Hotel & Motel Management - October 1, 2007 - (Page 37)

HotelMotel.com | H&MM October 1, 2007 News ONLINE EXTRA! 37 develop some different channels of information gathering.” Buoy: “If you’re truly doing strategic pricing correctly, it’s a labor-intensive process. You’re looking at all of your product types, distribution channels and proﬁt margin per channel. Unfortunately, a dynamic market like we’re in, you go through that planning process and if you’re doing it on a six-month rolling basis, that is exhausting.” Kristi White [left], manager, client revenue strategy, TravelCLICK, and Courtney Granger, regional director, Preferred Hotel Group, participate in the discussion. Q “There’s a connection between rate commoditization and the proliferation of brands. Is this an evolution for the industry?” Coleman: “Assuming that all those For a complete transcript of the roundtable, visit www.HotelMotel. com/rev. are researched and it’s giving the consumers a choice they like, then it’s a good trend.” Buoy: “There’s high repeat business. There are some people who just travel to, for example, The Delano Hotel, not to experience South Beach (Miami), but to stay at a Delano. Most of their spend in that market is basically within our asset. In some cases, you have commodities where people use it as a place to sleep and don’t spend additional money in that room.” hmm@questex.com Q “What are the barriers to building an effective revenue-management culture at your organization?” Cambra: “At Outrigger, we have spent time creating a culture where asking ‘Why?’ is acceptable. It doesn’t mean everything changes. It does mean that we’re asking to be sure our decisions are solid.” Wiersma: “With Host Hotels, we don’t manage hotels, we own hotels. They felt the importance of having business intelligence and revenue management within the organization. The biggest barrier is when your goals are not aligned. A lot of hotels are evolving there, but some are still stuck in some traditional ways of incentivizing people.” “We work with many of the largest ATM deployers in the country and have found that in terms of service levels, operational controls, and integrity of the operators that ATM Systems is in the very upper echelon of all of the ATM companies in the country.” --Cash Connect, a division of WSFS Bank John Clatworthy, VP of Sales & Marketing “I am a loyal client as a result of your professionalism and reaction time to my needs. Your decision to replace the old ATM was much appreciated. The new ATM is perfect.” --Radisson Hotel Sacramento George LaPointe, Director of Operations Q “How do you develop a market-driven revenue management strategy? Has HSMAI identiﬁed any best practices?” Wiersma: “Speaking on behalf of “Our front desk employees continually share with me the positive feedback they have received from our guests. Based on these comments, it’s clear that the ATM is fulfilling a guest service need at our hotel and has proven to be a real convenience for our guests.” --Radisson Hotel Boston Jack Eagan, Controller some managers, where they have critical mass in the market, they obviously have the data available to see certain trends happening. They segment customers among the levels of brands they have. With the data that’s available we can get day-of-week information through Smith Travel [Research] and combine that with what you can get at property level.” Coleman: “In our market, we don’t have travel research. Nobody participates in the Las Vegas market. We monitor everybody’s rates on the Internet, then we look and see what happens through circumstance and react to it. We’ve had to ATM Systems CIRCLE NO. 103 http://HotelMotel.com http://HotelMotel.com/rev http://HotelMotel.com/rev http://www.atmsystems.com http://www.atmsystems.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Hotel & Motel Management - October 1, 2007

Hotel & Motel Management - October 1, 2007 Contents Independents Rely on Guest Feedback Models Showcase Aloft, Element Brands Trainers Emphasize Communication, Cooperation Perspective At Your Risk Satisfaction Trends Sales Clinic Energy Star Update HotelWorld Update Trends & Stats Dressing Walls in 'Green' Music Programming Provides a Sound Solution Remote Check-In/Out for Leisure Travelers Q&A: Western U.S. Pipeline Softgoods - Beds and Bedding Transactions A Cause Célèbre Awards People on the Move Events Cleaning and Maintenance Solutions Marketplace Ad/Editorial Index Classifieds Checking Out

Hotel & Motel Management - October 1, 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.