So how can we make informed decisions about our pricing strategies? I mean decisions founded on solid data and statistics. A demand calendar is the answer for your revenue management operations.
A hotel needs an extensive revenue management demand calendar to show multiple demand indicators to appropriately analyze market situations. Sounds nice, right? But what are we talking about …
The most basic version of a demand calendar contains the following information;
- RevPAR last year
- Groups or events last year
- Demand level indicator last year (High, Medium, Low, Distressed)
- Demand level indicator this year
- Bank holidays
- School holidays
- Exceptional demand indicators
Take a look at the example below;
So a lot of the revenue management information is easy to get. RevPAR last year, groups or events in the hotel etc, can be retrieved from internal PMS data. To determine if school holidays or bank holidays affect you, you should run arrival statistics of last years holidays per feeder market (country) against their holidays. This way you can see if any particular school or holiday from a particular country affects your hotel. It allows revenue managers to target it intelligently with special offers and packages this year.
The data and information from your demand calendar can now be integrated into your OTB (on the books) and pick-up summaries. It is a great revenue management tactic that gives you a much broader view of where your hotel is trending.
In the end informed decisions are better decisions, leading to better results from your hotel revenue management efforts!
