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RateTiger Sales Meet in Taki

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Retreats are a great way for team building as well as setting up goals and strategies. The sales department organized their quarterly team meet at a river-side resort in Taki, 60 kms away from the eRevMax office in Kolkata.

The meet was aimed at having discussions around sales strategies, product focus, recent wins and new targets. It was a great setting with various team members from different locations amid the greenery by the riverside – which helped them bond better, playing, supporting, cheering at each other’s success.

A clear mind and clear understanding of the company’s goals and objectives helped them analyze the roadblocks and strategize new ways to unblock them. The team also underwent sales training sessions which helped them know more about their personality types and how to better deal with prospects. The pictures say it all –

RateTiger - Sales Visit

The environment led to a free flow of communications: sharing customer stories, discussing performance, and developing strategies for the coming months. Among all this, there were some rewards and recognitions and when you receive it with your colleagues and seniors clapping for you, it becomes extra special. Recognizing and awarding the top performers, and celebrating their success lifted the spirits of the team.

RateTiger - Sales top performer

A break from monotony multiplies the brain cells to work faster and more fruitfully. Brainstorming together on the roadblocks helped the team to know each other better, see things from different perspectives, learn from others’ experiences, and discover effective solutions: characteristics of good teamwork.

 
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Future of Online Hotel Marketing Without Third-party Cookies

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Google’s announcement of the retirement of third-party cookies from the online world comes with a lot of ifs and buts. This brings us to dive into cookies. In our last article, we discussed cookies and their role in the world of marketing. While some believe that this will begin an era of targeted marketing as third-party cookies delivered anonymous user data that couldn’t be completely relied on. Others are of the opinion that this retirement will turn the world of online advertising upside down. What do you think?

In this article, we are going to learn about how the hotel owners are adjusting to changes and restrategizing the digital advertisements to run ads and reach the right traveler from 2024- the year Google finally bids farewell to third-party cookies.

RateTiger- 3rd party cookie

How Are Marketers Planning to Deal with Cookie Withdrawal?

The withdrawal of cookies creates room for people-based marketing campaigns. Collecting data directly from the customer, tracking their web activity via a unique digital identity and mapping them with past booking records will help the hotel owners target their ad campaigns directly to prospective travelers. In the upcoming third-party cookie-less world, first-party cookies and hashed emails are going to be the main players of the marketing team for online advertising.

Hashed Email Becomes User’s Digital Identity

It is now accepted that your email id is one of your most valuable identities. Just like your real name, you don’t keep changing your email address. Almost all users have one fixed email address that they usually use to log in to access information, social media, e-commerce, streaming, education, shopping, health, travel – in short for anything and everything.

Hashing email is the process of encrypting the email address into a code of 32 characters. For example, if your email id is xyz@ratetiger.com, the algorithm will convert it into a unique code having a mix of alphabets and numbers like “xdf2hj45bh8gh0965njlg3ddbjte5ji6” which isn’t easy to decode. This will function as your digital identity just as your passport in the offline world.

Wherever the email id will be logged in, the browser will track the activity and help the digital partners create more accurate and precise customer information. Hiding the user identity and respecting the privacy clause of the consumer, hashed email will help the hotel owners track the customer journey and prepare a more customer-centric user persona based on their interests and behavior.

The advantage of hashing email is that it will track the customer journey across all devices where the email address is logged in overcoming the restriction of device-based tracking of third-party cookies. But how to get the email id? As a hotel owner, start with prompting a login on the website once the user is on the booking page or asking for subscribing to special offers or promotions.

RateTiger - Hashed email

First-party Cookie Replacing Third-party Cookies

While Google is to bid farewell to third-party cookies, first-party cookies remain. As explained in our last article, first-party cookies are the cookies used by the owner of the website. Once logged in, it stores the user’s information and preferences like language settings and others saving the traveler from logging in every time they visit the hotel website.

