Providing your guests with a great place to stay might be your top priority as a hotel manager, but at the end of the day, you are running a business and that means you need to generate revenue.
Luckily, there are a number of tools on the market that you can use to boost profitability and increase RevPAR. However, this can become pricey if you’re operating a fragmented tech stack. For small hotels with tight budgets and limited IT resources, an all-in-one hotel management system is the way to go.
For Niels Verspui, Market Head of RoomRaccoon South Africa, an all-in-one solution can help small to medium-sized properties boost topline revenue, all while improving operations and increasing guest satisfaction. Below, he shares the top strategies that independent hotels can implement to increase revenue at the click of a button.
Create packages in your booking engine
Image caption: Create unique packages on website booking engine
From long-stay offers to family-friendly deals, hotel packages are a vital component of creating a five-star guest experience and adding financial value to your hotel. According to Trivago, guests who book packages stay longer, book further in advance, are less likely to cancel their bookings and are more likely to book directly.
With RoomRaccoon, you can set up unlimited packages that will appear on your website booking engine. This is a great strategy to entice visitors to book directly and reduce hefty OTA commissions.
Even better, based on RoomRaccoon’s performance data, hotels can enjoy up to 43% more direct bookings with a smart website booking engine – all commission free!
Implement automated upsell technology
Image caption: Increase revenue with RaccoonUpsell
Operating an independent property presents plenty of opportunities to increase revenue, build deeper relationships with customers and put your property’s amenities to good use. Unfortunately, when sold manually at the front desk by overwhelmed staff, a large majority of property amenities go unused and unnoticed.
The good news is that with the right hotel technology, you can boost revenue by upselling relevant add-ons to your guests before they even arrive at your hotel. With RoomRaccoon, you can automatically upsell your amenities and extra services during the booking process on your website booking engine, and again during online check-in. This is an exciting way for guests to personalise their stay, and for you to foster loyalty and increase your average daily rate.
If you need any more convincing, according to our customer data, 82% of hotels that use upsell technology increase their ADR by 15%.
Use dynamic pricing to maximise revenue per room
Image caption: Adopt a dynamic pricing strategy with yield management rules
Demand in the hospitality industry constantly fluctuates. So selling time-limited inventory like hotel rooms at a fixed price year-round is a common mistake that costs hotel operators thousands in lost revenue.
Having the right dynamic pricing tools ensures that your room rates adjust along with demand so that you always sell your rooms at the right time, place, and price. The RoomRaccoon Yield Management tool uses pre-set yield rules to automatically adjust rates across all sales channels, including your website booking engine, to maximize your property’s earning potential.
According to RoomRaccoon data, hotels that use two or more yield rules can increase RevPAR by up to 14%.
Offer discount codes to increase repeat bookings
Image caption: Customisable post-stay email
Retaining customers is far more profitable than finding new ones. Luckily, when equipped with the right hotel technology, building customer relationships is much more manageable.
Guest loyalty programs and special promotions are proven strategies to encourage repeat bookings and increase revenue. With RoomRaccoon, you can create an automated post-stay email with a redeemable discount code that can be used when booking on your website booking engine.
Not only does this replace a lot of manual work, but it creates a five-star service throughout the hotel guest journey.
Save with RoomRaccoon
Join RoomRaccoon before the end of October and we will waive our standard activation fee worth more than R5000. The offer is valid for FEDHASA members who complete an order confirmation before 30 September 2022 and commit to a minimum of 12 months.
About RoomRaccoon
RoomRaccoon is an innovative all-in-one Hotel Management System that empowers independent hoteliers with powerful cloud technology to boost operations, maximise profitability and deliver a memorable guest experience. The system is intuitive and simple to use and offers outstanding support, should you need it. Based in Cape Town, RoomRaccoon is trusted by thousands of independent properties across the globe and was voted as the #1 hotel management system by hotel operators and industry experts in the 2020 and 2021 HotelTechAwards.
