one common platform. Imagine that you are planning a trip to Barcelona and you are looking for a hotel. If you put “hotels in Barcelona” in your browser, this is what you will see.

The link marked as “Ad” is AdWords. Then, what you will see in the window between AdWords and organic results is the Google Hotels widget. It allows your potential guests to compare prices from various sites (hotel’s own sites, OTAs, etc.) in one place, in real time, without leaving Google.

If you click on a particular hotel, you will land on a page on which you will be able to compare the offers from different distribution channels, including the hotel’s own website.

In the “Check availability” or ‘Compare prices’ box, you can see various links. They take you directly to Booking.com, Trip.com (or any other OTA that has a paid campaign active), as well as the hotel’s own website. However, if you have activated the ‘Book on Google’ option on your property, the hotel will be available to be booked without leaving Google. If it is active, you will see another box. In this particular case, it has a “Select a room” nametag, but it can also show OTAs’ offers for your property.

When you click on a room which you have selected, you will see a Google page on which you will be asked to confirm your room choice, give the guest’s personal and contact details and credit card number.

The last stage will be the booking confirmation.

The advantages for the client should be clear by now. What are the advantages for a hotel? If the booker is here, then it means they are further in the process of purchase than most clients who click on the AdWords link. Since they are lower in the sales funnel, then we may assume that these clicks will have a higher conversion than it is in the case of the clicks you get from conventional AdWords.

How to appear on the list

First of all, you need to have an active Google My Business Account.

The main driver for Google to position hotels up or down is Success (measured in CTR & profits), which can be improved with customer/audience affinity. That means, getting a higher position in a rank is not simply a matter of bidding – your position basically depends on whether your website gives Google a high value in terms of the content presented, gives the potential guests good user experience and competitive offer. The demand for the hotel, given its location, quality, reviews and other factors matter, too. All of these effect in the traffic generated on the website by the audience who visits it. If the quality of content is poor or not many people visit your website – you will have to pay to raise your position in the rank. Therefore, you need your Google Ad account to be active, to be ready to improve your position. If you don’t pay, you will still appear in the ranking, but this will weaken your position.

One thing is clear: if the hotel direct sales is not present here, then it is losing many bookings, as – if the offers are competitive – it has the highest probability to get the business.

Business models & how much it costs

There are three business models that will lead you to be listed:

CPC – you pay for each click on your link

You pay a commission fee whenever a booking has been made

You pay a commission fee from each stay (charged after the guest’s check-out) – this way you only pay for the reservations which effected in a stay; you don’t pay for the no-stay. The commission is 10%

Bottom line

In the times when competition is tough, using Book on Google might be a good way for hoteliers to get more bookings.

Read our blog to keep up to date with the recent news from the industry.

New connection: Traveliko.com

Jul 29, 2019 | Channel Manager, Connections

New connection: Traveliko.com

YieldPlanet has a new connection to the Channel Manager with an OTA: Traveliko.com.

Traveliko.com offers the cheapest distribution channel for hotels to sell their room online and compete with other OTAs. The OTA channel aims at rebalancing the online distribution landscape. This is a 0% commission OTA – a free distribution channel, with main focus on hotels on the Asian market. Now the company wants to open up for the Europena market to reach new horizons.

“The integration process went smooth. We are happy to welcome Traveliko.com in the group of our connectivity partners now” – says Tomasz Fitulski, Head of Implementations at YieldPlanet.
“We are delighted to be working with YieldPlanet and now be able to offer their clients the cheapest distribution channel available in the market.” – adds Yann Gouriou, co-founder and CEO of Travelico.com.

More information for hotels interested to connect to Traveliko.com can be found here.

How to increase revenue from apartment rental

Jul 25, 2019 | Apartments

How to increase revenue from apartment rental

Both hotels and apartments base their distribution strategies on multiple mutually complementary sales channels, as this is the only way to achieve success on this extremely competitive market. However, management of a large number of channels may yield some difficulties. How automate online distribution and boost revenues from apartment sales?

Contemporary distribution strategies, both those of hotels and those of apartments, are based on direct and indirect channels. As a rule, the most beneficial bookings from the economic point of view are the direct ones made using a hotel’s own booking engine, as they make it possible to avoid considerable commissions for middlemen. Naturally, basing a hotel’s distribution strategy solely on direct bookings is possible, but it creates the risk of low occupancy and additionally requires investment of considerable funds in extensive marketing efforts in order to reach potential customers. As might be expected, this course of action may ultimately prove more expensive than the costs of middlemen’s commissions. For this reason, hotels should not shy away from cooperating with OTAs. Quite the contrary: appropriately selected OTA channels will render it possible to reach an enormous group of customers – not only regional, but also international – and significantly increase revenue. Without OTAs, achievement of this goal is virtually impossible.