This user data is safe and accurate as it is entered directly by the user. Share this data with marketing partners to match the customer journey against the unique ID (hashed email) generated for this email. This will provide hoteliers with the added advantage of targeting and retargeting the traveler to book a room.

RateTiger - algorithm

Takeaway

Maintaining user privacy, this partnership of hashed email and first-party cookies will help the hoteliers shift their online advertising focus from cookie-based to people-based targeted marketing. This can be a win-win situation for both the user and hotel marketers. The user will be happy that his identity is protected, and the marketing team will be happy to run their ads to a more precise and specific audience list.

A third-party cookie-less world is coming for sure and it’s time for you as a marketer to start revamping your marketing strategy to sustain from the 2nd half of 2024.

 
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The End of Third-party Cookies: Marketers Growing Conscious

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Cookies are everyone’s favorite. Whether you are a kid munching on them or a marketer using them to track users’ online behavior and run your ads to them, we all love cookies. But unfortunately, Google is ready to say goodbye to third-party cookies by the second half of 2024. Whether you like it or not, being a hotel marketer, you need to accept this and plan your next move accordingly.

Let’s Have a Taste of the Cookies

Cookies are a digital marketer’s best friend giving them all the details of a customer’s online journey. An internet cookie is a small text file added to your browser from the website you are visiting. These files track a user’s online journey on the web: which website you visit, time spent, ads clicked, products purchased, collecting data, and initiating targeting, retargeting and cross-site tracking.

As a user, you must have witnessed that once you search for a travel destination on your desktop, you come across related ads to that venue everywhere whichever site you are visiting. Have you ever wondered how they manage to know what you are up to? It is the cookies doing their work. Many a time when you revisit a site the browser automatically fills in your username and data without you having to do so. Again, all thanks to web cookies. Let’s see how cookies work.

First-party cookies: These are the cookies dropped on your server by the host website you visit. It allows the website to collect your data, store language settings and preferences to autofill and ease the customer journey.

Third-party cookies: These are the cookies created by domain owners apart from the website you are visiting and are explicitly used for advertising purposes. For allowing third-party cookies on a site, the owner needs to load the server’s code on their database. It is only when a user clicks on accept cookie button, a site can drop third-party cookies on your server to access your data.

Is it Really the End of Cookies?

A digital world without third-party cookies is nothing new. Firefox and Apple’s Safari have already stopped supporting cookies in 2017. Given the fact that Google Chrome – the largest web browser is used by 64% of the global web users, Google’s announcement of withdrawing third-party cookies will bring an end to the era of third-party cookies which has been ruling the digital world for 30+ years.

For hotel owners who rely a great deal on Google ads for booking, this news might come as a shock, but to your rescue, Google is only crumbling third-party cookies. First-party cookies will still be there ensuring customer privacy and giving the marketers the required data to run target-based ads.

Though Google is crumbling cookies, this is your opportunity to reshape your advertising skills and focus on direct booking building a one-on-one direct relationship with the travelers.

RateTiger- firstparty-cookie

Grabbing More on First-party Cookies

With Google crumbling third-party cookies, it’s time to shift your focus to first-party cookies directly targeting people’s preferences. As explained above, these are cookies used on your own website and collect data directly from the user increasing the reliability of the data you use. Grabbing the user information on your website tells a great deal about users’ travel behavior: where they like going, which type of rooms they prefer staying at and how they prefer traveling. Using this you can create a segmented user persona and target your ads accordingly.

To create a perfect user persona hashed emails and first-party cookies are going to be your perfect partners in the coming days. Hashing an email is the process of converting the email address into a unique code of 32 characters that cannot be decoded to recognize the user’s identity. Together they will store a user’s traveling behavior against their specific digital identity and help the hotel owners run their ad campaigns to a more targeted segment.

