Leveraging a Revenue Management System to increase RevPAR and save time
Using the right technology at your property is one of the keys to success and reaching your goals and to optimize and increase your RevPAR.
Apart from an innovative property management system (PMS), a revenue management system (RMS) is a component that should be part of every modern hotel tech stack today.
Why? Because a cutting-edge RMS accesses the most recent market and competitor information and offers you data-driven open pricing suggestions. This allows you to optimize your rates and maximize room revenue year-round and in all market situations in real time.
To learn how this is applied in real-life operations, read on to find out how Steff de Groot, owner and General Manager at the WICC Hotel in the Netherlands uses the Atomize RMS and which experiences he has made.
About Hotel WICC
Set in the Dutch city of Wageningen, Hotel WICC and the Wageningen International Congress Centre (WICC) are known around the country as a top destination for conferences and events. Since its renovation in 2018, Hotel WICC offers guests 208 comfortable and tastefully decorated rooms, a restaurant serving delicious, modern cuisine and a terrace overlooking the property’s beautiful surroundings.
The WICC Hotel becomes a modern hotel
Steff de Groot and his wife took over the hotel in 2018.
“When we took over the accommodation almost two years ago it was really degraded to almost nothing. We started redecorating the hotel, getting it back to a good level.”
Investment in upgrading rooms to attract modern business guests and cater to their needs:
“Investing in good beds, good wi-fi, good food, good congress accommodation to get people back, to get the turnover and the guest-numbers increased.”
Today Steff de Groot and his wife successfully manage the WICC Hotel: “We have two different focus areas. Mine are sales, revenue, financial and purchasing and ICT. My wife’s responsibility is marketing, experience, and operational management.”
Upgrading to modern hotel technology
Steff de Groot understood that innovative technology could help him make the hotel more successful. His research led him to the Atomize RMS.
“It looked at a complete package of all kinds of demand and supply, taking note of how much demand is going through your website, how fast the booking goes, what is the cancellation, what rates are accepted, how many people are looking at your pages. It really looked at the total picture of revenue management.”
An all-in-one, time-saving solution
“Other revenue management companies were very big but were not as complete as Atomize. Atomize for me was one push on a button and everything was going through my PMS, going through my OTAs. Looking at the predictability and the cost-efficiency that was for me a reason to go for Atomize.”
Once set up, Atomize runs a 24/7/365 real-time analysis of the hotel’s market to offer optimized rate suggestions and automatic updates as soon as markets change.
To do this, the system checks everything from booking pace and pick-up to historical data and search engine demand. This means the hotel’s team no longer has to do manual research and compile data in cumbersome spreadsheets before being able to analyze it and make rate changes. Atomize now handles all of that and frees up time for other important tasks such as strategizing and day-to-day operations.
Optimizing rates for group quotes
Especially since the WICC Hotel hosts many conferences and events, group bookings play a big role at this property. This makes it important for Steff and his team to quote the best possible rate: one that benefits the hotel and is acceptable to guests.
“The group booking module is very interesting for us, mainly in the busy seasons. What is the price that I can get for a room if I give it to a group or I sell it on the open market?”
Atomize’s group booking module provides price recommendations at the click of a button. It shows the WICC Hotel’s team how much they can negotiate and when it would be more profitable to sell their rooms publicly.
Great during busy times: group requests can be processed quickly which helps Steff’s team save time and creates a positive customer experience because they receive a prompt reply.
Increase RevPAR with optimized rate suggestions
The time when Atomize has the biggest impact on Hotel WICC is when the RMS suggests higher rates than Steff would have implemented, and bookings come in at these elevated prices and thus increase RevPAR.
Steff remembers one instance:
“I remember one day in August, I looked at the proposals for that day to agree on a rate for it. It (Atomize) raised the price from 160 to 219 Euros. Screw it, we are just going to follow what the system says, and we will see what happens. And I think five hours after I raised the price, a booking came in for 219 Euros and we were like: “Oh my God! Somebody paid for that, unbelievable!”
It is really fun to see how people were scared of asking for a price and now it turns into: “Ok, what can we get for a room?”
Smart algorithm consistently refines rate suggestions
Atomize provides data-driven pricing recommendations from the beginning. As the system runs longer and collects more historical data about market responses to rate changes, the RMS can fine-tune its recommendations and consistently improve them over time. That way Atomize brings long-term results.
“The machine learning algorithm, when you use it for the first year, it improves the second year over the first year and then the third year it improves over the second year because the database increases and grows.”
Responsive customer service
“There is not that much contact with customer service because the system works perfectly and flawlessly. But if there are any questions concerning the integrity of the algorithm if I see something where I wonder: “How does that go, how does it work?” then I put that question through to customer service and they immediately get back to me and say they are going to investigate and only a couple of days later I will get a response back.”
If this interview has piqued your curiosity about how you could benefit from an RMS, you can learn more about Atomize here or find out how Frimurarhotellet in Sweden save 30 hours a month and have increased their RevPAR by 8% by using Atomize.
Use Atomize Hotel Revenue Calculator to find out how much extra revenue Atomize RMS can generate for your hotel.
