In early 2023, InnQuest sent out an email to all users of its hotel property management system (PMS) roomMaster 2000 to notify them that the on premise version of the software would stop working at the end of 2024. All hotel clients would have to migrate to roomMaster Cloud or roomMaster Anywhere. One of my hotel clients changed over to roomMaster Cloud recently. There has been several issues with the process from start to finish. Below are some things to be aware of during the transition to help hotels make an informed decision.

What is roomMaster Cloud?

Let’s start at the beginning with a quick overview of what is happening.

roomMaster 2000 is an on premise hotel PMS that is ideal for medium-sized properties up to 100-150 rooms. That means that the hotels have a main computer acting as the server for roomMaster with a central database, and then additional workstations that would access that server over the local network. This allows for multiple users to be accessing the hotel database (i.e. two front desk computers and an office administrator/General Manager) but also allows housekeepers to update the status of rooms being cleaned by dialling from the in-room phone. There were many benefits to having on premise server, but the main one was the ability for the hotel to still function during a power outage as long as the computers were connected to a UPS power backup. The main downside is anyone away from the hotel did not have access without using remote desktop software to connect to the server.

That setup is familiar to anyone who worked in hotels in the late 1990s and were using Opera, Maestro, or a lot of other hotel PMS systems around the world.

roomMaster Cloud takes the server away from the hotel and makes it accessible remotely through the internet using a web browser. This is how most modern hotel PMS systems are now, in addition to the internet in general. Not only does that allow hotels to have as many users as they want connected to the hotel PMS, it allows for InnQuest to upgrade the software more easily. With the on premise version, a support tech would have to set a scheduled time to log into the hotel server and perform the software upgrade manually. With the Cloud, the support team can upgrade more easily at night automatically.

The downsides to using a cloud-based PMS are generally going to be that the system is slower (dependent on your internet connection speed) and the system will be unaccessible if the internet or power goes out completely. In a larger city, this is less of a concern, but in more remote locations, it is something to be aware of.

With the on premise version ending, hotels will have to decide whether to buy a different on premise system (Maestro and Opera being two options) or go through with the conversion to Cloud. The primary reason to go to Cloud is the hotel database will be fully intact – reservations, rates, direct billing accounts, guest profiles, etc. With a new system, there may be a lot of manual entries unless they can import the roomMaster database (which is unlikely). Manually entering the reservations would be a major chore, but doable. The biggest loss if going to a different PMS, in my opinion, is all the guest information and company history disappearing.

Differences

There are very minor differences with Cloud versus roomMaster 17 (latest on premise version). The first difference is accessing the software. At front desk workstations or other computers at the property, there will be a launcher on the desktop. This will open up roomMaster Cloud automatically through the default web browser. Nothing too different there besides the web browser.

With people not at the hotel and want to connect remotely, they will have to first access a different website, sign-in, and then it will redirect them to roomMaster Cloud where you have to sign in again. It behaves differently than expected, and a bit clumsy compared to all the other interfaces we have come to be comfortable with on the web. What appears to happen is a person accesses the first website, enters their credentials, and the system pulls up the correct location of the Cloud server to have you remotely access that computer. There is a Windows log-in screen, but you don’t have access to anything else on that server except for roomMaster (which is understandable).

After you sign-in, the look of roomMaster Cloud is going to be almost identical. There are some minor differences to the look and how things function, but instead of writing them out, it will be best to watch some of the short videos InnQuest prepared. There are 9 videos, roughly 30 mins in length in total, which covers all the differences. I compiled them into a playlist to make it easier for people to watch.

Besides the differences in the software, another difference will be the requirement of a separate keypad to be used to record credit card numbers. A regular keyboard won’t work when entering the credit cards on roomMaster. There are two keypads included with the installation, and it is critical that they be on site before migrating to the Cloud. Be sure to follow-up about the keypads being sent and ask for a tracking number.

The final annoyance has been with file exports. Sending the PDFs by email worked well for guest folios and company statements. In order to save the PDF or CSV files to a computer, a user will have to go through OwnCloud, which is a private OneDrive/Dropbox for companies. From roomMaster Cloud, the file will be exported to OwnCloud, and then 5-20 minutes later, the file is available to transfer from a folder on your personal computer. The delay is a major nuisance and there is no workaround right now. InnQuest support did tell me that they are working on integrating a new solution, but there is no timeline for that to occur.

Next Steps

Assuming you have taken the time to research the options, watched a demo of Cloud, and have decided to go through with the migration to Cloud, the next step is receiving the quote. This process is relatively straight forward (number of rooms, any interfaces required like call recording or connecting to a channel manager like SiteMinder).

