The four key pillars of a

successful commercial
strategy: predict, price,
distribute & analyse

1
Table of contents
Introduction 3

Commercial strategy and the ‘Silo Mentality’ 4

What is a commercial strategy? 4

Why move to a commercial strategy? 4

Predict 7

What is forward looking data? 7

Uncovering new revenue opportunities with forward looking data 7

Identifying and capturing demand with a sales and marketing strategy driven 10
by forward looking data

In summary 11

Price 12

Setting the right rates 12

Building a successful discounting and promotional strategy 15

In summary 19

Distribute 20

Monitoring parity 19

Driving direct bookings 23

Optimising the channel mix 23

In summary 24

Analyse 25

Refine your revenue and distribution strategy 25

Refine your marketing and sales strategy 27

In summary 29

1
Table of contents
Afterword 30

About our tools 32

Market Insight 32

Rate Insight 32

Parity Insight 32

Revenue Insight 32

About OTA Insight 33

2
Introduction
The pandemic has disrupted nearly all aspects of a full recovery has been realised you first need
daily life, and changed the way most organisations to be able to spot them.
do business. Hoteliers have been especially
impacted; reeling from closures, furloughs and
As you continue to work through the crisis and
redundancies. Although the impact has been
target more short-term issues, innovation across
devastating, this event will likely be looked
the business will likely have taken a back seat.
back upon as a watershed moment for the
You may be restricted by resource, budget
hotel industry - in which change and innovation
or expertise, but being overly conservative in
accelerated at pace unlike any time before.
approach could be short-sighted – now is the
moment to prioritise innovation in order to fulfil
As we enter 2022, the state of the hotel market your potential for growth in 2022.
is still uncertain and remains fiercely competitive.
In general, demand is lower than pre-COVID
In order to successfully pursue new growth
and the arrival of new variants mean that
opportunities, you need to adopt technology
unpredictable and alternating reopening policies
solutions that differentiate you from your
have reared their head once again. Periods of
competitors by delivering actionable commercial
disruption often create the perfect setting for
insights. This will enable you to shape a unified
invention and improvement. With the pandemic
commercial strategy and bring together what
obstructing the hotel industry’s vision for the
were previously disjointed teams.
future, that time appears to have arrived.

By realigning your commercial ‘North Star’ you

Most hotels cannot operate in business as usual
can effectively pivot to a more efficient way of
fashion pre-COVID world. Ways of working that
working and emerge from the crisis as a leader,
used to deliver success may no longer prove
performing above the market in 2022.
fruitful. Consumer behaviour has changed,
the competition has altered, and conventional
This eBook will provide the foundation to develop
forecasting methods based on historical analysis
a holistic commercial mindset and a commercial
have been rendered relatively obsolete. The
strategy by utilising real-time historical, current
foundations which once supported year after
and future-looking data to get the best out of
year of stable growth have been shaken.
your commercial teams and improve business
performance.
But with every crisis comes opportunity. To seize
these new opportunities now and when