We all know that advertisements are the biggest source of Google’s revenue. Speaking of online ads, the majority of advertising and marketing agencies rely on third-party cookies. So, will Google let it go easily? With a year-on-year increase in Google’s advertising revenue from 80.5% in 2020 to 81.3% in 2021 even during the pandemic and anticipating a 10% rise in 2022, there is something definitely in store for the marketers to kick the ball in the right court. Let’s wait for that.

 
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What can hotels do to become more sustainable?

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There’s no doubt that the hotel industry – and, by extension, the travel industry – has a big impact on the environment. But with some small, significant changes, hotels can become more sustainable.

In this post, we’ll explore some simple ways hotels can make their operations more environmentally friendly, therefore reducing their carbon footprint (the name given to the amount of CO2 they produce and release back into the Earth’s atmosphere). Read on to learn more.

RateTiger - Sustainable - Travel

1. Encourage the use of reusable bottles

Add a water bottle filling station to the lobby and any other public areas where people frequently pass through, and consider offering a branded, reusable bottle for guests to buy instead of plastic bottles of water. For every six plastic bottles bought, only one is recycled, and landfills in the US alone have two million tons of discarded plastic water bottles. That’s a lot of waste saved once you switch to a reusable bottle – and adding your hotel’s branding is a nice way to spread the word.

2. Encourage guests to reuse towels

Place signs in the bathrooms encouraging this practice. A study has shown that the wording of these signs has a lot of influence over guest behavior. The researchers used three different signs, all of which noted the environmental impact of washing towels after only one use. However, one of the signs said, “75% of guests in this hotel reuses their towels”, while the third version of the sign said “75% of guests in this room reuses their towels”. The guests who saw the third sign were more likely to reuse their towels. 

You could also install additional towel racks if you have space, to make it easy for guests to hang their towels up to dry.

RateTiger - Carbon -footprint

3. Make it easy for guests to recycle

Provide recycling bins and put them in places which guests frequently pass by, such as near the elevators or in the lobby. Label them clearly so everyone can see where each item can be correctly disposed of.

4. Think about your transport options

Help drivers of electric vehicles feel confident visiting your hotel by providing charging stations in your car park.

If you offer guests complimentary shuttle services, find out if your provider offers electric or hybrid vehicles, and consider switching to a company that does if they don’t. Not just shuttle to the airport, you can provide services to other nearby public transport hubs, like train or coach stations, to encourage your guests not to rely on private cars. You could also offer e-bike or e-scooter rental (with helmets for safety, of course).

5. Conserve energy

It’s not enough to hope that guests remember to switch off the light anymore. Technology has evolved enough that hotels can automate energy conservation, reducing their impact on the environment and reducing their energy bills too.

  • Room sensors can detect how much light is in the room, adjusting the brightness of light bulbs accordingly.
  • Thermostats with occupancy sensors can adjust the temperature of heaters or air conditioning.
  • Smart showers can be pre-set with a limit on how long someone can take a shower, and notify the person when their time is almost up.
RateTiger - Travel - conserve energy

6. Buy supplies locally

Whether you’re shopping for produce at a local market or sourcing interior decoration from an independent shop nearby, buying products from your area is a much more eco-friendlier way of shopping. You don’t need to worry about the impact of shipping or flying items all the way across the globe – and you might find a bargain you can’t get anywhere else.

In conclusion, there are lots of things hotels can do to reduce their impact on the world around us, and this is just a starting point! We hope you’ve found these tips helpful. If you have any other suggestions, please let us know.

Geoff is a freelance content producer and researcher from Plymouth, MA. Apart from his projects, he also attends different conferences and events on business marketing, sustainability, travel, and safety.”

About Author | Geoffrey Aldis

 
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Hotel Online Distribution During Post-Covid Recovery

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Covid19 had severely hit the travel and hospitality industry. Its true travel has resumed and Q2 of 2022 is witnessing more tourists than Q1, but the impact is still felt. This virus has completely changed respondents’ preferences while booking a trip. Though digital distribution is the cornerstone for hotels to sell their rooms at this time, it won’t come as a surprise to know that even large hotel groups are also struggling to adjust to changes.