The primary thing to be aware of is the contract that is sent out is not the full contract. There is a brief mention of their master services agreement which is linked to but the language is not included in the document you sign. The other thing of note is it was a bit slow communicating with the InnQuest representative. It took a few weeks from the initial email stating we wanted to proceed to a contract being sent to us.

There was also no clear guideline of what was to happen after the contract was signed. The assumption was the next steps would be communicated promptly after the contract was signed. There was no contact for three weeks with anyone. I think part of that was a closure for the Christmas holidays, but I expected something, not radio silence.

When you are contacted by an onboarding agent, there are three appointments:

1. First onboarding call to remotely access roomMaster and review the configuration
2. Tokenization of the credit cards currently in the system
3. Migrating the database to the Cloud and switching the hotel on

The first call is to answer any additional questions you may have about the migration. They also test the internet connection to make sure it meets their requirements of 30 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds. During this call, it will be important to try to nail down a schedule of when things are going to happen so you can plan. Be sure to provide the information for all the people who are going to remotely log-in (names and email addresses) so their accounts can be setup in advance.

The tokenization of the credit cards is securing the information so it can be transferred to the cloud from one database to another. It does require no one using roomMaster for 10-15 minutes while the process starts, but otherwise roomMaster remains functional. The only limitation during this process is credit cards can’t be authorized or charged. You may also have to restart the server after it’s done. When the tech was completed, the hotel wasn’t informed and received error messages from the server.

The migration of the database is the most important day in the whole process. During this time, roomMaster will not be able to be used. It’s the biggest inconvenience with switching a PMS to a different one. In the case of this hotel, it required some important preparations. I put the list into a Google Doc for everyone to review and modify for their unique situations. Depending on the size of your roomMaster database, there may be some information that won’t be accessible afterwards. This is dependent on the technician eliminating some older information that won’t affect future reservations. It will be best to clarify with the technician what is going to be accessible and what won’t be after the migration.

When Going Live

After the conversion is complete, the front desk agents will be able to sign into roomMaster Cloud using their old credentials. Before ending the call with the technician, there are a few things to be mindful of:

• verify that an account with Admin level authorizations can log in, in case passwords need to be reset for anyone working that night
• verify that remote access is working
• verify that the keypads for credit card numbers is working
• verify that credit card authorizations are working (create a test reservation and run a personal card for $5)
• verify that all the extras connected to roomMaster are working (key card machines, POS, call accounting, channel managers, etc)

This should all be checked by the technician on the call, but wasn’t in my case, which lead to several follow-up calls in the next few days. Dealing with it all at once will be much better for everyone.

The only other thing to add about this whole process is the support office for InnQuest can be terribly slow. For nearly 15 years, I have been working with the InnQuest Canada support office which has been fantastic. It was a bit of a wake-up call dealing with the US office now through all this. Looking at some of the reviews for InnQuest, I don’t seem to be alone.

Other than the process to changeover to roomMaster Cloud, the hotel using it hasn’t had any challenges. All the reservation data transferred over seamlessly, city ledger accounts were accurate, and guest history was all there. It still remains a solid choice for medium-sized properties. A smaller operation or a simpler structure like a motel will like be better off with Little Hotelier or other cloud-based PMS.

If you have any other questions or concerns about this process, and whether roomMaster Cloud is right for your property, feel free to contact me. I will answer your questions to the best of my ability to make sure your process goes more smoothly than it did for me.

The post Navigating the Shift from roomMaster 17 to Cloud: Key Considerations and Cautions appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

Earlier in the year, an article titled Use SiteMinder To Save Money And Earn More Revenue was published here, projecting the savings that would happen after switching a property’s central reservation system (CRS). That article was mainly speculation on the fees associated with direct bookings and not having to pay for a service like GuestFolio for guest messaging. Around the same time the article was published, a boutique hotel was switched over to SiteMinder. Now, some more accurate numbers can be shared about the effect SiteMinder is having on that property.

Lower Fees – Big Time

In that article, the following table was shared to come up with an baseline to work with.

Followed by this table with an estimated cost for the same amount of bookings but using SiteMinder:

That projected difference works out to a savings of 44%. The actual savings in the last six months on the fees above is 61%!

But, the higher fees for the SiteMinder platform also includes Guest Experience for messaging and guidebook. This boutique hotel was using GuestFolio which was charging $400/month, plus the Sabre monthly fee on top. SiteMinder combined with Guest Experience is less than GuestFolio, creating another small savings.

Booking.com

The big surprise in savings came from Booking.com.

One of the main features of SiteMinder is Demand Plus, which creates a featured link on Google searches, TripAdvisor, and Trivago. It puts the link to the hotel at the top of the listings. If you use the free link from the Google Business profile, the link appears at the very bottom of all the options.