3
Commercial strategy
and the ‘Silo Mentality’
Traditionally, hotel commercial teams have
demonstrated a ‘Silo Mentality’– a mindset in
which they feel as though they belong to a
specific group in their workplace rather than a
collective. As a result, information, resources,
metrics and strategies aren’t shared as readily
(or even withheld).
This gives rise to departments that work in
isolation, shun collaboration and operate on
the boundary of overall business strategy,
jeopardising wider organisational goals. Not
only that, but when this disconnect envelops
a business, efficiency suffers. Companies and
teams are unable to pivot quickly as a unit, losing
out on opportunities as they present themselves.
Such a divide among commercial teams can be
due to a general business sense that “this is the
way it’s always been, so why change?” or more
down to interdepartmental competition and
disparate objectives. A prime example: sales
wanting to hit occupancy targets regardless of
price and revenue managers trying to maximise
revenue per available room (RevPar).
To overcome satellite teams becoming further
siloed at your hotel, leaders need to give their
departments a unified vision, which uniformly
incentivises teams in pursuit of the same desired
outcome, profitability.
This begins by implementing a holistic
commercial strategy that integrates each team.
What is a commercial strategy?
A commercial strategy unites the entirety of
a hotel’s revenue generating teams: sales,
marketing, revenue management and distribution
- within one goal structure and usually under
single leadership, headed by a Chief Commercial
Officer or Director.
While the definition is simple, it requires a high
level of executive buy-in to put into practice.
There needs to be support in challenging the
status-quo and contesting deep-rooted, yet
outdated principles in the industry. Crucially,
there should be an understanding of the value
of a change in organisational structure and a
strategy underpinned by data.
Your strategy needs to match current
circumstances and if it is not evolving to a rapidly
shifting market, you will get left behind.
4
Why move to a commercial strategy? Improving operational efficiency and combining
the unique strengths of each commercial team
Now, with two years of COVID-19 behind us, it will put you in an optimal position to realise your
has become clear that revenue management, property’s potential for profit.
marketing, sales and distribution teams can no
longer work independently. The pandemic has
Adopting technology solutions that consider the
piled pressure on hoteliers, Commercial strategy
complete commercial cycle is a straightforward
and the ‘Silo Mentality’ 5 with staff having to do
and effective approach to apply a unified
more with less and thus the need for improved
commercial strategy. By supplying teams with
efficiency has been put under the microscope.
actionable insights, based on real-time data,
common strategies and goals come into view.
With little corporate or MICE travel, hotel demand You can then easily track progress and replicate
has shifted mostly to leisure. Hoteliers are solely these tactics for future success.
focused on what was previously (for the most
part) only a small segment of their business. With
The drive toward greater operational efficiency
less demand and supply remaining the same,
in the hotel industry with a highly integrated,
competition is heightened once more. Hotels
data-first strategy shouldn’t be viewed as a
require a larger number of leisure travellers
seismic transformation. Instead, it should be seen
staying for increased periods of time to augment
as a change that was already underway among
revenue. This requires all commercial teams
market leaders and early adopters, and has
pulling in the same direction; such as marketing
simply accelerated with the impact of COVID-19.
reshaping their promotions at a price point
instructed by revenue management, to attract
leisure travellers to your property and away from Since the inception of revenue management,
established leisure hotels. there has been a rapid expansion in revenue
generating online outlets, primarily online travel
agencies (OTA) and metasearch sites. Guests
By breaking out of the ‘Silo Mentality’ with a
are more tech-savvy and booking online is now
holistic commercial strategy you will foster a
second nature, which has led to hotels to place
business culture of transparency, communication,
greater emphasis on their online presence.
collaboration and most importantly, improved
efficiency.

5
As a result, some revenue management and
distribution teams have begun to work much
closer with marketing - particularly ecommerce
and digital marketing - to deliver the best possible
guest experience, in an effort to become more
profitable.
Many global groups and chains have started
the process of commercial restructuring backed
by tech adoption. Smaller operators are more
predisposed to lag behind these changes due
to unique challenges regarding sunk costs,
resistance to change and the resource and time
taken to adopt new technology.
equipped with the entrepreneurial skill set to
take advantage of this transition. If they act now.
Those who are fastest to adapt will find
themselves as front-runners in 2022 and beyond.
The future of the travel and hospitality sector is
still somewhat clouded and the next 12-24 months
will continue to test hoteliers. Now is the time to
develop a successful commercial strategy and
bridge the gaps between departmental silos.
But how do you make this a reality? The answer:
the four guiding pillars of a successful commercial
strategy: predict, price, distribute and analyse.

