Why is the new Price Shopper so desired in Europe?

Why is the new Price Shopper so desired in Europe?

Why is the new Price Shopper so desired in Europe?

The hotel industry in Central and South Eastern Europe has been growing year by year. 2016, due to the global geopolitical situation, was a fantastic year for Polish, Bulgarian, Romanian and Croatian hoteliers because of the significant number of tourists who decided to spend their holidays in these countries rather than Turkey or Egypt, for example. This year will be no different – once more, Polish people are announcing their intention to stay within the country for the holiday season (up to 73% of respondents in research conducted in January by Hilton).

The same research also highlighted the preferences that drive Polish tourists to choose their place of stay – as high as 72% of respondents indicated places offering a host of attractions, thanks to which their stay would be more exciting. The same number of respondents chose a travel destination on the basis of quality for the given price. What does this mean for hoteliers?

This sheer quantity of both new and more experienced tourists forces hoteliers into a life-and-death battle over prices. Everyone would like to take advantage of the latest trends in order to fill up their hotel, hostel, or guesthouse and increase their RevPAR. In addition, hotel distribution and revenue management alone cease to suffice. Thus we arrive at a new duty – price management, which focuses on optimal price modeling for each given date, taking many different factors into account at once. Considering the fact that almost 80% of hotel revenue is generated by room reservations (based on YieldPlanet research), it is obvious with what care hotels must approach such a sensitive sales element as price. In order to effectively join the fight to increase occupancy and maximize revenue amid stiff market competition, it is absolutely necessary to use tools that will reduce workload and ease the making of key decisions while pricing roomnights.

One such tool is the Price Shopper, which, being of the price comparison type, fulfills the role of monitoring the competition. We have launched a completely new version of the Price Shopper based on both the newest trends in price management technology and suggestions received from our clientele, which is why it has been designed with all hotel types in mind – from the smallest independent properties to large hotel chains.

In contrast to the previous version, the new Price Shopper is a complex tool supporting price management, the use of which benefits even the smallest hotel properties. In the event of connection with other YieldPlanet products – the Channel Manager and Price Optimizer – it becomes one of the key tools in YieldPlanet’s ecosystem, as a provider of price management solutions.

Online price reports

We have prepared, for your convenience, real-time price reports, which can be either refreshed manually or automatically from a time horizon of 30 up to as much as 365 days. Prices of as many as 15 competitive hotels are downloaded from various sources simultaneously and presented in the form of highly-readable charts and tables. Clicking on any point in a table allows it to view all possible information concerning the prices of the given hotel on the chosen date.

Ad Hoc Reports

With only a few clicks, you can generate an exact price report for the chosen competition. Generated in real-time, this information is displayed in relation to the preferred established settings – taking the relevant rate plans and breakfast settings, length of stay, and type of accommodation (single or double room) into account. Reports can be refreshed automatically or manually – thanks to which you will always have an up-to-date price report divided into the various members of competition and specific dates – 30, 60, or 90 days, as applies to the chosen version of the Price Shopper.

Automatic Reports

You do not need to log into the tool every time in order to check the prices of your competition. The Price Shopper can be programmed so that you will receive, for example, a report of the prices of your chosen competition on a daily basis at the supplied email address. Depending on the chosen version, these can be daily reports or weekly reports.

Events & Holidays Calendar

The new Price Shopper takes into account local and global events as well as holidays in its reports. You can add party events yourself, or download them using our tool-integrated search engine. This helps to identify changes and price trends of roomnights in response to, for example, approaching holidays, or a concert, and then to incorporate them into your pricing strategy. Thanks to all this, your prices will be able to accurately reflect current and impending events.

Reputation reports

Just like in the cases of the Channel Manager and the Price Optimizer, the new Price Shopper contains integrated only reputation reports for your hotel. Prepared in cooperation with ReviewPro, the widget is given hoteliers access to statistics formed on the basis of reviews made on such influential opinion-shaping platforms as TripAdvisor, Facebook, Booking.com, or Expedia. These statistics show the general sources of opinion regarding your hotel and, more importantly, divides these opinions into negative, neutral, and positive categories. This allows you to quickly react to negative or neutral opinions damaging to the reputation of your hotel. And this lowers the risk of a decreased RevPar.

The Price Shopper is a tool that works well both on its own and in concurrence with the Price Optimizer. This latter is yet another crucial platform, supplying data for predicting prices and related recommendations via algorithm. However, in connection with the Channel Manager, the Price Shopper helps hoteliers to make quick pricing decisions in order to maximize revenue.
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Inventory control – overselling and stay patterns

Inventory control – overselling and stay patterns

Inventory control – overselling and stay patterns

Implementing an Appropriate demand – driven Inventory Control Strategy

Once a hotel knows the cost of each channel, then a demand-driven inventory control strategy, taking into consideration the channel costs, needs to be executed. Applying stay controls can be a very complex issue and many hoteliers underestimate the impact the controls have on revenues — both positively and negatively. If used without a complete understanding of the full impact on all stay patterns, stay controls can ultimately be devastating to a hotel’s revenue (domino effect). If applied properly and carefully, the hotel can truly capture the optimal business. However, if applied without an understanding of the impact, the hotel can miss opportunities and turn away significant amounts of business.

Prior to applying inventory controls there are some items that must be understood and considered. The first is the general rule of thumb that in order to apply any stay control(s) there must be periods of excess demand. Otherwise, the hotel will be turning away business unnecessarily. More about this and its impact will be addressed in the stay pattern management section.

Before any inventory control strategies are implemented it is also important to know the impact of overselling, walk costs, channel management, and managing group wash. Each of these areas has a direct impact on inventory control.

Overselling

Management wants to ensure the hotel reaches its maximum potential capacity for any given stay pattern in order to maximise revenue. Sometimes that means selling out the hotel to 100% capacity. It is often necessary to oversell the hotel in order to achieve this goal.

Overselling is the practice of accepting more reservations for a particular day than there actually are rooms in the hotel. This is in order to compensate for the estimated wash factor. The wash factor is the hotel’s estimate of no-shows plus cancellations and early departures.

Knowing how much to calculate as a wash factor can be quite challenging. The wash factor is determined by taking the historical no-show and cancellation information that is being tracked by the hotel and comparing it to the current booking pace activity. Additionally, it is important to look at the number and breakdown of arrivals. For example, the number of guaranteed reservations versus non-guaranteed reservations will be a factor in estimating potential wash.