It was not entirely clear how much of an effect adding the link to the very top of the results would have. Turns out, it’s quite dramatic.

For this hotel, the Booking.com fees have dropped by 60% for the last six months. Those commission fees (18%) can really add up, so to have them essentially eliminated while maintaining the overall hotel revenues has been a real blessing.

The other side benefit to this is the hotel receives all the contact information for the guest and can keep encouraging them to book directly at the site, rather than through Google. The added savings should only grow. With Guest Experience on SiteMinder, every Booking.com reservation is sent a link to fill out their personal details. That helps pull more people away from Booking.com (or other OTAs) and gives the hotel the opportunity to have them book directly.

The other thing of note with Demand Plus occurred when reviewing their analytics page. It shows the impressions and conversion rate for each platform. Google was regularly in the 30% conversion range, while TripAdvisor was in the 10%’s, and Trivago had nearly nothing. This hotel is regularly one of the top 3 hotels in the city on TripAdvisor, so it was surprising to see the conversion rate be that much lower.

Combining the fees for reservations, commissions, and monthly fees, the overall costs over the last six months have been down nearly 40%, without having lost any revenues.

Switching to SiteMinder has made a lot of sense financially, and the user experience has been as expected. The only real headache was adjusting the confirmation/pre-arrival emails to look better. The email editor is in HTML, but not a WYSIWYG editor like some other platforms. Overall, I think the emails look good now, and not something that needs to be adjusted for a long time.

Fully Featured

The full set of features for SiteMinder can be found on the page devoted to it: Learn More about SiteMinder

There is currently a sale on SiteMinder, along with a free trial. To learn more about the sale, fill out the form below and more information will be sent to you. For the trial, click the button below to sign up.

Any signups through Four Sides Hospitality Consulting include assistance with the transfer from one CRS to SiteMinder, and consulting time to talk about best practices with SiteMinder.

The post Maximizing Efficiency: The SiteMinder Experience – 6 Months Later appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

Earlier this summer, trivago announced a new way for independent hotels to drive bookings through a free booking link. This link appears on the hotel profile when doing a search on the website. With trivago receiving 60 million visits per month, allowing hotels to redirect to their own websites from the site is incredibly important in capturing the guest.

We believe metasearch is well positioned in this environment, and we’ll focus on making it even easier for travellers to find great deals on our platform.

Matthias Tillman, CFO Trivago

The metasearch companies, like trivago, that compile the the various room rates across other booking sites are becoming a more important step in the booking process for the traveller. Before this year, those searches redirected the traveller to Booking.com, Expedia, and other booking sites. The hotels pay higher commissions for those reservations, but the guest also pays in the form of a worse booking experience.

With the free booking link, similar to the links that can be created on Google Business and Apple Business Connect, hotels will be able to give those guests the best booking experience from the start. It will allow guests to see all the available room types, add on dinner reservations, or explore the other options available at the property that generate more revenue for the hotel.

The completed bookings will be charged a commission depending on the partner and the campaign you choose. It is going to be a lower commission than Booking.com and Expedia, and the guest information will be yours to use with future offerings. Continue reading for more details about this.

trivago Business Studio

The starting point for the free booking link is trivago Business Studio. The Business Studio is laid out in a very clean and organized way, with only a few areas to look at.

The main page is a dashboard giving you valuable insights into how the hotel is performing through TripAdvisor.

The top of the dashboard is the conversion funnel, showing you the number of searches for hotels in your location, impressions on the property, and then the number of clicks on the property deals. That report gives you the total number, and breaks it down into the different distribution channels. With this example, you can see the SKKY Hotel, is experiencing 70% click-thru to the website for reservations.

If you use a channel manager that partners with trivago, like SiteMinder, you will be able to determine how well those reservations are converting. On SiteMinder, trivago is part of the Demand Plus area, which pushes the up to date rates out to trivago to display. On their Insights tab, it tells me that the reservations are converting around 20%, which is the same as Booking.com reservations.

The other tab on trivago Business Studio allows hotels to update all their information about the property. Unlike Booking.com that goes through an approval process for changes, trivago updates the listing instantly. There isn’t as much control over how images are displayed (i.e. changing the order or adding captions), but uploading the pictures was quick and easy. The other information that is available to change is the description for the hotel, and all the amenities at the property using checkboxes. The amenity list is not quite as extensive as Booking.com’s list.

TripAdvisor Rate Connect

The Rate Connect tab is where the hotelier will be able to determine what commission structure they would like. With SiteMinder, the structure is a pay per stay for completed reservations. In order to get access to the other options, you will have to be working with one of trivago’s connectivity providers.

Pay-per-Click: This campaign allows you to set a monthly budget and get charged when a potential guest clicks through to your website. The hotel will be charged regardless of whether the guest books or not.