Undoubtedly both hotels and guests have unlimited options in this online world, but with this comes the restrictions of a finite number of rooms to sell, customer preference, market trends, limited budgets, social distancing, covid norms and so the list goes on. The pandemic and ongoing recovery are pushing the hotel industry to be adoptive, competitive, and resilient. Travel technology, as always, is expected to play a key role in this transition.

Even before the pandemic, 82% of all travel bookings around the world took place without human interaction in 2018. According to the Phocuswright EU Travel Tech Research Report 2022, travel intermediaries such as online travel agencies (OTAs), tour operators, travel management companies (TMCs) and GDS– delivered over 63% of gross revenue to European travel suppliers in 2020. As travelers in the post-covid world search for more in-depth information than ever before to identify the most appropriate accommodation for their travel needs, they turn to online distribution channels, using them during the inspiration, shopping, and booking stages of their customer journey.

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Relook At Your Hotel’s Online Distribution Strategy

Distribution, optimization, and profit maximization are the 3 interconnected rings of hotel online distribution. The goal of an online hotel distribution strategy remains the same to sell your rooms at the right time to the right people at the right channel for maximum rooms. Even the sales platforms are the same: OTAs, metasearch, GDS, website, social media, ad campaigns; but the style needs to be updated.

Even during the Covid crisis, one in five travel bookings in Europe is made on OTAs. Much has been written about the Billboard effect. OTAs play a major role in improving the hotel’s visibility and reach by showcasing them in the search results, thereby complementing direct sales. A recent report from Cornell Business, The Billboard Effect: Still Alive and Well, shows that many consumers continue to visit other travel sites before booking direct. The report suggests that 65% of guests who booked directly had visited an OTA before booking directly.

Adding to OTA’s marketing power, it becomes clear why OTAs remain very important even for hotel’s direct bookings. For years, Booking Holding and Expedia Group have remained the biggest spenders on Google – a platform that can be called their competitor. Airbnb has also ramped up its marketing spending as part of its recovery. Hotels need to use OTA listings to improve their digital presence and showcase their accommodation to thousands of potential guests who otherwise would miss it.

Spend More Time Knowing Your Hotel Distribution Channels

Hotel Website

Your hotel’s website has always been and will be the largest source of direct bookings. It is the only platform that allows you to customize your content and sell your rooms the way you want. While creating your website, remember 50% of viewers are scrolling your website on their smart phones or tablet. Design a site that’s quick and easily accessible on mobile enhancing the customer booking journey.

For big hotel brands whose name is known to all, prospective guests will directly type the name of the hotel in the search bar of Google, Bing and other search engines and begin. Others need to fight for ranking on Google to grab that 51% of the organic website traffic. If your hotel doesn’t show on the first page, then you are to lose the prospective booking. Invest in SEO, content marketing and online advertising to rank well on search engines and attract travelers.

OTA (Online Travel Agency)

Everyday millions of travelers across the world are planning their vacations or business trips on OTA. Bringing all travel resources: flights, hotels, trains, buses, car rentals, activities, and more under one platform OTA gives travelers the advantage to plan their entire trip at a go.

Visited by millions of customers, OTA gives your hotel the advantage of presenting yourself in front of a large audience and capture more bookings by targeting a specific set of travelers. You can timely analyze your performance with access to insights. Bang-on listing on OTA is free. They charge you a commission only when a booking a made.

People of different regions prefer different websites with Booking.com dominating US travel booking and Expedia in Europe. Diversify your reach by listing your property on multiple sites most used in the regions your best guests are from.

Metasearch

As per Expedia’s recent survey, a traveler does 43 searches before making the final booking. This is what makes Metasearch a popular booking channel. Along with traveler’s preferences, there has been a shift in power dynamics among the key online sales channels. Hotel Metasearch is no more just a platform showing the best room rates for the same hotel on different booking sites.