When considering an oversell strategy it is important to include all costs associated with this — both tangible and intangible.

“Walking” is the result of what needs to happen when a hotel is oversold and the no-show plus cancellation estimate is too high. This means that a guest has a guaranteed booking at a hotel but the hotel will not be able to accommodate the guest for that night. Therefore, the guest is “walked” to an alternative hotel facility. The process of “walking” can be handled in two different ways. The first is probably the most common practice. The guest arrives at the hotel to find that the room reserved is not available and they will be staying at an alternate location — ideally already selected and reserved by the “walking” hotel. The second and less common practice is when a hotel contacts the guest prior to their arrival to inform them of the alternative hotel arrangements. This latter practice typically happens in a situation of extreme oversell.

The costs associated with “walking” are both tangible and intangible as stated above.

Some of the tangible costs are obvious such as the payout to the receiving hotel to which the guests are being sent, and any corresponding transportation costs such as taxis. These are normally absorbed by the hotel needing to “walk” their guests.

The intangible costs are a little bit more difficult to identify and many times are not weighted as heavily as they should be. Some intangible costs associated with overselling thus resulting in a “walk” are:

  • A potential loss of a customer to the competition. This guest may not return again regardless of the efforts made by the hotel to make the situation as comfortable as possible.
  • Loss in the hotel’s reputation due to the need to walk the guest. Unfortunately, viral marketing can work in reverse in this type of situation. Customers who have had a bad experience with one hotel can verbally spread the word and the hotel may develop a poor reputation.

A pound value should be put against both of these items so it can be included in future displacement analysis.

One other point that needs to be considered is a cross between the tangible and intangible costs and that is distance between the original hotel and the location to which the guest is walked. This can vary based on the time of year. For example, during a peak time in England, a hotel in Manchester Centre will have a very difficult time finding an available hotel within a reasonable distance. Therefore, the pound value that is placed on a “walk” during peak time in central Manchester should be much higher than it is at other lower-demand times of the year.

The following is an example of how to arrive at a “walk” cost.

The “walk” cost is important to take into consideration when implementing inventory management. If the controls are not appropriately applied, and the hotel has to “walk” customers, it is important to understand the complete impact for the hotel.

That being said, it is important to understand that the practice of overbooking which results in “walking” is a cost of doing business. There is a risk involved but hoteliers should not be in fear of implementing this practice as, if done right, it can greatly help to optimise revenues. As long as the hotel does not find a large number of “walks” being done regularly, then this is something that must be worked into the overall strategy and even budgeted for.

Stay pattern Management

In addition to a demand-driven inventory control strategy, stay pattern management can further enable a hotel to maximize revenues. A reservation’s stay pattern is the combination of arrival date and length of stay.

When maximizing revenue you want to accept the optimal number of reservations for each stay pattern, not the greatest number of reservations for each individual day.

The reason for this is because taking as many reservations as possible for one day could preclude a longer length of stay that includes that day, thus losing potential revenue for the surrounding days. This lost revenue may not be made up by shorter lengths of stays running through those surrounding days.

Example:

Stay Pattern 1 Arrival 10th November, one-night stay

Stay Pattern 2 Arrival 9th November, three-night stay

If all available rooms on 10th November were sold to Stay Pattern 1 and then a request was received for Stay Pattern 2, the hotel would have to turn away Stay Pattern 2, thus losing potential revenue for 9th November and 11th.

A day’s total unconstrained demand is the sum of room nights from guests wanting to arrive on that day plus room-nights generated by guests who would arrive earlier and stay through.

Stay pattern management works to achieve the optimal mix of stay patterns through each potential sold out date by limiting the stay patterns going through that date. Because the overall objective is to maximize revenue and not occupancy, it is possible to have a solution in which a potential sold-out day does not sell out and yet revenue is still maximized.

Strategic pricing

Strategic pricing

Strategic pricing

This lesson will help you to understand the impact of pricing on the bottom line and comprehend the importance of strategic pricing and why it is a priority over tactical pricing.

Once the revenue strategy is secure, it is vitally important to accurately price the perishable room inventory. Industry experts indicate that when a hotel realizes revenue growth through rate, 95% flows to the bottom line, and if the growth comes through occupancy, approximately 50% flows to the bottom line.

This drives home the importance of pricing and the impact of appropriately developing a hotel’s pricing strategy and managing the tactical execution of the strategy.

In the past, revenue management practices had a strong focus on the management of stay controls, such as length of stay requirements in an effort to maximize revenues, and pricing was secondary. Today, the focus has grown to place more of a priority on the importance of pricing strategies.

Pricing strategies allow hotels to charge different room rates for the same or similar rooms according to customer’s characteristics and needs. For example, a senior citizen traveler looking for a discount has different needs, different characteristics and a different willingness to pay than a corporate traveler has. As a result, they may book the exact same room but pay a much different price. Along with the different price there may be certain booking requirements or unique restrictions.

Once the market segments are defined for a hotel, it is up to the revenue manager to ensure a healthy mix of the segmentation.

Since hoteliers offer multiple rates for essentially the same room type it is critical to understand the importance of pricing and all it encompasses. We will continue in the next article to explore strategic pricing and the various pricing-related elements.

Developing a long term pricing strategy is a very important part of a hotel’s overall revenue management process. Proper creation of a pricing strategy and proper deployment of that strategy will ultimately provide the hotel with an opportunity to identify and capture the optimal revenue opportunities.

Too many hoteliers take a tactical approach as opposed to starting with a strategic approach. Developing a long-term strategy allows hotels to look out into the future and do a proper analysis of the realistic needs and opportunities and determine the most appropriate pricing for their hotel in the current marketplace. This is the best approach and is a good start to ensuring the hotel has an eye out to the future and is focused on long term benefits.

Strategic pricing allows hotels to be proactive and provide guidelines and plans for the entire hotel sales team to effectively sell the products.

Pricing guidelines will allow the sales department to effectively and confidently quote rates for the future because they will know the price points for specific demand periods and specific dates. With pricing guidelines, sales will have the opportunity to analyse the potential business themselves and work quickly with the customer without having to take the time to discuss pricing with the revenue director unless there is an unusual circumstance. Ultimately this allows for more empowerment and confidence in the sales department as they will have a solid understanding of the hotel’s future outlook, peak demand times and times of need.