Pay-Per-Booking: With this campaign, the hotelier chooses their commission structure (12%, 15%, 18%, or 25%) and allows trivago to place their property appropriately within the search results.

Pay-Per-Stay: Similar to the pay-per-booking option, without the higher commission tier. The commissions available are 10%, 15%, or 18%.

The main difference is the commission for pay-per-stay is on completed stays, while the pay-per-booking is charged regardless (i.e. the hotel is using a non-refundable rate). The other difference between them is they all use trivago’s Automated Market Selection, but the Pay-Per-Click has the option to choose any market they would like. That may be a good option for people with a higher end property wanting to show up in listings in a nearby city or wanting to offer a more convenient location for people wanting to get to the airport in a major city.

Taking control of your property on trivago Business Studio is free and necessary for the hotelier to ensure the information is updated regularly. Adding on the booking link will require a little more work, but is valuable for the longterm. Being able to send offers to the guests that have stayed at the property will generate repeat guests and longterm growth.

Learn More About:

The post Drive Direct Bookings with trivago’s Booking Link appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

I previously wrote about how effective SiteMinder, one of the world’s best channel managers for accommodation providers, is at generating revenue and saving your operation money. Combining SiteMinder with revenue management software can take those revenues to the next level. Coming available later this summer will be one of the best options available on the market turbosuite. turbosuite is working on integrating fully with SiteMinder, but is still a powerful tool to use right now for your hotel, motel, or Airbnb vacation rental.

Before getting into how turbosuite integrates with SiteMinder and what it can do today, let’s first discuss what revenue management software is.

Revenue Management Software

Everyone reading this should understand what revenue management entails when being applied to the accommodation industry. There are five basic components to it: collecting the data about the operation and market; creating segments from the data to help analyze it more thoroughly; building revenue forecasts; planning and taking action; and analyzing the process and results to determine what can be improved upon. Revenue Managers would be doing each of those areas manually or creating simple automatic rules that their PMS would follow when settings rates and restrictions.

Revenue management software simplifies each component by using artificial intelligence to power it. No longer are revenue managers loading Booking.com and copying competitor rates into an Excel spreadsheet, or poring over their PMS data to see which rates are selling when. The software does the work for them. Revenue Managers still oversee each component and analyze the results to ensure everything is working as well as it should, however. Using the tool is not completely hands off and automated.

turbosuite

There are plenty of revenue management systems available and several of them integrate with SiteMinder. They all include the same basic functionality, so what makes turbosuite different?

There are two main differentiators that I can see:

1. All types of accommodations are analyzed

When I was looking at the different options for revenue management systems, most specialized with one type of accommodation. Hotels, motels, or vacation rentals. Revenue management functions the same for each type at its core, but the big difference is how a market is analyzed. With hotels, there are broad categories based on location (downtown, airport) and type of hotel (boutique, full-service, high-end, etc). Hotels are mainly limited to a few online travel agency sites (OTAs – i.e. Booking.com, Expedia, Trivago). Pulling together the rate information is easier for hotels because you create a competitive set of hotels that match your location, type, and usually only look at a few sites.

Analyzing the market for vacation rentals is more complicated. Instead of a competitive set of 10-15 hotels, you are finding the information for 50-100 (or more) units in your market. Your property is not only competing within the city, but may also be competing within your own building. For a quick example, in Kelowna, there is one condo tower downtown that has around 75 different units listed as a vacation rental. The downtown core may have around 300 units total (not including the hotels) and the city may have 1000 different units. Analyzing the market manually is time intensive and likely inaccurate too.

turbosuite analyzes both types of accommodations effectively. They are pulling in the data from Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb. Other revenue management systems may only be looking at Booking.com or Expedia if they focus on hotels, or only Airbnb if they focus on vacation rentals. Having all that data leads to the second point.

2. Analyze the full market, not a comp set

With turbosuite, they analyze the entire market for you. With other revenue management systems, you can be limited to having 10-15 properties that you compete with to compare against. With turbosuite, there is no limit to the properties you are compared to. It compares pricing between the hotels and the vacation rentals, matching up properties that have similar amenities to find the best rate in the market. The amenities can be as large as a pool, fitness centre, or parking included, to as detailed as having a coffee maker or internet at the property. turbosuite offers a comprehensive look at the market with daily updates to show how all your properties compare.

By analyzing the total market, turbosuite is dialled into any sudden shifts in demand. If one hotel sells out, while the others remain mainly empty, it is likely a sign of a large, hosted meeting taking place. But when hundreds of vacation rentals get booked up within a short amount of time, that is signalling a larger, city-wide event. turbosuite will notice that shift and suggest new rates to take advantage of that increase in demand. It won’t be able to determine if that event is the latest Taylor Swift concert being announced, or the city has won the rights to the Super Bowl, but it will set your rates to the appropriate amount.

