How can your smart watch and mobile help you boost hotel revenues on the go?

I’m a fitness buff and a huge Apple Watch fan. I joined the Apple Watch Fanclub a few years ago and have never looked back. It’s become a permanent fixture in my life. Here’s the reason why – it watches me 24x7. It knows my heart-rate, my GPS location, my bodily movements.

Yes, it alerts me soon after I’ve begun a workout, prompting me to start recording it. The same happens when I am done with the workout. These automatic notifications seamlessly support my goals of living a better life.

So why can't revenue managers also harness the power of on-the-go notifications to also make their lives better? It’s about time! Revenue managers need flexibility and responsiveness that comes from mobile notifications. And so we built it.

It’s called MarketDRONE , and it pings mobile devices and wearables with instant alerts, so revenue managers can act on intra-day rate changes immediately.

Here are 5 ways that on-the-go notifications boost hotel revenues and make your life better.

#1: Maintain rate competitiveness

As each new check-in date approaches, competitors introduce new promotional rates to boost occupancy at the last minute.

That means that average hotel changes its rates around 3 to 4 times each day. Multiply this by the number of hotels, and there are tens of thousands of rate changes each day per market.

In North America, our internal data shows that hotel rates change between three and four times every single day. Multiply this by the number of hotels, and there are tens of thousands of rate changes each day per market.

To stay competitive, revenue managers must constantly adjust to changing dynamics. Unfortunately, traditional rate-shopping doesn’t solve for the pace of change in today’s revenue-managed environment.

And that’s impacting the bottom line: our data shows that a revenue manager, on average, may lose $1,000 or more per day by not quickly acting on intra-day market changes. That’s equivalent to an annual loss of around half a million dollars!

RESULT: The resulting improvement in the competitive win rate can be quite significant.Initial results of the technology show a boost of the competitive win rate by at least five percentage points.

#2: Reap the rewards of always-on artificial intelligence

Traditional rate shopping software has struggled with archaic pre-scheduled rate shop reports, which then must be sliced and diced in Excel. Meanwhile, while revenue managers stare at a spreadsheet, the competitive landscape changes at a blazingly fast rate around them.

It’s time to put the machine to work for you -- and not the other way around! Artificial intelligence can identify market trends and keep you in charge of your revenue destiny. By identifying emerging patterns, both in the local market and at your hotel, you’ll have a more accurate understanding of market dynamics to guide your decisions.

Artificial intelligence automatically rolls up the market trends so revenue managers can skip the typical data slicing and dicing. Patterns and market insights emerge without as much effort, providing better recommendations for revenue managers’ decisions.

RESULT: Artificial intelligence enhances decision making abilities, which leads to increased revenue. Acting faster on intra-day rate changes prevents a loss of at least $20,000 for them per month, or around ~$250,000 annually.

#3: Save time by reducing manual tasks

The revenue manager not only has to pre-schedule reports but then must spend a major chunk of the day analyzing daily changes in the market and then determining the appropriate response.

Following that, they must analyze the performance of those decisions to judge the impact -- and then input those learnings into the next round of price adjustments. The current method is cumbersome, time-intensive and error-prone, which means that success isn’t guaranteed.

One wrong assumption can lead the entire revenue management strategy astray and setting the hotel back. That reality puts enormous pressure on revenue managers, who often feel like they must double-check their analyses. It can cause analysis paralysis and shatter confidence.

A revenue manager or any user do not have to come to the rate-shopping tool every time to know about the market changes. They do not have to pull out a complete report. The notifications update them on the changes. As such, they can only focus on the more important strategic decisions rather than the operational report pullouts.

RESULT: More efficient process means that users don’t have to pull out rate shopping reports on a daily basis to make strategic decisions. The instant alerts provide market insights on the fly so they can take the recommended actions on the go. Thus, it saves time for them by making the decision-making process easier.

MarkeDRONE watches the market for you and pushes real-time rate change notifications to a device of your choice.

#4: Easy-to-use and simple to understand

One of the beauties of push notifications is that they are familiar and easy-to-use. Everyone has experience with this type of information and so there is virtually no learning curve.

And, with notifications pushed to smartphones, wearables, tablets (and yes, desktops too!), there’s no new process to learn.

With an easy-to-navigate interface, both business and technical users can gain access to instant market information availability.

The system also learns over time without any additional inputs from the team. That means less training and ongoing maintenance -- and certainly no data uploads!

RESULT: A straightforward interface means better manageability. Revenue managers and other users can learn of promotional rate plans for nearby competitors without any fuss or extra work. This means that they can adjust marketing plans according to the latest trends to attract more guests to their property.

#5: Untether yourself from your desk

Revenue managers often spend too much time managing manual updates and approving rate changes within a desktop revenue management solution.

That’s why we love the final benefit the best: Mobile notifications untether you from your desk!.

Whether that you can do a property tour without worrying about missing a market change or that you can stop bringing your laptop home from work, these notifications go wherever you go -- no laptop (or Excel!) necessary.

Real-time notifications flip the paradigm of pre-scheduled rate shopping reports on its head. Instead of spending hours after hours, hunkered over a computer screen reviewing pre-scheduled reports, the system monitors the competitive landscape and pushes rate changes in real-time as they happen to a device of your choice!

Desk, no more.

RESULT: You’ll enjoy newfound agility and flexibility, as notifications allow users to work from any device of their choice, any time and at any place. And, with the backing of always-on artificial intelligence, you can be confident that you’ll stay on top of all critical changes in the market.

Conclusion

Effective revenue management involves making strategic decisions, improving business and boosting profits. With MarketDRONE, you always have an eye on the market, so no competitive movement goes unnoticed.

Losing revenue over missed competitive rate changes is now a thing of the past! By leveraging the power of on-the-go mobile devices, revenue managers can stay on the path to profitability -- no matter where they are in the world.