Strategic pricing done right offers the following benefits:

  • Reflect overall corporate or hotel strategies such as maximum growth, maximum revenue or new market growth objectives;
  • Communicate positioning, image and branding for targeted segments;
  • Communicate expectations of product quality, status and value to prospective customers;
  • Determine long run revenue flows and ROI;
  • Be used as part of the process for building long term customer relationships.

Creating a Pricing Strategy

Creating the pricing strategy should include all of the revenue team members. This is something that has to be done as a team and not by one person alone. Each revenue team member will have a unique perspective and important input. Additionally, this will ensure buy-in to the final strategy is positive across the board with everyone who must support the strategy moving in the same direction.

Creating a proper pricing strategy requires an understanding of customers’ willingness to pay, customer segmentation, consumer psychology, competitive value analysis, market research, value creation and, of course, revenue management.

Every pricing strategy must address the following elements:

  • S.W.O.T. analysis – provides a solid understanding of the hotel’s unique attributes, strengths and weaknesses for both services and product.
  • Market position – every hotel must put together an analysis that allows careful evaluation of the hotel compared to its competitors. It is important to understand the market position of the hotel within the competitive set. This will be an important part of determining the pricing for the hotel.
  • Seasonal demand – one of the fundamentals for a pricing strategy is to understand market demand for the various seasons in the marketplace. Flexibility for seasonal rates must be taken into consideration.
  • Day of week demand – in addition to the seasons, it is also important to take into consideration day of week flexibility. What are the hotel’s peak days throughout the week? What are they for each season?
  • Customer segmentation – understanding the customer segmentation specific to the marketplace and to your hotel is critical. Every hotel must identify the target customer segments appropriate for the hotel and accordingly create price points to satisfy each segment.
  • Special need periods – identify the hotel’s need periods and areas of opportunity for promotional offers. This may include holidays, special events in the marketplace or low demand times. Identify these times and create promotional offers as part of the hotel’s overall strategy. This will ensure the team will not need to create something last minute and potentially miss an opportunity.

5 reasons to start using digital technologies in your hotel

5 reasons to start using digital technologies in your hotel

5 reasons to start using digital technologies in your hotel

The successful development of business is absolutely impossible without innovation in the hotel industry today. It is more and more difficult to engage new clients by using traditional methods – time does not stand still and the requests of the target group change at the speed of light. But how to satisfy the desires of customers in the new year, and, more importantly, how to improve the service through the use of new technologies?

There is no better advertising than a product that speaks for itself – this has been confirmed during the most important event of the last month, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2018), which was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The event presented a huge number of new products and unique innovative technologies in the consumer electronics industry, including those that not only can increase interest in your hotel, but also change the attitudes and help you to see simple things in a new light.

Here’s a list of powerful reasons to consider innovation as the key elements of marketing this year.

Keep up with the times

To keep up to date and stay in line with reality is a difficult task for any kind of business. The 21st century is so much different than the past times due to the rapid development of technology, which gives you free and accessible opportunities to develop and grow your business. The improvement of existing items of daily use and the constant search for alternatives creates the necessary atmosphere in the business infrastructure and makes a positive impression on visitors.

Convenience

Simplicity is synonymous with convenience. Everything that makes life easier makes it more pleasant and less stressful. Modern technologies are aimed at helping people to feel the comfort that lacks in solving complex daily tasks, eliminating problems and in finding answers to questions. What, first of all, is the hotel room – rest, and what can be a more attractive element for a person than comfort, and, of course, relaxation?

Design

In the planning of the upgrade, your hotel is not impossible to forget about the interior space and design. Some of the interior design trends of this year are closely connected with the style of the digital technologies (e.g. Monochrome and Comfort spaces). It means that this connection gives a great opportunity to improve a hotel interior, change your approach to innovations if you didn’t get a chance to do it before. Remember: your style is your calling card.

“There is no better advertising than a product that speaks for itself”.

Functionality

Comfort in the hotel is closely related to the functionality. High level of functionality in the room allows the client to relax and feel in the “hands” of professionals. To spare relieve a guest from unnecessary inconveniences, to replace two actions by one and to facilitate the stay in a hotel are possible with the help of clever and stylish equipment. This is called the luxury and care of guests.

Self-explanatory

Collaboration and cooperation with world brands, improving the digital and interior design and functionality of hotel rooms, tracking trends – all of these are a guarantee of profit for a modern business. The hotel, which has earned authority, thanks to the quality of provided services and its modernity, is doomed to success because its “face” and brand are direct advertising of its services.

In turn, we advise not to ignore the technologies and development of the world of innovation, because technological progress is a direct and obvious way to win the audience trust and, of course, an extraordinary and useful way of thinking about the successful development of the hotel business.

How to win new markets in the hotel industry?

How to win new markets in the hotel industry?

How to win new markets in the hotel industry?

Building an efficient distribution strategy for a hotel is a challenge that many hotel managers are facing today. Fierce competition they encounter on the market pushes them increasingly more frequently to take risk and reach out for entirely new markets and segments. On-line travel agencies (OTA) are usually an indispensable ingredient of such strategy but reliance on this channel cannot guarantee success. How to reach a completely new group of clients? How to conquer new markets and improve operating parameters of a hotel?

The ongoing globalisation and the overwhelmingly rapid emergence and growing accessibility of new technologies are the key factors that make conquering new markets much easier today than it used to be the case just a few or a dozen or so years ago. This applies to tourism as well as to any other industry. Reaching prospective clients with, and personalization of, an offer have never been easier, which is true of activities undertaken by hotels both directly and through intermediaries (such as OTA). However, relentless experimentation, optimization of efforts and continuous adaptation of distribution strategies to changing business environments and evolving preferences and expectations of clients remain the key to success –  all that in the face of stronger than ever competition. The use of advanced technologies by the tourism and hotel industry has boosted the growth of the market, and has made much easier the travel planning process itself. Mobile devices have almost replaced desktop PCs from communications between hotels and their clients. Almost everyone has a smartphone today, so hotels can use the GPS tracking facility to inform their clients in an instant of any delay or change in the bookings and, further, efficiently distribute any promotional material.