However, this shouldn’t deter independent

hoteliers from pursuing such a strategy. Smaller
hoteliers are naturally agile and can pivot quickly
with relative freedom. They aren’t bound by
red tape or legacy technology, and are also

6
Predict
With such uncertainty hanging over the market,
being able to accurately predict and act on
demand signals will give you a head start over
your competitors.
The hotelier playbook has been ripped up and
historical data has had to take a back seat.
It is mission critical for hoteliers to invest in
technology that can discover new and changing
patterns of customer behaviour. This will enable
commercial teams to convert early demand
signals - taking potential guests from lookers to
bookers.
Hoteliers have long struggled to fully understand
the guest journey before booking. Now, with
market intelligence tools you can look at pre-
booking, forward looking data points, to view
unconstrained demand and move ahead of the
booking curve.
What is forward looking data?
These new data points are found higher up the
funnel and allow you to capture hotel booking
intent in real time, before a guest has booked a
room.
AI-powered technology taps into millions of
top-of-funnel search and pricing data sources
including: OTAs, global distribution systems
(GDSs), flight data, events, holidays, alternative
lodging inventory, and meta review sites to
deliver location-specific, segmented demand
insights.
Once you better understand booking intent, you
can then build correlations to your own demand
patterns. You can see whether you’re capturing
your fair share of market demand and develop
pricing strategies and targeted marketing
campaigns based on the demand insights.
Uncovering new revenue opportunities
with forward looking data
Markets are changing in the blink of an eye.
A predictive market intelligence solution, like
Market Insight, can help you create accurate
forecasts for more informed revenue decisions,
based on real-time, forward-looking demand
projections, 365 days in advance.
You can more precisely predict demand levels
in your market with early demand trends for
flights, hotel searches, stay patterns, domestic/
international travel, and leisure/business,
collected from multiple data sources.
By better anticipating future demand levels you
can spot and take advantage of short, mid and
long-term revenue opportunities and capture
your target audience ahead of your competition,
with the correct pricing, discounting and
promotional strategies.
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 Fig 1. Market Insight - Demand forecast and OTB

To capitalise fully on these insights, you can

contrast future demand levels to your on-the-
books (OTB) data. You can see which time
periods have the potential to bring in the most
revenue and plan appropriate pricing strategies.
Marketing campaigns are used to stimulate
demand, so by viewing this data revenue
management can work with marketing to start
campaigns to drive bookings.

This also presents an opportunity to spot

significant shifts in lead time and traveller stay
patterns that impact revenue strategies, so you
can adjust length-of-stay (LOS) offers.

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 IN PRACTICE: Derek Brewster | Director of Revenue Management at Lotte
New York Palace

“Market Insight’s live future demand data sets this tool apart from all other market intelligence
solutions. It allows me to drill down to a specific time period or even to a specific day. Then I can
see the demand outlook, how hotels are pricing and what areas of the market are experiencing
higher or lower levels of demand. We’ve been using the tool to look closely at the evolution of
both flight and hotel search levels. This has helped us determine buyer confidence and when
the first signs of increased demand might appear. We can use this advanced outlook to make
data-driven pricing and distribution decisions and thus get a head start on our competitors.”

Undertaking manual demand analysis or basing department’s day-to-day and keeping focus on
demand forecasts on unsubstantiated news growing the hotel’s revenue stream.
reports should now be a thing of the past for
revenue managers. Having future demand
Revenue managers can now react immediately
signals with the click of a button can give you
to spikes in demand, targeting the right traveller,
the edge over your compset - enabling you to
at the right time, with the right price point. But
easily grasp demand shifts, hotel availability and
forward looking data isn’t just for revenue
pricing in your market. It also frees up time for
managers, it has myriad uses, particularly for
more essential work, streamlining the revenue
marketing and sales.

