In an industry where consumers have huge choice of where they stay, small changes in technology can often make a big difference to the bottom line.
Phocuswire asked
Alexander Ryll and Dean Ismael of Pegasus/Travel Tripper to explain the thinking behind the geoanalytics platform as well as the benefits it brings to hotels.
Here they detail the problem and provide an example of how one hotel has put the technology to good use...
One of the greatest challenges hotels face today is predicting where business is coming from.
For corporate business especially, many hotels are used to playing defense when it comes to securing new clients.
At the same time, for many upscale and luxury hotels, corporate accounts can provide as much as 80% of revenue.
Traditionally, hotels have relied solely on manual processes to source new business which prolongs the sales cycle and can missed opportunities.
That dynamic is changing as innovation in predictive analytics is enabling hotels to identify, and win, new business.
GeoAnalytics at the core
To leverage new analytics capabilities, a new GeoAnalytics tool is helping many hotels that rely on corporate business, get key information about a prospective client, including its corporate travel arrangements and local office placement.
During RFP season, this tool is able to play "matchmaker" with hotels and relevant locations, connecting corporations with hotels that suited their needs and removing the need for hotel sales professionals to use contact lists, emails and websites to find new business.
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The result is an ability to deliver a greater number of RFP opportunities to hotel clients, backed by a team that manages corporate sales and business development for more than 700 hotels in nearly 300 locations.
Alexander Ryll, director global corporate sales for Pegasus/Travel Tripper, says: "The new tool complements the 800 global corporate hotel programs, and enhances them.
"The majority of our hotel customers, especially outside of North America, do not feature chain hotels within close proximity to local corporation offices."
One property that has seen success using the GeoAnalytics platform is the Chilworth London Paddington Hotel, part of Montcalm Luxury Hotels.
According to Ajish George, business development director for Montcalm, the Chilworth saw immediate success as a result of the technology.
"Following a full refurbishment, we opened The Chilworth London in April 2018, adding the hotel immediately into Pegasus’ corporate demand service, through our existing partnership."
George adds: "Through the team's processes and GeoAnalytics service, we won 12 new corporation agreements from our top 20 targets."
This has enabled the hotel to drive a 27% increase in total booking volume, including bookings through the GDS.
As a result, corporate revenues have assumed an even bigger part of the property’s revenue stream, capitalizing on previously unseen demand.
How it works
At the heart of the solution is a combination of corporate demand sales capabilities and business intelligence.
The collaborative strategy helped create a platform that meets the complex needs of the hospitality industry, while maximizing ROI for individual hotels in hyper-competitive markets.
Dean Ismael, vice president business intelligence and analytics at Travel Tripper/Pegasus says:
"Through the introduction of the GeoAnalytics platform, the corporate demand sales team now has access to powerful geographical insights that enable it to present RFP opportunities to potential corporate buyers."
"The platform’s ability to visualize spatial data and surface demand insights allows the team to communicate key proximity data in a more intelligent manner. It has already delivered tremendous results."
Inside the solution
To get the solution launched, the concept needed to be carefully prototyped. This required working closely with the hotel portfolio to understand and adopt their individual processes for engaging with corporations.
The seasonal nature of the RFP process provided challenges, as did the need to provide internal training alongside it.
Today, a growing number of hotels rely on location data to identify opportunities with new companies or those that are opening office branches in new cities.
Some companies are growing at such a rapid pace that procurement teams can't keep up with the growth of new offices opening and the platform enables hotel partners to react quickly when seeking new corporate business.
The corporate demand solution helps simplify the RFP process in a complex market with an overabundance of information.
It’s ultimately the hotel’s job to win customers over - the GeoAnalytics platform helps find them as a first step.