The growth of the Internet and its widespread use for planning travel have changed the hotel industry beyond recognition. The first contact of a prospective client with a hotel is still often established by visiting the website of the hotel as the interface for the visible part of the booking process. What is important, this form of booking is the most desirable one because there are no commissions for intermediaries of any kind. Effective building of on-line advertising, social media and content marketing for attracting as many prospective clients as possible to the website of the hotel is crucial to this process. Considering the number of boarding facilities, from large international chains to small independent hotels, which are very active on the Internet today, pursuing an efficient on-line marketing strategy is not as simple as it would seem. On the contrary: it is very difficult and, in addition, more costly from year to year. So, how to prepare for winning new markets? What to remember? What mistakes to avoid?

#1 Identify your target group

There are many ways to source new clients and thereby win entirely new markets. However, the hotel needs to pinpoint it target group before proceeding to the drafting of a marketing and distribution strategy. This is so because different solutions will work for domestic clients than for international ones.

The use of services of on-line travel agencies (OTA) is one of the most effective and least expensive ways of reaching new clients and winning new markets. Tapping on the global coverage of well-established international OTA brands will enable a hotel to diversify its client base and reach entirely new segments and markets. However, to succeed, the hotel needs to define, and learn as much as possible about, the target group before partnering with any OTA for pursuit of the hotel’s distribution strategy. The more accurate definition of the target group, the better odds for coming up with the right marketing and distribution strategy.

#2 Define your strategy

Any campaign aiming at winning new markets and reaching new client segments has to be carefully prepared, so that clients are not only captured but also retained. This calls for a thorough examination of requirements and expectations of the selected target group and for drafting of a proposition maximally suited to these demands: different for business than for tourist clients, as well as different for people who seek a hotel for 2 or 3 nights than for longer-term guests.

Accordingly, to pin-point requirements of a new target group, the hotel may need to personalize its service menu, for instance by throwing in attractive packages for longer-stay clients or by investing in availability of complementary services, such as conference facilities. The planning should be careful, as is the case with any business strategy. No massive investment of effort or money in attracting new clients will make any sense unless the hotel already has an attractive offer in place.

#3 Prepare your action plan

The strategy, once it has been defined, has to be translated into a detailed action plan suitable for implementation, split into a series of individual tasks with assigned priorities, personal responsibilities and deadlines. It is also a good practice to identify all stakeholders and to define milestones for review and wrap-up of the hitherto progress of the plan.

Drafting of the plan is a critical phase and the process should be sufficiently thorough to prevent the taking of hasty decisions or actions. Chaotic or ill-considered steps can cascade into a number of mistakes, the remedying of which could turn out to be very costly or time consuming.

#4 Monitor your performance and optimize your strategy

Specific actions dictated directly by the adopted strategy and by the finished action plan are the last step to the winning of new markets and to the reaching of new groups of clients. Given that the hotel service market is very dynamic and competitive, implementation of the plan should be followed and optimized on regular basis.

OTAs can help in reaching the targeted groups of clients, so partnering with them can be worth the cost and effort. There are myriads of them today. They range from global companies with world-wide recognition to small local offices serving their niche markets. One concern is that although the theoretically desirable representation of the hotel by large and most popular OTAs can warrant the reaching of a really huge population of prospective clients, the actual rate of conversion could be very disappointing. Also, the booking acquisition costs can be higher than average. This is one of the reasons why smaller or niche agencies should not be automatically dismissed. While they have an incomparably smaller reach, they also face less competition, which can translate into better conversion rates.

Accordingly, flexibility and openness to experimentation seem to be the right approach to the successful building of a winning distribution strategy. Also, daily monitoring of operating performance and of cost-effectiveness of conversion is critical to the financial bottom line.

#5 Make sure your distribution strategy is effective

Inclusion of OTAs in distribution strategies is a necessity of the times because these organizations are professionals that stay on the top of changes in travelling habits and keep ahead of advanced mobile booking technologies. Although having clients book directly, via the hotel’s website, is more profitable, free from substantial agency commissions, the fact is that OTAs tend to contribute a two-digit per cent share of bookings and the volume of business they bring to hotels is becoming more important from year to year.

When relying on OTAs as part of the hotel’s distribution strategy, one should ensure to take maximum advantage of this distribution channel. The hotel should always “dress up” for its clients to keep them from going to the hotel’s competitors. High quality visuals, combined with a detailed description of the hotel, can do miracles and contribute directly to the hotel’s operating margins. According to a study by Expedia, the doubling of the number of photographs on an OTA’s website can increase the booking ratio by 4.5% and ADR by USD 3.5! A professional, keyword-optimized description of the hotel can improve the results even further: by 5.0% and USD 5, respectively. Considering these improvements, it is worth hiring a professional photographer and ensuring that the description of the hotel is appealing and up to date.

However, even best visuals and narratives will not translate into a high number of bookings unless the hotel has good credentials and high general ratings. It is clear from studies that hotels with large numbers of reviews get the lion’s share of the clientele. Comments published by guests on OTAs’ websites should be monitored in real time and never left without response. Each critical or favourable review should be answered within 24-48 hours to minimize negative effects of a negative opinion and, in the case of a positive opinion, to reinforce the impression of genuine care for guests and their well-being even after their stay ended. This follow-up can pay off rapidly in the form of a higher conversion rate: a growth of almost 1.5% for more than 50 recommendations.

Smart Strategies to Boost Hotel Revenue [event in Warsaw]

Smart Strategies to Boost Hotel Revenue [event in Warsaw]

Smart Strategies to Boost Hotel Revenue [event in Warsaw]

Join us for an exclusive masterclass for hoteliers in Warsaw on September 6th (Thursday). Learn about best practices and innovative ideas to increase revenue.

Join us for an exclusive masterclass for hoteliers in Warsaw on September 6th (Thursday). Learn about best practices and innovative ideas to increase revenue.

The event, co-organized by ReviewPro and YieldPlanet, provides an opportunity to hear from three engaging speakers, network and talk about the challenges hotels face when it comes to boost revenue.

Elena Zhelezniak, Sales Manager at ReviewPro, will guide the participants on how to deliver better experiences and drive revenue. Sebastian Andruszczak, Sales and Marketing Director and Piotr Olesiński, Product Manager will introduce YieldPlanet’s new Revenue Management System – Price Optimizer. They will showcase how new technologies can change the hotel industry and how you can use them to automate your revenue management process.

The masterclass is free to attend, but places are limited. Save your spot today – register here .

