Managing hotels in the downturn: Smart revenue growth through pricing optimisation

While the economic crisis worsens, the hotel industry is in for hard times, as occupancy and investment drop. However, there are a variety of levers at hotels' disposal to stem revenue per available room (RevPAR) decrease. Most of these are to be found through a better use of pricing, as untapped opportunities remain in rate optimisation, customer loyalty schemes and bundling. This report outlines some of the pricing strategies hotels can take to maximise their revenues and profits, focusing on simple, transparent, and customer-oriented approaches, and shifting away from some of the complex, non-manageable revenue management schemes developed in recent years.