Hotel revenue management: Leverage your search data

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Hotel revenue management: Leverage your search data

A creative on Simplotel’s Booking Engine scorecard where the user is looking at booking analytics

What is Hotel revenue management?


Hotel revenue management is the art and science of predicting traveller demand through the understanding of their behaviour and thereby optimising rate plans and room inventory to sell them at the right price and time and to the right customer. Today, revenue managers have become more of data scientists as they attempt to decipher customer demand — a key input that helps in effective pricing of hotel rooms — across various data points. We are here to tell you about another crucial data element that can be leveraged for crafting the right offer for your hotel.

When a hotel guest searches for certain stay days on your booking engine, it reflects their interest in those days and is a proxy for demand. We have witnessed our customers leverage this hotel search data to drive more conversions.

Let us explain this through our two features which are part of our Simplotel’s Booking Engine analytics: ‘Advance Purchase’ and ‘Length of Stay’.
 

Advance purchase

The table below shows how many days before check-in do guests search for your rooms and make a reservation.

 

Booking Window (in days)

Bookings

Searches

Conversion Rate

0

88

881

9.99%

1

81

802

10.10%

2

45

377

11.94%

3

18

214

8.41%

4

9

139

6.47%

5

6

120

5.00%

6

1

62

1.61%

7-14

8

310

2.58%

15-29

6

188

3.19%

30-59

4

109

3.67%

>=60

5

92

5.43%


The above table suggests that guests are predominantly searching and booking either on the same day, a day prior or two days prior. These purchases are the ones that drive the most conversions. However, the hidden statistic to note here is that there are high searches for bookings 7-14 days prior to customers’ stay. This same period has a low- conversion rate. One best practice to increase conversions here is to provide early bird offers.
 

Length of stay

The table below shows the duration most guests are looking to stay for based on your confirmed bookings data.
 

Length of Stay (in days)

Bookings

Searches

Conversion Rate

1

200

2460

8.13%

2

46

421

10.93%

3

14

168

8.33%

4

7

109

6.42%

5

3

21

10.34%

6

1

22

4.55%

7-14

0

68

0%

15-29

0

11

0%

30-59

0

6

0%

>=60

0

0

0%


The above data suggests that though there are reasonable searches for stays of 7-14 days, there have been 0 bookings. This category could add a lot of value to the hotel.

From the ‘Advance Purchase’ and ‘Length of Stay’ data, you can observe that our dashboard provides an indication of how hotels could create the best offers by tracking guest behaviour on the website and booking engine. We also provide actionable alerts on reasons why guests are unable to find what they are looking for.

If your hotel does get a lot of traffic but drives low conversions, then your booking engine funnel could be choked. Get in touch with us to learn more about Simplotel’s Hotel E-commerce (Hotel Website Builder & Booking Engine)!

What is Hotel revenue management?


Hotel revenue management is the art and science of predicting traveller demand through the understanding of their behaviour and thereby optimising rate plans and room inventory to sell them at the right price and time and to the right customer. Today, revenue managers have become more of data scientists as they attempt to decipher customer demand — a key input that helps in effective pricing of hotel rooms — across various data points. We are here to tell you about another crucial data element that can be leveraged for crafting the right offer for your hotel.

When a hotel guest searches for certain stay days on your booking engine, it reflects their interest in those days and is a proxy for demand. We have witnessed our customers leverage this hotel search data to drive more conversions.

Let us explain this through our two features which are part of our Simplotel’s Booking Engine analytics: ‘Advance Purchase’ and ‘Length of Stay’.
 

Advance purchase

The table below shows how many days before check-in do guests search for your rooms and make a reservation.

 

Booking Window (in days)

Bookings

Searches

Conversion Rate

0

88

881

9.99%

1

81

802

10.10%

2

45

377

11.94%

3

18

214

8.41%

4

9

139

6.47%

5

6

120

5.00%

6

1

62

1.61%

7-14

8

310

2.58%

15-29

6

188

3.19%

30-59

4

109

3.67%

>=60

5

92

5.43%


The above table suggests that guests are predominantly searching and booking either on the same day, a day prior or two days prior. These purchases are the ones that drive the most conversions. However, the hidden statistic to note here is that there are high searches for bookings 7-14 days prior to customers’ stay. This same period has a low- conversion rate. One best practice to increase conversions here is to provide early bird offers.
 

Length of stay

The table below shows the duration most guests are looking to stay for based on your confirmed bookings data.
 

Length of Stay (in days)

Bookings

Searches

Conversion Rate

1

200

2460

8.13%

2

46

421

10.93%

3

14

168

8.33%

4

7

109

6.42%

5

3

21

10.34%

6

1

22

4.55%

7-14

0

68

0%

15-29

0

11

0%

30-59

0

6

0%

>=60

0

0

0%


The above data suggests that though there are reasonable searches for stays of 7-14 days, there have been 0 bookings. This category could add a lot of value to the hotel.

From the ‘Advance Purchase’ and ‘Length of Stay’ data, you can observe that our dashboard provides an indication of how hotels could create the best offers by tracking guest behaviour on the website and booking engine. We also provide actionable alerts on reasons why guests are unable to find what they are looking for.

If your hotel does get a lot of traffic but drives low conversions, then your booking engine funnel could be choked. Get in touch with us to learn more about Simplotel’s Hotel E-commerce (Hotel Website Builder & Booking Engine)!