Agenda

09:00 Welcome and introduction

09:30 Leveraging Guest Intelligence to Deliver Better Experiences & Drive Revenue
Speaker: Elena Zhelezniak, Sales Manager, ReviewPro (ENG)

10:15 Dynamic Revenue Management
Speaker: Sebastian Andruszczak, Sales and Marketing Director & Piotr Olesinski, Product Manager, YieldPlanet (PL)

11:00 Coffee Break & networking

 

Date: Thursday, September 6th

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Venue: Radisson Blu Centrum Hotel, Warsaw

Address: Grzybowska 24, 00-132 Warszawa

REGISTER NOW

YieldPlanet announces Claudio Limacher as new CEO

YieldPlanet announces Claudio Limacher as new CEO

YieldPlanet announces Claudio Limacher as new CEO

YieldPlanet S.A., a Warsaw based travel technology company, announces that Claudio Limacher has been named as new CEO. Claudio succeeds Hubert Drabik.

„We are very glad that with Claudio Limacher we could find an internal successor for the CEO role.” Says Adam Donocik, from Giza Polish Venture. “Claudio has been with YieldPlanet for a number of years and deeply understands the markets and products. Furthermore, it makes us proud that for a Polish Venture we could find an international leader which will help us in expanding further in international markets while maintaining our strong Polish base.”

Claudio Limacher has graduated with business degrees from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and ESADE in Barcelona, Spain. He is Swiss and lives in Warsaw, Poland since 2012. Prior to the role as CEO, Mr. Limacher was responsible for the Product Development at YieldPlanet. In that role, he was working closely with the University of Princeton and Warsaw University of Technology for YieldPlanets efforts in developing a ground-breaking revenue management system for the hotel industry.

“I am honored to take on the this role at this important moment for the company.” Says Claudio Limacher. ”YieldPlanet has been able to position itself as a leading technology provider of online distribution for the hospitality industry in Poland and beyond. In our next step, we are aiming to significantly grow internationally and also expand our product offering to include advanced revenue and pricing solutions in the market. I am looking forward to working with the excellent management team at YieldPlanet to continue our success story.”

Prior to YieldPlanet, he has worked as a senior management consultant for Humatica AG on projects across Europe, North America and the Middle East. As a consultant he has led a number of projects in the areas of organizational performance improvement, restructuring, cultural change and leadership process design and implementation.Company information

The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends 2018 

The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends 2018 

The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends 2018 

The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends Report 2018 was created to show what digital distribution currently means for hotel business and its development trends in 2018. We asked hotel businesses around the world to fill out a short survey on how hoteliers analyse their information, what tools they use and which channel exploit. 

The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends 2018 

  1. Work with the rates on OTA portals becomes a big part of the hoteliers daily work. 

Distribution strategy is one of the most important elements in planning and organization of the hotel work. The majority of hoteliers being interviewed have implemented an online distribution strategy and they are well aware, that despite the daily tasks it needs regular optimization. Based on this rule ¼ of respondents optimize the distribution strategy every day. Far fewer hotels treat the distribution as a tedious duty, but recognize the benefits of price optimization in the channels. In addition, 41% of the hotel establishments plan to increase the pool of distribution channels in 2018.  

  1. Technology in distribution becomes essential and popular. 

Less than half of the hotels use the channel managers or other programs to facilitate the distribution of prices, however, are beginning to understand the importance of time. 

Simple programs which are not supposed to be used for special tasks, such as making Revenue Management decisions, analyzing data or planning, do not allow to optimize the daily work of hotel establishments and save the time of hotel team. Respondents, who do not use the proper program for Revenue Management, spend from 5 to 8, sometimes even to 12 hours weekly! 

  1. Understanding the importance of reputation on the Internet and its impact on revenue. 

The vast majority of hoteliers understands the importance of customer opinions and hotel image on the internet in 2018. For this reason most of hotel establishments take advantage of the processing and using this data for building positive hotel reputation through the OTA and other portals. Each time growing number of hotels, use the reviews and their position among competitive set, uses the reviews when planning and implementing a revenue management strategy. 

  1. RevPAR has become a classic” KPI in the hospitality industry. 

For a large part of the hotel traditional and well known to all the most important performance indicator is RevPAR, but growing group of supporters of the other indicators, such as netRevPAR or T-RevPAR. 

  1. priority order of marketing mix for hotel establishment.  

The pricing strategy is a key instrument and a fundamental basis in a hotel business. It helps to control the cash flow and competitive market, coordinate and contribute the positive development of own commercial activities. Since the price determination in the hospitality industry depends on a lot of factors such as competition, market share, brand, identification of a product and operational costs, it is extremely important for the planning online distribution strategy.  

More likely, therefore the half of the answerers give primacy to the Price element from year to year. 

To get the full survey “The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends 2018” fill the form and let your business flourish with yieldPlanet’s report!

5 key trends of distribution and revenue management for 2018

5 key trends of distribution and revenue management for 2018

5 key trends of distribution and revenue management for 2018

The Distribution And Revenue Management Trends Report 2018 was created to show what digital distribution currently means for hotel business and its development trends in 2018.

We asked hotel businesses around the world to fill out a short survey on how hoteliers analyse their information. We wanted to know what tools they use and which channel they exploit.

Work with the rates on OTA portals becomes a big part of the hoteliers daily work.

Distribution strategy is one of the most important elements in planning and organization of the hotel work. The majority of hoteliers being interviewed have implemented an online distribution strategy and they are well aware, that despite the daily tasks it needs regular optimization. Based on this rule ¼ of respondents optimize the distribution strategy every day. Far fewer hotels treat the distribution as a tedious duty, but recognize the benefits of price optimization in the channels. In addition, 41% of the hotel establishments plan to increase the pool of distribution channels in 2018.

Technology in distribution becomes essential and popular.

Less than half of the hotels use channel managers or other programs to facilitate the distribution of prices. However, more and more often they note the importance of time saved due to the use of a channel manager.

Simple programs which are not supposed to be used for special tasks, such as making revenue management decisions, analyzing data or planning, do not allow to optimize the daily work of hotel establishments and save the time of hotel team. Respondents who do not use a proper program for revenue management spend from 5 to 8, sometimes even to 12 hours weekly working on revenue management tasks.

Understanding the importance of reputation on the Internet and its impact on revenue.

