The Hotel Gran Sagitario hosts our event on hotel technology in a necessary day to take the pulse of the sector on the island.
Half a hundred people gathered despite a persistent rain to attend a new HotelTech Summit Menorca organised by GuestPro.
Rain was forecast but this did not stop a good number of hoteliers from travelling from all over the island to attend our annual event, this year at the fantastic and welcoming Gran Sagitario.
On this occasion, the aim of the event was to kick off the season by giving some key points to bear in mind to make it a success. We talked about some of the new features we are preparing at GuestPro for 2024, about how our PMS model optimises management and improves direct sales, also about revenue management on the island and the importance of data to plan the season.
Vertical PMS, in search of the lost "best of breed".
The first presentation of the morning served to get to know in depth the hotel management model that we are committed to at GuestPro. Xavier Pallicer, CEO & Founder, was in charge of welcoming the attendees and then went into detail to explain how not to fall into a"digital frankenstein" when choosing technology to manage a tourist accommodation. According to Pallicer, the vertical PMS is the model to follow, a "natural evolution" of traditional hotel management systems, which allows a healthy balance in the number of integrations to implement and maintain, a model that allows agile and integrated management, but also facilitates the integration of key suppliers that the hotel needs.
So what does "Best of Breed" mean? It means having the best in each category to achieve the highest operational efficiency and profitability. Avoid depending on a large number of suppliers and integrations that can cause serious technical problems, and even affect the hotel at an operational level.
Pallicer closed his speech by advancing some of the new features of our PMS that will see the light shortly and that will improve above all the guest experience thanks to an optimised webservice with new functionalities.
See speech
Revenue management: real data
Luisa Souki, GuestPro's revenue manager, then analysed the situation of RM in Menorca and its evolution in recent years. In this sense, she congratulated herself on the arrival of this practice and took the opportunity to ask herself whether it is being done well or not. According to Souki, in order to follow a good revenue management strategy it is essential to have real data and to know how to interpret them, and for this it is necessary to have specialised personnel to carry out this work.
What data is essential for the person who controls the prices of a hotel?
- Historical data: average price, occupancy, sales channels (%online/offline), nationalities.
- If possible filling curve.
- Offers made, types of rates.
- Competitive set.
- Consumer information and current market in the market place.
Luisa closed her talk talking about the new service we offer at GuestPro, a personalised revenue management strategy developed by an expert staff and that together with the right technology and real data can take hotel sales to a new level: "The marketing of your hotel and Revenue Management is a strategy based 90% on data, the other 10% is intuition. That 10% can make a big change in the result, so the person in charge has to have a broad knowledge not only of the location but also of the correct distribution of the rooms".
See presentation
Tourism intelligence to increase hotel profitability
The last presentation of the day was given by Catalina Taltavull, business development at Mabrian Technologies, who delved even deeper into the importance of data for a hotel's commercial strategy.
Mabrian is a specialist in data sources that provide complete analytics of the travel cycle. Demand trends, flight search, island air capacity, flight prices and bookings, spend, interest or mobile data and finally reviews. All the data available during the travel cycle that will later be key to a hotel's revenue management and direct sales.
Catalina made a very complete analysis of how data matters, and a lot, and gave us some keys and tips for the 2024 season. We will have to pay close attention to the Swiss market, the first in average spending per visitor in Menorca in 2023, which continues to be very interested in Menorca.
See presentation
Talk with hoteliers: direct sales and management
Two luxury guests joined the final part of the talks. Magaly Julien, director of operations at Praktik Hotels in Barcelona, and Lluís Triay, general manager of Sagitario Hotels in Menorca and host of the event.
These two hotel chains are currently clients of our PMS. In the case of Praktik they have been using it for two years, while Sagitario has just incorporated our PMS, after many years as a web and booking engine client. Having the double vision of the hotel's operations, direct sales and staff management, from urban hotel and holiday hotel, was very enriching and allowed us to discover the way of working of both of them.
The complicity, the good atmosphere and the desire to listen to each other marked this final round table from which we got ideas for optimising management from Praktik and the familiar treatment and respect for Menorca from Sagitario.
A cocktail in the bar overlooking the hotel pool was the best way to close a day that we believe was necessary for Menorca. A meeting point for hoteliers on the island to share ideas, sensations and projects and, for GuestPro, a unique opportunity to be close to clients and professionals in the sector and to strengthen ties of cooperation and mutual knowledge.
We will be back soon with new meetings.