With vacation rentals, the rate suggestions can also take into account the cleaning fees and adjust those to different levels. Most properties have fixed cleaning fees based on the unit and number of people. It makes sense to treat it as a separate form of revenue that can be adjusted to not only cover the cleaning costs, but also put a little more profit into the pockets.

Forecasting and Reporting

With all this data at their disposal to analyze, turbosuite can provide accurate revenue forecasts for up to a year. It uses the current demand for accommodations and combines it with the historical records to create a forecast that accommodation providers can use to build their overall revenue budgets. turbosuite will be able to determine the spikes in demand, and the dips during shoulder seasons, to be as accurate as possible.

The reports on the system are varied and useful. The revenue forecasts are part of the reporting system, but other reports will help you determine how effective turbosuite is doing for your properties. It will track the valuable metrics of room nights, revenue, and ADR, but also the properties web rankings, how visible the properties are, and the conversion rates on the various sites. Another component of the reporting system is showing you the pickup report for the revenue generated by a set period.

Putting turbosuite Into Action

Turbosuite is excellent at pulling in all the data to analyze, but how do properties change their rates?

Turbosuite makes that part incredibly easy. The main screen shows the calendar for the month with different rates – your base rate, and the ideal competitive rate. Underneath, there are codes to give you the information you need to determine whether a day needs to be acted upon or not. Opening up a day will provide even more detail about how far below/above your rate is from the competition, making manual adjustments to the rate or stay restrictions, and more. At the bottom are the magic buttons to push the new rates out to SiteMinder (or other channel manager) or revert back to the original base rates.

During the demonstration I received, this process was quick and painless. If someone wanted to, they could select the entire month and click the button to adjust the rates automatically, all at once. Of course, it is advisable to look at each day/week more carefully and understand that is happening in the market.

All of the above is just a quick overview of what turbosuite can do for your properties while using the SiteMinder channel manager. There is a lot more to be shown, so if the above is of any interest, I encourage you to reach out to turbosuite and get a demonstration of their software. It does integrate with other channel managers or property management systems, as well.

If you are interested in learning more, please visit their website: turbosuite or fill out the below form that will be sent directly to them.

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The post How to Use Turbosuite and SiteMinder to Increase Your Revenue in 2023 appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

SiteMinder is the world’s leading channel manager that is packed with features to help hotels perform better. Some of those features includes its website builder, its ability to be integrated with 100+ property management systems (PMS) for hotels, and the ability to be connected to 200+ online travel agencies (OTAs) and other web apps to help with productivity. All of these are great for hotels to improve their overall operation. This post is going to highlight some of the other positives for SiteMinder: low transaction fees, Demand Plus, and the Insights that are available for the competition.

Low Transaction Fees

This is the one feature that will save your hotel or property the most money. If you use a competing channel manager like Sabre’s SynXis, hotels are charged a small fee for every reservation they take that goes through the channel manager. At the low end, fees are generally cheaper (maybe even free) for web bookings – reservations that are made through the hotel website. At the higher end, are fees for reservations through the GDS (travel agent booking system). In between, there are fees for bookings made through other channels, like Booking.com or Expedia. These fees cover the costs of the development of the channel manager software and integration with the PMS so reservations booked online can be entered into the PMS automatically.

The downside of these fees are they can quickly add up. Below is a sample chart of the fees based on a 33/33/33 split between web bookings, OTAs, and the GDS. To keep the math simple, let’s say there are 3,000 total reservations taken, which is a reasonable number for a 100 room hotel.

A few caveats to the above numbers, they don’t include any commissions you may be paying for the GDS bookings (usually 10%) or the commissions charged through Expedia, Booking.com, etc (around 18%). Altogether, the fees will be much higher than $22,500.

For SiteMinder, they still have a transaction fee for GDS bookings (which is charged by the GDS systems), but they waive the transaction fees for web bookings and OTAs. That produces a chart like this:

The general hotel is likely going to save a lot of money by switching over to SiteMinder. This does not include the potential savings from using SiteMinder’s new product for guest communication, GuestJoy, which is 25% the cost of the competing service, Guestfolio. And, of course, there will be opportunities to earn more through SiteMinder.

Demand Plus

Last year, Google announced a change to their Business Profiles for hotels which allowed hotels to enter in their own rates and link to their website. I thought it was a great addition to the product for hotels.

What I did not realize at the time, however, was the hotel link tended to be buried underneath all the advertising services, namely Booking.com, TripAdvisor, trivago, etc. This can change with SiteMinder’s Demand Plus service.