The vast majority of hoteliers understands the importance of customer opinions and hotel image on the internet in 2018. For this reason most of hotel establishments take advantage of the processing and using this data for building positive hotel reputation through the OTA and other portals. Each time growing number of hotels, use the reviews and their position among competitive set, uses the reviews when planning and implementing a revenue management strategy.

RevPAR is still a “classic” KPI in the hospitality industry.

For a large part of the hotel traditional and well known to all the most important performance indicator is RevPAR, but growing group of supporters of the other indicators, such as netRevPAR or T-RevPAR.

A priority order of marketing mix for hotel establishment.

The pricing strategy is a key instrument and a fundamental basis in a hotel business. It helps to control the cash flow and competitive market, coordinate and contribute the positive development of own commercial activities. Since the price determination in the hospitality industry depends on a lot of factors such as competition, market share, brand, identification of a product and operational costs, it is extremely important for the planning online distribution strategy.

More likely, therefore the half of the answerers give primacy to the Price element from year to year.

5 Steps to Effective Multichannel Selling on the Internet

5 Steps to Effective Multichannel Selling on the Internet

5 Steps to Effective Multichannel Selling on the Internet

The Internet has taken over the hotel industry. Most booking decisions made today are based on information found on the Internet. Of course, not every reservation is made over the Internet. Tourists often use the web to search for information on hotels and then do the booking by telephone. One thing is for certain: a 21st century hotel does not exist if it does not make its presence known on the Internet. What is it then that tourists look for when searching for a suitable place to stay? 

The answer seems to be simple: they wish to stay at hotels that have many favourable reviews. They do not want to buy the cat in a bag, but would rather see how the rooms look before making a decision. And, finally, they want to find the best deal. There is a plethora of OTA websites on the Internet that allow hotels to reach prospective guests. However, one must keep in mind that the competition between hotels listed on the websites is fierce, each OTA charges a commission fee and each one has a different interface for managing the hotel’s account. Selling through numerous online channels requires not only the hotel’s ‘presence’ on the web, but also a sound price and brand policy.  

Why choose OTA websites? Some hotels love them, others hate them, and the truth is that their policies sometimes border on the controversial. However, they do enable hotels to reach new markets and bring in new bookings. OTAs often take on the duty of advertising their hotels as they have access to enormous budgets meant for online advertising, mailing, Google Ad-Words, etc.  What is more, their websites are responsive, i.e. compatible with small smartphone displays: a study carried out by HRS demonstrated that almost 20% of hotel reservations are made through the mobile channel. 

How should one go about using different distribution channels to achieve tangible benefits in the form of increased occupancy rates, revenue and profit? Here are the 5 steps to achieving success in the hotel business with online distribution channels.  

  1. Collect positive reviews 

Maintaining a good reputation of your hotel is more important the even the best rate plans! As we all know, the Internet is a means through which dissatisfied customers may ruthlessly complain about the hotel, its standard of service, nasty foot, dirty bathtubs and crumpled sheets. OTA websites have their own grading systems that allow users to sort hotels by their overall rating. This is why the standard of service provided by your hotel should be impeccable! Therefore, remember to encourage your guests to post positive opinions on TripAdvisor or similar websites.   

  1. Content marketing 

Build your brand using content! OTA websites give you the opportunity to create a rich hotel profile with numerous pictures, a long description, a list of hotel attractions and nearby landmarks. Some websites even allow you to post an advertising video. Remember to follow the ‘content is king’ principle and only add pictures of the highest quality to your profile. Do not hesitate to spend some cash on a professional photo session of your hotel – it will surely pay off in the future!   

  1. Choose distribution channels and plan a rate policy 

There are hundreds of partners operating in the market – OTAs, wholesalers, global distributions systems (GDS), etc. Which ones and how many to choose? It all depends on the profile of your hotel and the market segments that it is meant for. You should certainly strike a balance between global and local distribution. Looking into specialised websites (SPA, conferences, wedding receptions, etc.) may be worthwhile if they fit the profile of your establishment. If you offer room packages or have special deals for corporate clients, finding a suitable partner will be necessary. How many channels should your hotel be included in? Our experience proves that hotels sell their services through an average of 5-10 distribution channels.  

Once you have chosen a pool of OTAs suited for your hotel, you must adopt a correct sales strategy. Thus far, many OTAs have included rate parity clauses in their contracts to prevent hotels from offering lower rates on competing websites. However, this year a breakthrough was made when the French National Assembly forbade using the rate parity clause which allows hoteliers to set their rates in all online and offline channels independently.   

  1. Choose sales management tools 

Managing multichannel distribution, especially when each channel has its own rate strategy, is time consuming. Analysing total sales is another challenge you will have to face. Tools which centralise distribution, for example YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager, may prove helpful in this regard. The system makes it possible to centralise, automatise and optimise all internet sales. This includes dynamic enabling/disabling of specific rate plans or creating formulas for automatic rate changes and availability within individual channels, but also changing rates across all channels. The statistics module lets you carry out an in-depth sales analysis and generate occupancy, booking and revenue reports. Channel Manager also has a competition monitoring module: you only have to choose the competing hotels that interest you to receive information about their rates in selected OTA websites. Therefore, you will always be one step ahead of the competition!  

  1. Your website also generates sales! 

Remember that your hotel’s website is the best, least expensive and most effective online sales channel. First, because it is controlled solely by you, and second, it does not limit the number of photos, descriptions, etc. that you may post. Third, according to research carried out by the HSMAI foundation, one in four online reservations in non-chain hotels was made through its website. If you decide to integrate the website with a booking engine, you may sell your services without paying commission fees to OTAs.  

Booking Engine – packages feature

Booking Engine – packages feature

Booking Engine – packages feature

YieldPlanet has released a new feature in the Booking Engine. It allows the hotel to set up packages in one simple screen.

On a single screen, the hotel can enter the following parameters:

  • minimum stay
  • price for the package
  • description of the package e.g: weekend with tour of the city
  • valid dates for the package

and then the package can be shown in the Booking Engine.

The whole operation to set up a new package takes only a few minutes.

Hotel Tech Nights – first edition in Warsaw

Hotel Tech Nights – first edition in Warsaw

Hotel Tech Nights – first edition in Warsaw

Learn about the latest trends in the cutting-edge technologies for hospitality.