As shown by the data from bookings recorded by the YieldPlanet Channel Manager in 2018, in the case of apartments a greater number of sales channels translates into increased sales. Therefore, when creating a distribution strategy for apartments, it is a good idea to rely not only on the hotel’s own booking engine, but also on appropriately selected OTAs – both the leading one which make it possible to reach millions of potential customers and niche ones which render it possible to reach a more profiled target group at a relatively low cost. Once created, the distribution strategy should naturally be updated on a regular basis in accordance with the conducted conversion and profitability analyses. This is the only way to achieve long-term success. Both management of multiple channels and ongoing monitoring of the effectiveness of the decisions made are much simpler with the right tools. These tools include first and foremost property management systems (PMS) and channel managers, which effectively automate work, create many new possibilities, as well as collect a lot of data which is invaluable from a business perspective.

Central property management system – PMS
A property management system (PMS) does precisely what the name suggests. In the case of hotels such a system is practically indispensable: it is a hub which contains information on whether a room is vacant or occupied, cleaned or requires cleaning, etc., which largely automates the work of many people, starting from reception staff. However, it is increasingly becoming indispensable in the work of people and companies in charge of managing apartments.

In the context of all online bookings it is particularly significant that a property management system transmits information on room availability and prices to other systems on an ongoing basis. At the same time, a system of the channel manager class transmits information on bookings made in each distribution channel to the PMS. This makes it possible to avoid situations where, for instance, the same room would be sold twice.

Apartment managers are increasingly using property management systems. Although it is possible not to use this system when selling overnight stays via OTAs, it is not recommended. If distribution is based both on OTA bookings and on direct bookings (from a booking engine), a PMS is absolutely necessary, as it would be very difficult to avoid the risk of overbooking otherwise. Who wouldn’t want to avoid such unpleasant consequences as the need to look for alternative accommodation for guests from additional bookings or negative guest ratings?

While hotels usually have multiple similar rooms at their disposal and can quickly accommodate such guests into them, the same might prove more difficult in the case of apartments. After all, it is impossible to offer an alternative property in the same place and with the same arrangement. Is it worth the risk? Definitely not, especially seeing that simple property management systems are not as expensive as it is commonly thought. They are available from as little as several hundred zlotys per year, which is why using them is a much more cheaper alternative than manual management of a calendar and collecting data in an Excel file, for instance, which is not only time-consuming, but also creates the risk of human error.

How do property management systems and channel managers support apartment rental?

A PMS alone certainly relieves apartment managers of many tedious obligations, but it will not enable automation of online apartment distribution. This is where channel managers, i.e. tools facilitating efficient management of sales in multiple channels, prove a useful asset. Generally speaking, a channel manager acts as a middleman in the transmission of information between the PMS and OTAs. It is the channel manager that allows real-time transmission of information on apartment prices and availability from the PMS to all OTAs linked to the channel manager as well as immediate transmission of information on the bookings made with individual OTAs via the channel manager to the PMS. Updating the calendar on an ongoing basis minimizes the risk of overbooking and makes the distribution process practically unmanned.

Naturally, a good channel manager has much more to offer than just an efficient flow of information between the PMS and OTAs as well as the booking engine. Notably, it can be used for the purpose of analytics, which has been used increasingly year by year. How exactly? Every day, a channel manager collects a massive amount of data which is worth using for the purpose of analyzing and forecasting sales – so as to make even better use of apartment potential. When choosing the right channel manager, it is a good idea to pay special attention precisely to this aspect. Reports adjusted to individual needs and possibilities of creating flexible distribution strategies for individual channels allow you to increase occupancy, and thus also the revenue generated by your properties.

Looking for solutions that will help you manage your facility’s availability? Contact us – we will be happy to provide you with a dedicated offer for the YieldPlanet Channel Manager.

You may also be interested in reading:
The best apartment rental websites
How to build an on-line apartment distribution strategy

Google Assistant revolutionises the hotel industry

Jul 23, 2019 | Connections

Google Assistant revolutionises the hotel industry

Modern technology has established itself in hotels for good and it seems like this is unlikely to change in the near future. Quite the contrary: the expectations of guests and their shopping habits change quickly, forcing hotels to continually modify their offer and adjust their online distribution strategy. Another revolution is happening as we speak – the ability to book rooms with the use of virtual assistants. Right now, this functionality is only offered by the Mountain View giant, but due to the growing trend of using virtual assistants and dynamic development of such solutions it will not be long before its competitors rise to the challenge. 

Where did it all start?