Metasearch channels are dominating the entire game, especially with Google and TripAdvisor altering the risk of PPC campaigns with CPA campaigns. Guests get the assurance of easy cancellation and refunds with the hotel owners having to pay only after receiving the booking and no advance payments required. This comes as a boon for both travelers and hotel owners.

The dedicated offerings and Covid-related norms followed by distribution channels (especially Google) like flexible bookings, free cancellation, safety guidelines mentioning, child policy and others make the prospective travelers prefer those over others.

RateTiger-OTAS

Wholesalers/ Tour Operators/ Travel Management Companies

Travel agencies, wholesalers and tour operators target at providing a complete travel package to the customers. They take care of all components of a holiday from travel to stay to food to activities. Thereby, they take rooms in bulk at a discounted price from the hotel owners and other providers and make a package and sell it to the end-users either via OTAs or directly from their website or social media or offline.

Selling rooms at discounted rates to travel operators will be beneficial for you to increase your occupancy rate. They can help you reach international travelers too as generally people book international tours via some travel agencies which you would have missed otherwise. Plus, if the location, amenities, and service provided attract the visitors you increase your chance of bookings the next time they visit.

Offline Sources

Focusing on online channels, do not miss the offline network that has been generating revenue for you over years. Phone calls, billboards and banners, word of mouth are your biggest source of offline bookings. Post covid telephonic queries have increased as people prefer talking directly to the hotel regarding their needs. Instantly answering phone calls and replying to messages and emails within 2 hours is the key to boosting your offline bookings.

How Are You Going to Manage All Distribution Channels?

The answer is Hotel Channel Manager, a software that connects all your distribution sites with the hotel PMS/ CRS helping you to manage and update ARI across all channels with a click in real-time. Now when you have decided to diversify your online distribution network and you know your distribution channels, integrate them all together and bring them under one screen with Hotel Channel Manager. Using a channel manager like RateTiger Hotel Channel Manager will speed up the inventory update process, eliminating overbookings and giving you time to focus more on guests.

Tips to Strategize Your Online Distribution

Find Your Target Audience

Begin with knowing your target audience. The modern travel market is very broad and so is the traveler’s demand, so first decide who you want to catch in your net. Once you know who your audience is, it is time to list down your audience preference in this newly boomed travel world. There is a probable chance of having your audience grouped into various categories. One section of the audience may give value to safety, another may be looking for a new experience, for some cleanliness and hygiene may be a top priority. So, prepare your audience proforma accordingly based on age, demography, income, destinations, choices and demands.

Set Room Pricing & Promotion Strategy

Now when you know who your audience is and how much time they are spending on Google, OTAs, metasearch, social media planning their trip and which platform is gaining people’s trust – it’s time to set the room rates and plan your promotion strategy. Post-Covid prices and preference for leisure travel remain the same with only a slight decline in upper upscale properties from 24% to 22% and a rise in mid-scale properties from 27% to 31%.

Maintain your room rates in line with the competitor pricing, listing and promoting all your rooms from single bedroom to suites to room packages to attract every traveler in your vicinity. Keep track on competitor pricing for similar room types with Rate Shopping tools and gift yourself the benefit of hotel market intelligence to set the best price for your property.

FYI: Maintain rate parity across all channels for maximum benefits.

Drive Bookings from Social Media

Social media had become one of the only sources of entertainment during the pandemic. Whatever people were doing from cooking to home décor to gardening, social media was the first to know. This gave content marketing a makeover.

Today people are even finalizing their travel destination by seeing the ads/ content on social media. Traditionally, it was just image marketing which has now turned into videos, travel diaries, short hotel digital tour, GIF, and going live.

The biggest challenge with social media content is the life span. A person may see something, get attracted, and then forget about it. So, integrate your social media channels with the Booking Engine offering the Book Now option to pull in direct bookings without delay.