Hotel Tech Nights is a series of exclusive and limited events for hotels in the biggest towns in Poland. YieldPlanet, along with Samsung, HBO, Espondi and UPC showcases the latest trends in the cutting-edge technologies for hospitality.

The first edition was held in Warsaw at the VIP lounge at National Stadium, on Thursday, June 22nd. We met over 20 Warsaw hoteliers interested in high technologies trends in hospitality. Our special guest, Art Kurasiński, one of the most renown new-tech bloggers in Poland, showcased examples of virtual reality and augmented reality for hotels around the world. Among the speakers was also Wojciech Herra, motivational speaker and researcher, who talked about how to build strong relationship between a hotel and the hotel guests.

VIEW PHOTO GALLERY

Go social!

Go social!

Go social!

Have you already got a gallery on your website? Great! You have the photos, so now use them on social media too!

Pin the pictures on Pinterest, add them to the hotel Facebook page, use Instagram and user-generated photos to increase social media followings.

Whether you are a small property, independent hotel or part of a larger chain it has never been so easy to grow your audience! And the best of all, it’s free!

YieldPlanet Channel Manager is integrated with MetGlobal/HotelsPro

YieldPlanet Channel Manager is integrated with MetGlobal/HotelsPro

YieldPlanet Channel Manager is integrated with MetGlobal/HotelsPro

We are happy to announce YieldPlanet’s new integration. Metglobal B2B sales channel, used by more than 18 000 travel agents worldwide. Hotelspro is one of the leading hospitality marketplaces that offers access to hospitality products and solutions.

Metglobal B2B sales channel, www.hotelspro.com is being utilized by more than 18 000 travel agents worldwide. Hotelspro is one of the leading hospitality marketplaces that seamlessly offers fast access to relevant and competitively priced hospitality products and solutions on a global scale. As a global wholesaler, HotelsPro offers more than 200 000 hotels, in 15 000 destinations, in 190 countries.

7 things you should know about Brazilian travellers

7 things you should know about Brazilian travellers

7 things you should know about Brazilian travellers

Brazilian are slightly different from other tourists. Having good weather all year round and fabulous beaches in their home country, they are rather interested in shopping, glamour and prestige  gastronomy, sports, historical and cultural attractions. In this context, hotels should gain a deep understanding of their behaviour, likes and dislikes in order to develop effective marketing strategies to target Brazilian travelers. 

7 things you should know about Brazilian travellers: 

  1. They love shopping, To cater to the Brazilian traveler who is looking to buy consumer goods you can create exclusive shopping tourist packages. Many Brazilian guests rent cars to facilitate their shopping trips, so one of these packages may include valet parking; 
  2. Numerous international flights, especially inter-continental, are overnight. Thus, guests from Brazil are early morning or late evening. Givingtchemthe possibility of early morning check-in or late night check-out will give your hotel an added-value; 
  3. Complimentary breakfast is considered a staple in Brazilian culture, A complimentary continental breakfast will give you some extra points;
  4. Brazilians take cleanliness seriously: ultra clean rooms are crucial to guest satisfaction;
  5. Cheerfulness is Brazilian’s middle name:  Staff interactions will be appreciated. Having a Staff member to greet the group or individual in their language will be extremely well received; 
  6. As Portuguese speakers on a Spanish continent, not all Brazilians speak English: localise your hotel website into Portuguese. Additionally, you can have Staff members having a working knowledge of Portuguese to cater to Brazilian guests;
  7. Social media have  become a very influential channel. Blogs, forums, and social networks have become important platforms for sharing thoughts and opinions about travel destinations and hotel experiences. Make sure you don’t miss social media channels in your marketing strategy.
Are Millennials turning to Travel Agents?

Are Millennials turning to Travel Agents?

Are Millennials turning to Travel Agents?

Millennials are one of the most sought-after markets in today’s travel industry. It is no surprise that there is hot competition to suss out and subsequently follow their travel habits and consumer behaviour. 

But, as strange as it may seem, according to research from the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), the most tech and web-savvy segment of the travel industry is leading the way in modern travel agent usage. The research shows that about 30 percent of millennials have booked travel through a travel agent in the past 12 months. The same report shows that 45 per cent of the respondents also said they would recommend a travel agent to friends or family. 

YieldPlanet’s article about Millennials revealed 2 other Millennial attributes: they seek interaction, and are willing to pay more to get a great experience. 

Apparently, for Gen Y, if one wants a better travel experience, one uses an agent. ASTA’s report shows that about two-thirds of the respondents said the consultation they’ve made through travel agents made their overall trip experience better, be it from saving money to helping them avoid booking mistakes. 

Visit us at ABAV Expo in Brasil!

Visit us at ABAV Expo in Brasil!

Visit us at ABAV Expo in Brasil!

YieldPlanet will be exhibiting at ABAV Expo Internacional de Turismo, from the 24th to the 26th of September. Meet us at the stand AA33.

Leader in its segment, ABAV International Tourism Expo, it is currently in its 43nd edition. The fair takes place on September 24th to 26th, at the Anhembi in São Paulo, Brazil.

Feel free to contact us if you would like to meet: sales@yieldplanet.com

YieldPlanet launched a new investment project for a global product category innovation – Hotel Management Optimizer

YieldPlanet launched a new investment project for a global product category innovation – Hotel Management Optimizer

YieldPlanet launched a new investment project for a global product category innovation – Hotel Management Optimizer

Airlines make over 1M fare changes per day to maximize revenue. YieldPlanet wants to bring this discipline to the hotel world, with the assistant of a newly revealed research project called Hotel Management Optimizer.

The HMO is a global product category innovation, allowing hoteliers for the first time to profit from advanced learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to optimize their revenue and profitability with an integrated tool.

YieldPlanet says: “The researchers will develop self-learning algorithms that adapt to changes in the environment which integrated with large numbers of external data sources and Big Data analysis will allow us to measure items that might influence hotel room pricing”.

This research offers a unique opportunity to optimize revenue management systems over thousands of hotels, which introduces some exciting challenges: handling differences in behaviors between different countries, cultures and climates; managing the uncertainty of competitive behavior; blending the sparsity of the data from a single hotel with the richness of a dataset that spans many hotels; and modeling the different ways that markets response to prices.

The YieldPlanet product development team plans to show off their early results mid 2017. The ultimate goal is to release HMO as a cloud software for hotels, in early 2018.