With Demand Plus, hotels get boosted to the top of the listings. It still marks the hotel as the official site, and will show the lowest rate available on the website, not the BAR/RACK rate, which allows hotels to advertise a lower rate than Booking.com to gain some direct business. There is a minor commission fee attached to these bookings, but the major plus to these bookings is you receive the guest’s full information. No masking of email addresses, phone numbers, or credit card numbers, allowing you to take ownership of that guest experience from the time of booking through to checkout. More opportunities for room upsells, other products at the hotel to book, and to retain them as a guest in the future directly rather than a OTA service.

Each month, you will receive a statement to verify the bookings. Hotels aren’t charged for no shows or cancellations, only for stays at the hotel.

Direct Plus also offers quick analytics for reservations. It will tell you how many times it has been viewed, the clicks, reservations made, and the revenue from the Google profile, trivago, and TripAdvisor.

Insights

So far, you have seen ways that SiteMinder can help you save money and earn more bookings online, but it can also help you earn more money on all your reservations, online or at the hotel level. Insights offers different views of the hotel operation from the online bookings. A lot of this information is likely similar to the hotel’s overall reservations, but presented in a easily understood graphic manner. There are different charts for booking performance compared to the same period last year, channel mix (direct, different OTAs, GDS bookings), country mix, and room and rate type mix. The last two items offer a lot more information with a charts about ADR, average length of stay, and average lead time. That information can help determine if a certain room type should be priced higher if it is more in demand, or whether to offer rate discounts for longer stays.

The next section is a pace report, which can help track how well the hotel is performing with its reservations compared to previous years. You can filter down to a set period of time to compare to a similar period (i.e. to compare holiday weekends that may change each year) or to the same period (month vs same month a year ago).

The final two areas of the Insight section are going to be very useful.

Rate parity is going to help keep track of your rates being pushed out to the OTAs. The one benefit of a channel manager is the rates that are sent to the OTAs should be the same. There can be errors with the information, so it is useful to check. The rate for Direct Booking is currently the lowest available rate for the hotel.

Competitors rate is a monthly view of the rates pulled from Booking.com. It compares the hotel rate with the median hotel rate of a comp set that you select. You are able to select up to 10 other hotels to include within your comp set. The monthly view shows you whether your hotel is higher or lower than the median rate (arrows are for +/- 10%).

Clicking on a date, gives you a way to drill down to each day to see the competition in a easier way. It brings in the lowest rate, room type, plus has the median rate at the top for quick comparison.

This feature alone will save a lot of clicking around on Booking.com. The monthly view will help General Managers and Revenue Managers set their room rates for several months to come as well.

Summary

This is only a slice of how SiteMinder can help your hotel, motel, or vacation rental business improve the operation and save money.

Switching to SiteMinder will require some work with the setup. If you are currently using a channel manager, there will be a lot of copying and pasting of descriptions and policies. Because of the time involved with switching over, I am offering my time and expertise in SiteMinder to help you get setup more quickly and more smoothly.

Fill out the form below to get started.

The post Use SiteMinder To Save Money And Earn More Revenue appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

After a few subdued years due to COVID, Canadian government travel is returning back to normal levels. The federal employees and contractors are authorized to spend at higher levels than previous years, as well. For 2023, their authorized amounts for travel will likely be even higher thanks to inflation.

The above seems is common knowledge for most Canadian hoteliers and other professionals. What is not common knowledge is that federal employees and (more importantly) the travel agents that work with the Canadian government have access to a directory of hotels for Canada and around the world. This directory consists of listings created for each hotel, along with pricing information.

For a lot of hotels outside of Canada, this is likely an opportunity for added exposure and more revenue, because a lot of major cities do not have many hotels listed for them. For example, Paris, France, has only seven hotels; Hong Kong, China, has 10; Berlin, Germany, has two. A lot of government workers rely on the directory to plan their business trips, but may also try to use it for personal travel as well.

Directory Information

To learn more about the directory, click through to the main page. Below will be some more links and information about getting added to the directory, how to price your hotel rates, and how the program is managed.

One important note about the program is it is renewed annually. There is a set fee to be included (it is fairly minimal in Canada) and the hotel rates have to be submitted each year within a set deadline. The deadline to be added for 2023 is September 21st, 2022.

Get Added to the Directory

In order to be added to the directory, the hotels have to be added to the Cvent Business Transient RFP platform by contacting the administrator of the Canadian directory. Hotels can do that by sending an email to: TPSGC.RHELVDGT-ACRDTMD.PWGSC@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca

While waiting to be approved, it will be worth looking at your competition listed in the directory. Thankfully, the directory is open to the public. It is viewable at this link: Accommodation – 30 days or less. The directory will open up a listing on Lanyon, the Cvent portal. From there, you can do a search by city, filter by distance from the city centre, or pick a different outlying area (i.e. the airport or nearby city).

