“It is vitally important for us to understand the total revenue spends of our
customers” Stuart Gillespie, Park Regis Birmingham
MEET AND GREET At the Park Regis Birmingham, Stuart Gil- lespie, group commercial director at Switch Hospitality Management, says meetings and events business delivers the highest total rev- enue to the hotel: “The booking window in this area is generally further ahead than others, so if the demand is not there, we can amend our strategy to attract other streams of business,” he explains. “For weekend busi- ness, we promote the hotel to leisure custom- ers. They can be harder to attract, as many guests book with traditional brands that offer UK-wide loyalty programmes.” He adds: “It is vitally important for us to understand the total revenue spend of our customers. Generally, we find that the lower the rate on the reservation, the lower the ancil- lary spends are.” Clearly, hoteliers make a special effort to understand and target the right audience for their product and, in some respects, social media advertising has made this task sim- pler and more direct. Equally, there may be certain audiences that a hotel does not want to attract. In common with Amsterdam and other European tourist destinations, the Stay- city Aparthotels group is taking a steer away from pre-nuptial revellers. On its website, the group says: “Unfortunately Staycity is unable to accept stag or hen parties.” Daniel Simmons, chief commercial officer
at HotelRez Hotels & Resorts, says: “So many countries and cities are moving away from that business. It’s about attracting the right market. You need to make sure your guests are responsible for the environment and not wrecking everything, and that your mix of guest segments doesn’t put one another off.” HotelREZ is a provider of distribution, rev-
enue, sales and marketing services and consul- tancy to 2,800 independent hotels and small hotel groups. Simmons says: “With our cli- ents, they are looking for more direct business through their websites because that’s the chan- nel with the lowest cost of sales, but they may also be looking for more corporate business.” By working with HotelRez, which provides
access to requests for proposal from large com- panies like American Express Global Business Travel, Staycity Aparthotels has increased its corporate business mix from 2% to 12%.
48 | Technology Prospectus 2024
ONLINE EXPERIENCE It has taken some time for the hospitality sector to provide a seamless online experi- ence akin to ecommerce giants like Amazon. From a technical point of view, the constantly shifting nature of accommodation inventory brings added complexity to the task; however, there are now several vendors who are offer- ing ecommerce booking platforms specifically for the hotel sector. HotelRez already provides a retail booking
engine service for its clients and is about to launch a more sophisticated product for Exclu- sive Hotels, Champneys and the Resident, among others. Simmons says: “Often hotels have so many different revenue streams but when you go on their website, it’s really diffi- cult to book all in one go and that’s what we’re aiming at with this new product. For leisure destinations, you won’t necessarily need to book the room first. You’ll be able to book the spa first, or a round of golf first, and then add on the room.” The new booking platform will also offer attribute-based selling, so, for instance, the Resident in Victoria will be able to sell its rooms with views onto Buckingham Palace at a premium.
www.thecaterer.com
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