We believe that this form of artificial intelligence will prove especially useful for pricing recommendations. We are confident that we will be delivering results that have practical value to hotels and can improve their revenue and profitability within a 3-4 year time horizon.

The National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR) has granted 5 MPLN from the European Union National Strategic Reference Framework to cover the HMO research. The project will be carried out under the Innovative Economy Operational Programme, priority axis 1. With the EU’s funding, YieldPlanet and its academic partners can research and develop a solution that will be more innovative and superior to what is currently available, putting YieldPlanet in the forefront of research and innovation.

Meet us at FITUR in Madrid, January 18-22

Meet us at FITUR in Madrid, January 18-22

Meet us at FITUR in Madrid, January 18-22

YieldPlanet team will be at the international tourism trade fair FITUR in Madrid, in Spain, next week (January 18-22).

Meet us at Stand 10B41, Hall 10. We will be meeting with current clients and will also offer demos of our product to interested hotels and partners. If you have not seen our product yet or would like to see what’s new, please, contact us and we will get in touch with you to schedule a meeting!

Rates in Online Distribution – a New Deal?

Rates in Online Distribution – a New Deal?

Rates in Online Distribution – a New Deal?

Recent decisions made by the governments of several European countries may have a significant impact on the online hotel distribution system. Hotels will be able to introduce more flexible and independent rate policies. Who wins and who loses on abolishing the parities?

The French administration body that oversees competition on the Internet received a complaint from French hotel operators’ associations and the Accor group which resulted in Booking.com being forced to introduce a number of changes that allow hotels to introduce more flexible, fully independent – at least in theory – rate policies.

Europe leads the changes

Recent decisions made by the governments of several European countries may have a significant impact on the online hotel distribution system. The French administration body that oversees competition on the Internet received a complaint from French hotel operators’ associations and the Accor group which resulted in Booking.com being forced to introduce a number of changes that allow hotels to introduce more flexible, fully independent – at least in theory – rate policies. These changes mean that hoteliers no longer have to abide by the rate parity when dealing with partners, both online booking platforms and traditional sales channels. Hotels will also be able to offer more convenient terms of sale than those of Booking.com, both in their own and their partners’ distribution channels. The freedom to make independent business decisions also applies to allocating the numbers of available rooms to individual sales channels.

Similar decisions were made around the same time by competition monitoring bodies of Italy and Sweden. Legal procedures questioning the rate parity are currently underway in Germany and Great Britain. The European Commission is also looking into online hotel distribution as part of a broader electronic trade investigation. As we can clearly see, the rules of the game in Europe are bound to change soon, however the same cannot be said about the United States. Not too long ago, the rate parity practice was deemed to be compliant with US competition regulations. Last year, a Dallas court ruled that setting uniform rates for the biggest OTAs (Online Travel Agent) by hotel groups is a ‘rational business practice’ that does not go against the interests of consumers and does not hinder competition.

Who wins, who loses?

A new deal is approaching in the rate game between hotels and online partners in the European market (including Poland) and, perhaps in the future, the global market as well.

Who may benefit and who may lose from this turn of events?
Abolishing the parity seems to benefit hotels, especially those that are not part of a chain and, thus, not required to implement a corporate rate policy. Hotels will be able to vary the services that they offer through individual distribution channels in line with their own criteria, for example depending on the commission fee charged by the partners or the segment of the market that the partner specialises in. As regards hotel chains, they are certainly more attached to the rate parity as it allows them to position their brand and maintain uniform prices across all of their hotels. In this case all decisions concerning differentiating prices across distribution channels will most likely be made at the central level, which will allow hotel chains to maintain a coherent rate strategy.

Regardless of the rate parity, hotels will still be able to utilise such rate mechanisms as promotional or corporate codes and package offers which, even now, give them a certain degree of freedom when negotiating with OTA partners. Abolishing the rate, availability and terms of sale parities will obviously not be well received by the biggest OTAs, such as Booking,com and Expedia. They draw in large revenues, mainly due to their 15%-25% commission fees, but at the same time incur heavy expenses mainly tied with advertising and positioning on the Internet (in 2014, over 30% of revenue generated by Priceline, the parent company of Booking.com, was spent on advertising and positioning). The struggle over advertising space and customer attention causes a constant increase of expenses. In these conditions the competing rates of smaller partners, who have less expenses, would put additional pressure on leading OTAs which could lead to them lowering their commission fees.

The pressure would be increased by the fact that diverse rates in the market would be made more evident by rate comparison websites, such as Kayak and Trivago. Rate diversification would probably make these websites the go-to tool for prospective hotel guests, making them leaders in the hotel distribution ecosystem.

Equilibrium returns

Rate diversification will greatly benefit customers – following the decision of the French authorities, even Booking.com issued a press release stating that it will allow for: ‘greater transparency and increased competition between online booking agents. Removing the rate parity will not bring an immediate increase of hotel revenues. Hotel operators should take into account a number of interdependent factors when adopting a diversified rate strategy. Is a partner who charges lower commission fees able to promote the hotel’s services as successfully and bring in a comparable number of bookings as a more expensive partner? How does promoting the hotel through its own website, which is potentially the most financially feasible solution as it does not involve paying commission fees, compare against selling the services through individual distribution channels? How many bookings does the hotel website bring in compared to OTAs? Does selling through a channel with lower rates increase the total number of bookings or does it cannibalise the bookings of another channel?

Abolishing the rate parity will require hotel operators to seek answers to these and many more questions. Finding an optimal solution for your hotel will require adopting a proactive approach to managing your portfolio of sales channels and a gradual modification of parameters meant to maximise revenue and profit. This will require using the right tools, which will aid in making decisions and streamline their implementation.

Flexible strategies and effective management

One of the most notable advantages of tools that automatise online hotel distribution is increasing the control that the hotelier has over the rate policy of his establishment while minimising the effort that rate management would otherwise require. For most hotels, which adhere to the soon-to-be-gone rules of the game, one of the most important functions offered by the tool is controlling the rate parity. Once the rate parity is abandoned, other functions that allow to coherently conduct a diverse rate policy in all of the hotel’s sales channels will gain importance. Tools such as YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager give hoteliers full control over the parity as well as flexibility when setting rates for individual partners. When the rate parity is no longer in force, tools which make it possible to follow the rate strategies of competitors, such as YieldPlanet’s Price Shooper, will grow in importance.