Fig 2. Market Insight Demand Heatmap

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Identifying and capturing demand with
a sales and marketing strategy driven
by forward looking data
With a powerful, predictive market intelligence
tool, you can now see in real time where demand
for your market is originating from and how it
develops. This can be viewed at a granular level,
looking at sub-location/airport of origin, geo-
search, stay pattern, and accommodation types,
including alternative accommodation (private
rental sites).
Armed with insights on the booking window,
stay pattern and demand origin, you can create
marketing campaigns that target precise dates,
Fig 3. Market Insight - Granular demand data
LOS and source country, when guests are still in
the inspiration phase of the customer journey.
By personalising your digital advertising and
rolling it out where you know demand already
exists delivers improved ROI and increased
revenue.
At such a crucial juncture for hoteliers, decision
making around budget should be grounded
in accurate and reliable data. With this data-
first approach to marketing, teams can better
allocate budget to markets which show the
highest demand signals, while restricting budget
for markets and segments that won’t bring the
desired ROI.
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 IN PRACTICE: Julia Vereskun | Director of Revenue Management at Metropol
Hotel

“By using Market Insight, The Metropol Hotel, noticed a new destination was actively searching
for Moscow, and by launching a digital advertising campaign in Google to target consumers in
that destination; the hotel increased the number of bookings by 42.5% and reduced cost per
action (CPA*) by 30%.”

*CPA is an online advertising model, determining how much you pay per ‘action,’ such as
a booking. The more touch points required before a conversion, the more expensive your
advertising becomes. Therefore, with the more targeted advertising approach enabled by
Market Insight, the hotel’s CPA fell.”

Similarly, judging the strength of both your
international and domestic demand enables you
to understand how best to allocate marketing
and sales budgets to your domestic market. A
much smaller segment in the past but a vital
source of revenue for hoteliers in the current
climate.
In summary
With simple and actionable demand insights,
available from one centralised dashboard, teams
can work cross-functionally and make more
informed decisions to achieve overall business
goals.
Now that you’ve identified demand patterns in
your market, how do you build a suitable pricing
and promotional strategy that mirrors demand?

Embracing new market intelligence tools,

powered by forward looking data is the first step
to breaking the silo effect.

Understanding booking intent is the essential

component needed to align revenue management
and marketing. Both revenue management and
marketing can utilise future demand data by
being the first to release targeted incentives,
offers and packages, and new pricing strategies
- improving business performance and growing
market share.