Clicking on a hotel will bring up its profile with a lot of details, including the rates, photo gallery, policies, and amenities of the property. The directory also allows you to compare multiple properties at once, which is a nice added feature. This will let you get an idea of how your competition is marketing themselves to these workers, and also their rates by season.

Setting Rates

Besides using the public directory to determine how your competition is pricing itself, another important area to look at is the per diem section of the directory. The City Rate Limits vary by each city, and will include a rate for hotels outside of the main cities. For Canadian cities, the directory has grouped surrounding areas into the heading for the main city (i.e. Cochrane, Okotoks, Airdrie, are included with Calgary).

The limits are only a suggestion of what will be reasonable for government travel. Any rates above the limits, may still get booked, but any rates significantly higher will likely not be booked.

Management

As mentioned previously, the directory is updated on an annual basis. If you miss the deadline date, the hotel will not be listed in the directory for the following year. After submitting the hotel information and rates through the Cvent system, the Government official will send an email to state if the hotel is approved or not, and the instructions to load the rates into the GDS for travel agents to book.

One other requirement of the program is hotels have to supply an update for the bookings they have generated through government travel. It will be important to have a separate rate code for the Government rates to track it. The reports are submitted online after each quarter and at the end of the year.

Otherwise, as long as the rates are loaded properly, and no government guests submit complaints to the program director, there will not be any ongoing management.

A small tip that can be provided after several years of entering the rates, take the time to explore the Cvent RFP platform and update your hotel information. There will be a lot of saved time from having to enter in all the policies again, updating photos, etc. You will only need to update the hotel rates, and then the RFP will be complete.

To learn more about the directory and program, please visit the official website. Again, the deadline to be added for 2023 is September 21st, 2022. Act quickly.

Learn More About Four Sides Hospitality Consulting

The post How to Capitalize on Canadian Government Travel by Getting Listed on the Accommodation Directory of Canada appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

It has been a wild year for everyone, but I think the hospitality industry was hit the hardest with the lockdowns, restrictions on travel, and limited restaurant capacities. With the news of the vaccine being developed and released around the world, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible for us all now.

I wanted to write more to help everyone prepare for 2021, but during my preparations for writing this, I discovered a well written post by Xotels. With their post, Hotel Trends for 2021, they highlight a lot of items that I was going to mention. The major trend that I am seeing is a focus on local travel. Exploring regions within a few hours travel time, no flights required, while still willing to spend on travel.

Over at Ideas, Blake Madril writes:

Assumptions like typical seasonality, day-of-week pattern and segment behavior have all been jolted by the pandemic, but this shake-up allows for technology to find new indicators into the changing business. Historical occupancy, ADR or RevPAR will always provide valuable insight, but in today’s market, to adapt means to understand cancelations, new bookings, forecast trends in any direction, shifts in competitor pricing, optimal pricing restricted by manual controls and how these change over the most relevant intervals of time for your business.

It’s a great time to review the past year, look at what your competition is planning, and see how the market has shifted with rates and expectations for lodging. It’s also a good time to expand who you consider to be your competition by researching any larger AirBnBs in the area.

I also enjoyed this roundup of hotel experts around the world giving their thoughts on Do we need a new revenue management toolkit for 2021?

If you have other resources I should include here, please contact me and I will update the post.

Hotel Revenue Pickup Report – 2021

The pickup report spreadsheet has been updated for 2021. Because of how difficult this past year was for hospitality professionals, I am offering a discount on the pickup report for the next month. If you have not been using a pickup report, 2021 is a great time to get started with one to help you generate future success with your hotel(s).

Learn more about the revenue pickup report.

The post Getting Ready for 2021: Links, Revenue Pickup Report appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

As 2020 begins, we look back at 2019 to see what went wrong, what worked, and what the projections are looking like for the year ahead. The previous post covered Hotel Reputation. This post is going to look at things to review regarding hotel revenue. More specifically, it will look at the room revenue generated at the hotel, but it will be important to analyze other revenue streams the hotel relies on (restaurant, cafes, spa facilities, etc.)

Monthly Breakdown

The first step to do is to review the monthly breakdown of the revenues. Focus on the seasons or similar periods through the year. For example, don’t compare July to January if July is during your peak season and January is not, compare it to August. If hotel revenues aren’t consistent during the season, start drilling down to see where the weaknesses were. Compare not only to last year but to a 3- or 5-year average of the season to notice some trends that need to be stopped or built upon.

