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What can do also guest relation officer to increase occupancy?
in my opinion
the tariff don't affect so much if you really provides excellent service , I believe that another factors and causes contributed to achieve this decline in occupancy, maybe one of it (location) maybe the service it self , my be the marketing , maybe the managing .
What I would like to say that we should look in all directions and all the reasons and if the only problem is the price must be reduced....
By prioritizing, the customer, with the following characteristics.
1) By seeing , the customer, is " High end or Low end", by monetary benefit
2) Is the customer, is " Regular or occasional".
3) By assuring them, to book the hotel 2 months early.
offerng some package deal, free shuttle, free airport pick-pu/drop-off (if) room quality, guest service, free wifi, free breakfast finally "do what they don't" but also watch out the revenue.
revpar every body need the best revpar
The impossible just-price hotel
Hoteliers are among the most baffled when it comes to organizing their pricing policy. Their biggest challenge is probably to just admit the price of their offer to their customers.
The just-price hotel, it's like the philosopher's stone: everyone would dream of holding, but nobody knows how. The just price is supposed to get everyone to agree in its mutual interest: the merchant and buyer. For some, the solution is in the yield management (technique that consists in making the room rates depending on the period of customer targets and more broadly the principle of supply and demand forecasting - if only we can still make predictions). Except that yield management is less for customers and for the hotelier ... For others, the price is based on those of their competitors. Except for these, the price is also often determined based on competition, and so on. This is the dog that bites its own tail, basically. Finally, most managers swear by rates that are based on the cost price which add a margin ... except that little hotel really know how to calculate the true cost of their accommodation.
It is therefore reduced to rely on a kind of intuition on the price applied daily, hoping it will suit very difficult customer to please in that register.
Internet has changed all the rules
Because the subject is of importance as the Internet has absolutely everything shoved in consciousness and that the economic crisis is over there, touching the leisure clientele as well as business travelers. Thus,56% of customers find them too expensive hotels and28% believe that prices have risen too much in recent years, according to the latest surveys Coach Omnium with consumers.
Hoteliers pinched by the competitive Internet world are stuck in their room prices; many have therefore sought to catch up in the rates of breakfast ... but the clientele is quickly realized.
So, because you often find a place to stay during a trip, customers2/3 - become bounty hunters? - Are always looking for hotel prices or broken tips. The many comparison sites to help them also, which puts hoteliers in a big embarrassment.
This perception by travelers of "too expensive" and disarms revolt hoteliers who are constantly thinking - often rightly even if they do not always know the measure - by selling cheaper, they would lose the money and would very quickly cornered the deficit. Certainly the new or totally renovated hotels are less prone to discontent on prices than others. Conversely, no one is happy to pay what he always considered as too expensive for a minimalist comfort, outdated and / or dilapidated.
But we realize that the customer reviews of hotels on this register of charging stands further against the "budget / price", that is to say, what they believe just spend on a hotel stay given their budget time, their urge to spend and their consideration of the use they make of a hotel. The report "quality-performance / price" is therefore proportionately less contested.
Many travelers who think that the hotel is overpriced prefer to give priority to others deemed more legitimate expenses.
More broadly, almost intimately, the customer sees only what it really consumes at the hotel and it is limited or reduced (use of bed, taking a shower, use of the TV, eating a coffee and pastries for breakfast, ...), with the feeling that her bill too, for equipment and products indeed available but it does not use or that do not interest him. For example, a breakfast buffet while it will consume a trifle ...
Lower prices, is the ideal solution?
If the principle is more or less acquired to increase rates when demand is strong - ideal state where the hotelier is king - it does not hold true when clients fail, which is generally more common situation than the first. Should we then sell cheaper to attract customers? Will they come in large numbers through this? How far down but also raise prices? It almost comes to regret the early1980s when prices were frozen in the fight against inflation. It was somewhere easier and you do not break your head on the register of the rate variation. It is no longer there and pricing in tourism going in all directions and is almost individualized. The low cost has pushed this understanding of the traveler quidam ... In the end, no one pays the same to finally obtain the same benefit almost.
Some ideas still haunt the minds of hoteliers, such as that to prohibit to reduce prices or to dump, for a question of image and luxury establishment. As noble is this consideration, those who hold this argument end up having an empty hotel and paradoxically without profitability. Car Internet has largely educated and accustomed consumers to come face to rates that are constantly moving, upwards or downwards, without the image of the shopping is now concerned not affected. Obviously, any proportion remains true. A hotel with rooms500 € will not sell them punctually to100 €. But for him there is a wide margin for maneuver.
