Prices
Rates or prices?
In hotel industry is more common to speak of rates than prices. Especially in comparing what customers are going to pay we speak of rates.
A lot of aggregators are comparing hotel prices are based on finding the Best Available Rate: abbreviated BAR. Among them, Expedia and Trivago are the most well-known. Aggregators often also give suppliers insights in rate and in benchmarks.
On the page Year 1-2-3-4 decisions you can find the actual price the hotels has been asking last year and a list of decisions (prices and costs) you can influence each year.
Sales prices for the hotel rooms
Let's have a closer look at the sales prices for staying in the hotel.
Looking at the sales prices of your hotel the management should decide on last-minute and a rack rate price for the two options weekdays and weekend days.
The idea behind the two prices is that it enables you as a manager to think in a price-“range” for your hotel instead of one single figure. So, reasoning from your strategy, you might think of a price range that fits in best with your strategy. From this min/max range, an average price is calculated that is being used in the calculations.
Keep in mind that your revenues, of course, consists of the (average) price times the number of sales. On the other hand, you have your net result (revenues - minus all costs) which also depends on your costs. On the page operating review there is a basic explanation of the structure of the costs and the way you can, or cannot influence them.
Prices weekdays and weekends
As you take over there is a history. The weekdays have been booked mainly by business people who, generally, have been paying a higher price than the leisure market who have been booking weekends. As this is in most countries the case, it will be very hard (nearly impossible) to change this 'logic'.
Other price types
The CEO of Emerald Forest doesn't want to change the prices too much: you should stick to the concept of last-minute (low) and rack rates. No separate prices for shoulder season, low or high season, group rates etc. Promotional prices, so during a certain time period or as a campaign, are no problem. The same goes for renovated and non-renovated rooms: the doesn't want to link prices to the type of rooms, as renovations are ongoing on and it heavily limits the flexibility of the hotel in assigning rooms to people. So far, this didn't cause major problems with the customers.
What you can do, is be creative yourself and make additional calculation and explain (in the row additional information for your coach) what your ideal price system would be. If this is calculated well, your coach might reward you with a bonus.
Prices banqueting
There is much more possibilities in changing this quickly: most of the time this are individual groups, each having its one requests and demands.
Prices Food and beverages and facilities
You can not influence these prices, nor can you influence how they are used. These revenue groups just follow the occupancy rate of your hotel.
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