RateTiger- hotel-socialmedia

Do Not Miss the Acquisition Cost

Parallel to the objective of getting more bookings, revenue management continues to dominate the landscape. The key is to calculate the acquisition cost for every booking that you receive from direct or indirect channels. For bookings from OTAs and metasearch calculate acquisition cost in terms of commission or subscription fees or CPC (Cost Per Click) or transaction fees and others. For direct bookings, your cost includes the resource cost, technology cost, digital marketing cost and others.

Your end goal is to generate revenue. So, calculate the NRevPAR for each of your distribution channels individually and your distribution mix in total to figure out how your hotel is performing. This will help you take a decision on which channel is to be stopped or which one requires more effort and strategize your distribution accordingly.

Takeaway

Diversify your distribution mix and optimize your sales and promotion strategy accordingly to keep revolving around the counter of revenue maximization. Shake hands with the fluid environment and key distribution channels. This way you will generate infinite ways to sell your finite rooms to the ever-evolving travelers around the globe.

 
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Your Guide to Understanding Airbnb’s Search Rank Algorithm

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Airbnb uses an algorithm to generate search results that appeal to guests. The algorithm sorts through millions of listings on Airbnb to find the right listings for each search. Guests enter search criteria, and the algorithm returns listings that reflect those criteria.

Airbnb provides a variety of filters to help guests refine search results. The algorithm considers many factors to determine how to rank search results, but some factors have a larger impact than others. In particular, the quality, popularity and price of a listing heavily influences how a listing appears in search results. Airbnb’s algorithm considers how often guests click on your listing, how often guests attempt to contact you from your listing page, and how many booking requests you accept.

If you want your listings to always outperform your market, these are some of the most important things for you to do:

Price – To determine how attractive the price of a listing is, the algorithm considers a variety of price data, including how the price compares to similar listings in the area for the given dates. Listings that are priced below other comparable listings – other listings in the area with similar guest capacity and amenities – tend to rank higher in search. Setting a competitive price can help improve your ranking because listings offering the best value in any given region tend to appear higher in search results.

Location – The location of a stay also has a large impact on how the listing appears in search results. Listings located in places that guests like to stay tend to rank higher – for example, accommodations close to popular landmarks.

RateTiger - hotel - location

Enhance your listing – Airbnb’s algorithm factors in how guests engage with your listing, when guests attempt to contact you from your listing page, and whether guests add your listing to their wish lists. If lots of guests add your listing to their wish lists, it will also rank higher, and those guests will be likely to find your listing again in future searches.

To help spark guests’ interest:

  • Feature a high-quality cover photo that looks inviting.
  • Describe the unique characteristics of your space in specific, accurate details that let guests know exactly what to expect.
  • Offer amenities that guests want, such as high-speed wi-fi and free parking.

5-star Reviews – One of the categories that affect search ranking is the listing details and one component of it is the number of 5-star reviews. Consider sending a message to your guests asking for honest feedback for their stay that will potentially help you become an even better Host.

RateTiger- hotel - reviews

Option for Instant Book – Guests often search for listings with Instant Book. Keeping your calendar up-to-date is key to using Instant Book successfully. Many hosts report that they earn more money by making the booking process easier for guests, and that they appreciate the convenience this provides. Use Instant Book so your listing appears whenever guests search for Instant Book listings in your area. Once the responses are immediate and automatic, Instant Book can also improve your ranking.

Quick Response – Respond to requests within 24 hours to help improve your ranking in search. Try to avoid repeatedly declining booking requests. Though it’s occasionally necessary to decline a booking, doing so often can negatively affect your search ranking because having reservations rejected is a poor experience for guests.

