Professionals from the hotel and technology sector share a day of debate and reflection on increasing revenue through direct sales.
GuestPro celebrates its third event at home, in Ciutadella, after touring different cities in the Balearic and Levante regions last season. Nearing the end of a season marked by recovery, it is time to reflect on direct sales and explain to clients on the island the new developments we are working on.
The meeting took place in the CoLiving AdD Livitum in the centre of Ciutadella, which welcomed almost fifty attendees in its large hall. After the presentations and a passionate debate in which there was no shortage of questions to the guests, the conversations moved to the charming patio of the CoLiving where we served a traditional Menorcan "bereneta" in which the famous Gin with Llimonada (pomada) was served.
To talk about Revenue Management we invited two partners who are experts on the subject to bring us closer to the technology and strategy in RM. Sònia Molina, new CEO of HotelsDot and Gerard Plans, Country Manager Spain, from HQ Revenue, explained their experience in servicing hotels.
Xavier Pallicer, Founder & CEO of GuestPro, was in charge of welcoming the attendees and introducing an expert in RM, Sònia Molina, who aroused a lot of interest with her talk on revenue management and took a snapshot of what a good strategy should be. "In the past, a Revenue Manager was valued according to the number of changes made on the same date. Now what is important is to be able to predict what will happen in the future through the study of 5 variables". He talked about capacity, customer, anticipation, booking conditions and price in order to establish the right pricing strategies based on the analysis and make the smallest possible adjustments only taking into account changes in demand at the last minute or pressure from competitors. His talk aroused the interest of the attendees who did not hesitate to ask questions of all kinds in what ended up being a very constructive debate at the end of the talks.
Afterwards, our colleague and revenue manager, Marian de Jorge, explained the strategy that GuestPro is implementing with some of our clients in Menorca to break the dependence on touroperation. "Are we in Menorca losing a golden opportunity by relying on TTOOs? According to our revenue team the answer is "Yes", for this reason we have been working on the transition to a new model for our clients, which is based on closing quotas, decreasing the dependence on guarantees and focusing on on-site demand.
After talking about strategies, Gerard Plans, took us closer to the data and in particular to the factors that impact on pricing strategy. " Sell more and better by optimising your pricing strategy taking into account all the factors that have an impact on the demand for your hotel". Competition, market demand, external factors such as events, holidays or the weather, the ranking, internal occupancy data or force majeure factors such as COVID-19, must be analysed in order to establish the prices at which we should sell our rooms. HQ's technological tool is essential in this sense as it provides us with all the data we need on all the factors to be taken into account.
To end the presentations, Xavier Pallicer took the floor again to thank the attendees and talk about the new features of GuestPro and how a season that has served to recover the good numbers of 2019 has gone.
After the questions and the complicity between speakers and guests, the activity moved to the CoLiving patio where the attendees participated in a lively networking in the form of a Minorcan "bereneta". The good atmosphere gave way to a pleasant evening that brought the day to a close.
