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:
- 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.