Cancellation Policies – A great way to stand out to potential guests is by offering flexible cancellation policies. Adding a new, more flexible policy or updating an existing policy to make it more accommodating can help you secure more bookings in times of low demand and high uncertainty. Airbnb’s latest data shows that hosts who switched from a strict or moderate cancellation policy to a flexible policy after April 2020 saw an increase in next-month bookings of 10% or more. Last minute bookings are also on the rise and much less likely to be cancelled. In 2021, the average cancellation rate by a guest was around 15% making Airbnb a very attractive solution for accommodation providers.

Pricing – Promotions and Discounts – Promotions are special prices that a property can offer during a certain time window, or to a certain type of bookers. Hosts can encourage travelers to book longer stays by offering a weekly or monthly discount. Hosts can encourage their guests by promoting early bird rates and last minute deals. Less than 50% of hosts offer a weekly or monthly discount, and those who do tend to get more bookings for longer stays. Also, if you add a monthly discount, your listings will be searchable by guests looking for listings for more than 28 nights.

RateTiger - best -hotel- deals

While Airbnb marketing is an essential part of business growth, it is equally important to be visible across different channels and travel sites. RateTiger offers strong connections with over 450 OTAs and technology providers. The company provides channel management, price intelligence, connectivity solutions and centralized management platform to hotel chains, independent and boutique properties and large serviced apartment groups globally.

You can now manage your property on Airbnb via RateTiger. Contact us today to connect to Airbnb or manage your existing connection via RateTiger – https://www.erevmax.com/airbnb/#register

 
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Travel Tech Announces Third APAC Edition from 12 – 15 July 2022

Press Release
travel tech apac 2022

Singapore, 7 July 2022


Invites Asia Pacific hotel and travel tech professionals to participate

Travel Tech, the world’s largest education-based travel technology conference series, is proud to announce its third event of the 2022 schedule: TRAVEL TECH APAC, taking place online from July 12 – 15, 2022.

Travel Tech APAC will feature expert speakers from top travel technology companies, including RateTiger, BookOnlineNow, ReviewPro, Paraty Tech, KePSLA, HS Latam, HSMAI APAC and many others, to share specific educational knowledge to our trade and actionable strategies to help hotels, travel tech professional and tourism companies.

The Travel Tech APAC conference consists of a daily Masterclass, a two-hour panel discussion featuring top tech executives on topics specifically related to Asia-Pacific tourism, each day.

• July 12, 2022: Best practices to an efficient distribution strategy: Direct and Indirect Sales, Digital Marketing and Revenue Manager in tourism

• July 13, 2022: Guest Experience on smart destinations and hotels. How to empower your sales through guest experience.

• July 14, 2022: The future of tourism: metaverse, gamification, supper apps

• July 15, 2022: Pitch Session

After each day’s Masterclass, professionals will have the chance to learn about the top technological solutions available to improve their operational processes, and increase bookings and revenue, during the 15-minute, live-streamed Pitch Sessions. In the Pitch Sessions, leading hospitality technology companies will teach hoteliers how implementing their solutions could help them to reach profitability more quickly.

TRAVEL TECH APAC is available as a free event for travel and hospitality professionals. Register here – https://traveltechapac2022.getresponsepages.com/

 
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What is a Good Hotel Occupancy Rate?

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Hotel Occupancy Rate is one of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for hoteliers as it is directly related to revenue. As a performance metric, it showcases the percentage of hotel rooms occupied and goes alongside other revenue management strategies like ADR (Average Daily Rate) and RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room). The three terms altogether reflect the performance of the hotel, and the percentage keeps changing from season to season.

With travel booming after a break of 2 years in U.S, the hotel occupancy rate in summer 2022 is at par with pre-pandemic booking levels in April and May 2019. As per Amadeus’ Demand360, April 2022 was the first month to outcast the reservations in 2019, rising to 63% in May 2022 compared to 60% in May 2019.

In this article, we are going to have a clear understanding of what is occupancy rate for hotels, its importance, how to calculate it, and the ideal occupancy percentage.