The market for virtual assistant has been growing for several years now, and the battle for the position of the leader and creation of the most helpful assistant is becoming increasingly fiercer. It all started in 2011, when the world heard about virtual assistants for the first time during the official launch of the iPhone 4S. It was accompanied by the first appearance of Siri – an intelligent personal assistant which recognises the users’ natural speech, replies to their questions and performs the tasks it’s been entrusted with. While Siri’s capabilities were very limited at the time, the dynamic growth of the technology made it possible to surprise the users of Apple smartphones on a regular basis and implement new functionalities. It was not long before Apple’s competitors presented their own solutions. In 2014, Amazon’s Alexa debuted on the market and two years later so did Google Assistant. This moment initiated a real race whose goal remains unchanged to this day – to use artificial intelligence and process natural language so as to respond to requests of the increasingly demanding and innovation-hungry market.

Although the solution offered by the Mountain View giant is the youngest one, from the point of view of the hotel industry it is certainly the most interesting one. This is all due to the functionality presented to the global audience last January in Las Vegas during the largest consumer electronics fair in the world – CES 2019. Naturally, this refers to the ability to book hotel rooms with the use of Google Assistant. Although its functionalities are now available to users through various channels, including Google Home products, smart TVs, smartphones and even cars, the ability to book hotels is only available on mobile devices for the time being.

What does the ability to book hotel rooms mean for the hotel industry?

From the perspective of Google Assistant users, the new functionality is likely no breakthrough, but for hoteliers it is a real revolution for which they should start preparing now. There is already talk of it being a real turning point for the industry, one which will force hotels to quickly reorganise their existing distribution strategies in line with the “adapt or die” principle. It will pose a major threat to facilities resistant to new technologies, but for the ones which readily and quickly adapt to the changing environment it will be a chance for dynamic growth and acquisition of a greater share in the market. It is also a good chance to defend or even increase the share of direct bookings.

There is no denying that the new possibilities will have a great impact on how users browse the Internet and plan their travels. The question is: how many of the bookings will be made using virtual assistants? Some studies indicate that we are approaching a real revolution in this field, as in the next two years voice searches may account for as much as half of all searches! Statista analysts believe that Google Assistant will greatly strengthen its position. While in 2017 the Google product could only boast a 25% share in the market in intelligent virtual assistants, in 2020 the share will amount to as much as 43%. At the same time, Alexa will suffer a drop from 62% to 34%. The remaining market players, on the other hand, will increase their share from 13% to 23%. Such major changes in the market share are mainly connected with the fact that virtual assistants are most often used on smartphones. The market in intelligent loudspeakers which Amazon is associated with is several times smaller than the mobile phone market. How much smaller? Google Assistant is currently used by more than a billion devices, which means an increase of 400 million compared with the previous year. In the case of Alexa, the statistics are much less impressive, as it is used by slightly more than 100 million devices.

The development of the market as well as the steadily growing number of devices which are connected to the Internet (Internet of Things) suggest that the change in customer habits in the scope of room bookings may significantly shake up the existing online distribution model and force both hotels and OTAs to redefine their existing strategies.

What exactly can Google offer?

Google’s competitive edge results mainly from the fact that the Mountain View giant has access to a massive database of hotel offers which neither Apple nor Amazon currently has. We can therefore assume that the new functionality offered by Google Assistant will constitute a major competitive advantage at least for a while. What does booking a room with the use of Google Assistant look like now?

Currently, the new functionality is only offered to English-speaking users of iOS or Android mobile devices who live in the United States. The booking process itself is extremely simple and intuitive and can be carried out both via text and voice input thanks to the use of artificial intelligence and the Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology. For instance, when searching for a hotel room in Barcelona, the user only needs to say: “I need to book a hotel room in Barcelona,” and the assistant will ask about the date of stay and present a list of recommended facilities. In order to narrow it down, the user needs to provide the assistant with more details about their preferences – e.g. “Show only hotels close to the city centre with pools.”

The next step is selection of the facility where the user is planning to stay, which can be done both using voice and by clicking. A moment later, the assistant will present the available offers from various OTAs as well as from the hotel’s booking engine and ask the user to select one. Confirmation of the booking, preceded by a short overview of the booking and the related costs, lets the user proceed to the final step, i.e. payment for the booking (naturally, the recommended method is payment with Google Pay). Once the transaction has been finalised, the assistant informs the user that it was completed successfully and sends the booking details to their email address.

Can it be any simpler than that? It certainly can, but we will have to wait at least a couple of months for more details. The dynamic growth of the industry suggests that Google’s competitors will also start offering similar solutions and Google itself will continuously work on surprising its users more and more and offer an even more intuitive and customised travel planning experience.

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