Segment Breakdown

After the monthly breakdown is completed, use it to target specific periods that need further investigation. There are several ways guests can be segmented: rate plan booked, guest type, location of the guest, the company the guest is an employee of. Segmenting the guest by rate plan booked is generally the easiest to gather data for with most property management systems.

Like the monthly breakdown, compare how the segments compared to the last year and a larger period before. If you notice a drop in one segment, but an increase in another, take note of it to investigate further. The next action of the analysis depends on the segment that needs to be investigated. Contact a company representative or travel agent to inquire why a company’s bookings dropped or find some local economic reports to discover how tourism fared through the city or region.

One factor to note is a drop in one segment may not necessarily be a bad thing. Perhaps your hotel has a regular client that has been locked into a significantly low daily rate compared to newer clients. If that lower value client drops out, it can likely be filled with a newer and higher paying client or other type of guests.

One way to segment the hotel that is generally overlooked is to analyze the occupancy and ADR generated from different room types. Are the hotel suites getting booked at a very low occupancy rate? May need to lower the rate, market it differently, or work with the front desk agents on trying to upsell the suites at a lower rate to help fill up the regular hotel rooms. Are the rooms with two beds being booked less often than single bed rooms? The hotel may want to eliminate some of the two bed rooms and only have one larger bed. Something else to look at it is room usage of similar types. Some bedding and furniture may become more worn out if it is overused compared to similar rooms.

Market Analysis

Analyzing your local competitive market will be extremely valuable to determine how the hotel is performing overall and help set your hotel rates for 2020 and beyond. The most basic step is to create a spreadsheet listing your hotel’s rates that are available publicly and compare to your competition. Choose hotels that are in your immediate vicinity and comparable amenities. It will be unfair to compare your 3 Star hotel to a 5 Star Resort. Try to compare different periods through the year by using their online reservation systems. Use their rates to help determine how to place yourself in the market depending on the financial needs of the hotel.

A further step of analysis will involve purchasing market reports from STR, CBRE, or another local hotel research firm. The reports they provide are generally accurate to provide you information, such as, occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, and other items of note. They are also valuable in aiding you forecast hotel occupancy for the region soon.

Another area to consider is tourism and economic reports being produced locally, by region, or nationally. These reports can highlight number of passengers coming through the airport, crossing borders, and may have broad numbers for the hotels. That last item is especially true if there is a local hotel tax that hotels must submit records for. The best part of these reports is they are most likely going to be free.

Pickup Report Analysis

A tool that most hotel revenue managers have been using to help them with their analysis is a hotel revenue pickup report. There is a free and paid version on this site.

The pickup report allows you to see exactly what the busiest days were for reservations, which periods get booked up the earliest/latest, and how far out people are booking rooms for future months. The more consistent you are with the pickup report, the better, as it will give you a wealth of information that most property management systems can’t extract easily.

Additional Resources

There are a wealth of articles that can be read to help you analyze your previous year. Here are a selection to help get you started:

• Top 10 Revenue Management Articles and Tips to Read for a Successful 2020 from Xotels
• Revenue Management 2020 – eHotelier Industry Journal
• Top 10 Revenue Management Tips for Winning in 2020 – Hotel News
• How to Get Revenue Management Right for 2020 and Beyond? – Hotel Business Weekly
• 2020: A Vision for Revenue Management in the Next Decade – Hospitality Net

Want to learn more? Send me an email and let’s start the conversation.

The post Hotel Review and Planning for 2020: Revenue appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

The Hotel Revenue Pickup Report has been updated for 2020 and is available right away.

As usual, learn about all the details on the main page for the pickup report or download below. By purchasing the update, you receive full support in using the spreadsheet and I will customize it (within reason) to match your particular needs if I can.

For 2020, the 90 Day Pickup Report is also updated. The 90 Day Pickup report is the same as the advanced pickup report, but covers a moving 90 day range- useful for larger properties with larger booking windows or for properties that want to more closely monitor peak seasons.

A more basic and free version is still available for download.

The post Hotel Revenue Pickup Report – Updated for 2020 appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.

The Hotel Revenue Pickup Report has been updated for 2019 and is available right away.

Learn all the details on the main page for the pickup report or download below. By purchasing the update, you receive full support in using the spreadsheet and I will customize it (within reason) to match your particular needs if I can.

New for 2019 is a 90 Day Pickup Report. Same as the advanced pickup report, but covers a moving 90 day range- useful for larger properties with larger booking windows or for properties that want to more closely monitor peak seasons. You can see images and learn more here: 90 Day Pickup Report

A more basic and free version is still available for download.

The post Hotel Revenue Pickup Report – Updated for 2019 appeared first on Four Sides Hospitality Consulting | Hotel and Airbnb Consultant | Canada.