What is Hotel Occupancy Rate?

In general terms, the hotel occupancy rate is the percentage of rooms occupied in an accommodation in comparison to the total number of rooms in the property. The occupancy rate can be calculated on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis as required. It gives the hotel owners like you an estimate of how much space is occupied during a particular period and plan your strategy accordingly.

Why is Occupancy Rate Important for Hotels?

Occupancy rate is an important KPI for hotels as it helps you understand how many rooms are booked and how many are going vacant during each season. If the number of rooms booked matches the target set then the hotel’s strategy is correct, but if the number is below the target set then, you need to readdress your distribution and pricing policy.

In an ideal world, you will aim for a 100% occupancy rate and set the room rates as high as possible to get the most of your strategy set and optimize your revenue. But this is not the story always. Hence, the occupancy rate with ADR and RevPAR is calculated to get the actual performance report.

How to Calculate Occupancy Rate?

The formula to calculate “hotel occupancy rate” is as follows:

Occupancy Rate = No. of rooms sold/ Total no. of rooms in the hotel

Let us take the example of Hotel ABC with 100 rooms. If on any day all the 100 rooms of a hotel are sold, then the occupancy rate will be 100%. If on a particular day in June only 60 rooms are sold, then the occupancy rate will be 60%. From where did this percentage come? Let’s see:

Total no. of rooms = 100

Case 1

No. of Rooms Sold = 100

Occupancy rate = 100/100 = 1 or 100%

Case 2

No. of Rooms Sold = 60

Occupancy rate = 60/100 = 0.6 or 60%

This was occupancy rate calculation on a per-day basis. If you are to calculate the weekly occupancy rate or average rate per week, then add the number of rooms sold each day for 7 days, divide the sum by 7 and then divide the result by the total number of available rooms for sale in the hotel and multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage. Sounds confusing?

Let’s take the example of Hotel ABC for a week in June:

No. of rooms sold in a week

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
60 54 72 60 82 95 95

Total no. of rooms sold = 518 rooms

Average no. of rooms sold = 518/7 = 74

Weekly occupancy rate = 74/100 = 0.74 or 74%

The weekly occupancy rate will of course vary from week to week depending on the number of rooms sold. But this data will give you an idea of how your hotel is performing week over week and how your sales will fluctuate during different times of the year.

Important note: It is customary to subtract the rooms that are out of order or under renovation from the “total number of rooms” while calculating the occupancy rate.

Is Your Hotel Occupancy Rate Good?

From a general perception, a good occupancy rate will of course be 100% and that should be the target of every hotelier. But it is not always so. There are instances when even with 100% occupancy you aren’t earning maximum revenue and hotels are happy with less occupancy but more revenue. After all, the end goal for every business is revenue maximization.

The ideal occupancy rate varies from hotel to hotel. For some, it can be between a range of 70-95%, though the best occupancy rate may depend on multiple factors like the hotel’s location, no. of rooms, room rates, service, etc.

From an occupancy point of view, if Hotel ABC sells all rooms everyday and has a 100% occupancy rate, it is awesome. But in this case, they might be losing out on revenue that they could have earned by selling fewer rooms at a higher price.

From the revenue point of view, selling 100 rooms means the electricity cost, cleaning cost, laundry cost, and other variable costs for 100 rooms. Suppose 1 staff caters to 8 rooms, then for 100 rooms you need 12.5 staff which isn’t practically possible, so Hotel ABC will have to hire 13 staff. It will be in the best interest of the hotel to sell 96 rooms. Plus, if any guest isn’t happy with their room or there is some problem in any room, they will have an extra room to offer to them and win their loyalty.

Takeaway

The best occupancy rate for your hotel is the level at which your NRevPAR is maximum. It is the key indicator of the hotel’s historic, real-time, and future performance and should be measured against average daily rate and revenue per room to find the ideal occupancy percentage for your hotel.

 
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