It may be possible to hold that (sources: Coach Omnium qualitative studies):
- The price is a contract between the buyer and seller; however, we never buy a price and just a benefit, but a "solution": a place to spend the night most practical and / or enjoyable, for example, or an experience as we like to remind the ( a little too much);
- The price indicator is a category that has replaced all other codes and references, including the famous star hotel;
- One can not explain the management of a hotel company to its customers to help them better understand why rates are proposed to a given level. At best, it does not interest them;
- The price is always psychological, and in any case there is no objective, which seems contradictory as view while the euro seems practical: what is perceived by one as normal will be felt by the other as too high because everyone has its own frame of reference based on its buyer-traveler experience, his affluence, constraints and priorities. That is why it is difficult to find the right price that would be universally acknowledged as such by all customers;
- The perception of price is fluctuating and can change very quickly in the same person depending on many parameters it has control or not,
- Prices are now very open in tourism, no one can understand why as a consumer, it is impossible to know what is a benefit: the famous fair price again is almost impossible to determine;
- The lowest rate may not reassure consumers and avoid attracting generating mistrust; a high price encourages the claimant to complete satisfaction of performance obligation of its clients through excellence. If the customer feels paying dearly, he must have the feeling that this is also expensive to provider from whom it purchases;
- The price is part of the hotel's image in addition the principle that prices can not be fixed. Dynamic pricing gives the feeling of having to deal with a vibrant shopping;
- A hotel that offers too many different prices depending on room types, period, number of occupants, etc. confuses customers. This is simple to understand still sells more easily;
- Business customers do not necessarily have more budget to spend in the hotel as leisure clients who pay out of pocket. Corporate travel policies (95% have one) have been strengthened;
- To charge a single price per room rented whatever the number of people occupying the room is the right choice, much better understood by customers the single supplement or charging extra bed;
- Free children in parents room became invincible;
- The stars considered by only16% of hotel guests can no longer give "the" pricing, especially since two thirds of hoteliers who have requested an extra star in the new compared to the former believed they could raise prices with impunity without enriching their offer;
- Remember that it is obviously better to rent a room cheaper than not rent it at all, knowing that each case of price decrease should be seen as an exception. An empty left room costs almost the same to the hotelier in fixed costs (the majority:75 to85%) than a room occupied;
- Providing tariff advantage (or an upgrade type of gift) must always be expressed to the client as a favor or privilege that made him not as a right he would enjoy. The best is to find a pretext for this "premium" and to declare and to the customer;
- Most consumers almost always forget the price paid for remembering the good quality of the service (or mediocrity) and the reasons for their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction);
- Low price hotel on certain days of the week will not influence customers and trigger a stay. When a businessman has to go to Toulouse on Tuesday, he obviously does not change the trip for Monday if the hotel is cheaper that day. An attractive price will make choosing the hotel that offers the detriment of its competitors, but does not cause a decision to travel.
How to set its prices?
• They must be volatile and adjusted flexibly to customer types and targets, periods of high or low demand and significant differences in real rooms. The recall is forcing an open door yet ...
• Build on the rates of competitors is good, but that should be an indicator and certainly not a guide. Make the follower eg being consistently10% cheaper than a local chain hotel serving as reference does not promote marketing.
• Test your price according to customers targets and show you extremely attentive to their reactions. The price is an element of demand marketing and not that of the offer. Whoever finds too dear say the benefit will rarely (if only what not to seem stingy), but it will not return and will go elsewhere next time. The proper test is therefore that of natural loyalty and of course occupancy. A hotel desertification can be a sign that it is too expensive or inadequate tariffs to its offer. Capture rate breakfast is governed by the same rule: too low capture rate (less than70 to80%) is often a sign that breakfast is considered too expensive or the rooms themselves.
• With the Internet (93% of hotel customers pass through the Net to search for accommodation or stay), it is essential to master all rates exchanged on your hotel via the various resellers and distribution channels. It is still common rooms are found10 to15% cheaper than on the OTAs live sites. Customers quickly notice it in, enjoy the least expensive circuit and especially will feel that OTA is a good business champion and the hotel is a profiteer!
• Do not be complex on your prices. We need the customer eventually forget a warm welcome (the feeling of being welcome) and a benefit that he will love. Price is never an end, although it may be a filter.
• Enable to lower your price As the evening progresses when there is less chance of rent.
• Adopt the principle of the lesser price for a firm reservation associated with a clause of non-repayment in case of cancellation is now accepted by the majority of travelers, if we let them choose.
• If negotiation is possible (this assumes to have an exchange with the client), as to avoid reducing the price displayed and opt for the upgrade or free breakfast are more psychologically rewarding.
•6 out of10 customers still call the hotel to inquire or book, while being passed earlier by the Net for research. Take this as an opportunity and this opportunity to be a good salesman (you and your reception staff) to give the urge customers to choose your hotel.