11
Price
Getting room prices right is the bedrock of
revenue management. But there are so many
factors to consider when devising an effective
pricing strategy for your business, it can be hard
to know where to begin.
To give yourself the best chance at setting the
right rates you need to monitor your competition
and channel partners, forecast demand and
traveller trends, and track your KPIs. That’s a
whole lot of work, especially when most revenue
managers are now wearing multiple hats.
It’s time to re-evaluate and find success in this
dynamic landscape. The key to gaining control
of the situation and making confident decisions
is real-time, actionable data.
Setting the right rates
It’s an incredibly fine balance of filling your
rooms, while making sure they are being sold at
the right price to the right guests – maximising
RevPar. Ultimately, pricing hinges on supply
and demand, but the difficulty is demand varies
frequently depending on events, timing, trends
and competition.
To complicate matters, in the current situation
demand is still reduced and supply is the same
– forming a ruthlessly competitive environment
which can sometimes lead hoteliers to drop rates
dramatically in the hope of boosting occupancy.
This is a tactic hoteliers need to be mindful of and
avoid being drawn into - in a price war everyone
loses out.
Events
Events ranging from major occasions like the
Olympics to smaller scale business conferences
will have a direct impact on your hotel’s revenue.
You need to tailor your pricing strategy by
monitoring and reacting in real-time as demand
around the event shifts.
That’s why access to high-quality event data is
imperative for hoteliers, so that teams can act
on surges in demand from events as soon as
the opportunity arises. The accuracy of forward-
looking event data is now more important than
ever due to the frequency of event cancellations,
postponements and rescheduling.
Marketing teams can also identify potential offers
that target certain events or restrict campaign
activity around event dates where there is high
demand already.
Timing
Each hotel will have a high season and a low
season, usually determined by different holidays,
such as school holidays. There are also high
demand days and low demand days – mainly
weekdays and weekends – subject to the focus
on either leisure or business segments, and the
location of the property. It is also key to monitor
the holidays of source markets. You should be
fine-tuning your pricing to match these periods
of high and low demand and drive revenue.
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Trends
Traveller trends can significantly influence
demand. While some destinations are perennial
tourism hot spots, others are more likely to move
in and out of popularity with consumers. When
your destination is popular or in vogue, there can
be an influx of travellers. This could be due to
any number of factors - maybe your destination
was featured in a prominent travel publication’s
end of year list, a new attraction has been built,
or your destination marketing organisation is
creating good buzz. You should act quickly on
trends and set prices accordingly.
Competition
You should never let your competitors define
your pricing strategy. But in order to price your
rooms correctly, you need to know who you are
up against. Thus, identifying the right compset
is vital to the entire process. This can be based
on things such as type of accommodation, star
rating, business facilities, and so on.
However, fluctuating travel restrictions have led
hotels to repeatedly open and close. This means
properties, which were once competition, may
not be any longer. To manually fine tune your
compset in concurrence with this development is
both difficult and labour intensive. Therefore, you
should consider a solution that can automatically
adjust your competitive set.
PRODUCT FEATURE:
Smart Compset
A thorough understanding of your compset
is vital for all commercial teams - such as
who you are competing against with your
sales and marketing campaigns. With the
seismic changes that have taken place
since 2020 there needs to be a new
approach to your compset in 2022.
In recovery you are competing with almost
the entire market. The dramatic reduction
in business and MICE travel means there’s
no longer a distinction between hotels
focusing on corporate travel, versus hotels
focusing on leisure. Add in the continuing
popularity of alternative accommodation
and your compset has changed once more.
Market Insight includes dynamic comp
set data which means you are no longer
limited to a static group of pre-COVID
competitors but can see how your hotel’s
rates and availability measure up against
a wider selection of competitors based on
factors such as, consumer searches, your
amenities, star rating and price. This also
includes alternative accommodation on
home-sharing sites, so you can see how
your occupancy and rates matchup against
rental homes.
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Once you have defined your compset you
should keep an almost constant eye on their
rates, because that’s precisely what your guests
are doing. Manually collecting competitor data is
highly inefficient – monitoring competitor rates is
made easy with a rate intelligence solution.
Monitoring rates
If you want to make informed and confident
decisions when setting and adjusting your pricing
strategy, the best way forward is using real-time
rate and market data that is refreshed live. A rate
intelligence tool displays an accurate view of
your competitors’ current, past and future rates
in an easy-to-read format across all key OTAs,
brand.com and GDS.

There’s a huge amount of data to harvest and

All you need to do is quickly examine the data
then interpret to set the right rates. But data is
and then respond with appropriate pricing. Rate
the answer to shaping your pricing strategy – it
Insight also tracks the rate evolution of the price
would be near impossible to manually monitor all
of a room for a particular day. As the day draws
the market fluctuations.
near, you can judge how competitors’ prices
change and react appropriately.

IN PRACTICE: Iñaki Gonzalez Arnejo | CEO and Founder at DOT Hotels

“Rate Insight makes it very easy to monitor our competition. Instead of just seeing a single
rate for a standard room, I can check prices for various room categories or length-of-stay
restrictions 365 days into the future. This gives me an accurate picture of the market overall
as well as how my individual competitors are doing.

As a result, it has become much easier for us to make pricing decisions that position our
properties the way we want. These comprehensive compset insights have been especially
valuable during the volatile months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We can’t fully rely on our
revenue management system’s forecasts and rate suggestions right now since they’re based
largely on historical data.

We get a much better picture of the market by checking what our competitors are doing via
Rate Insight. We can even tell if they’re expecting demand to pick up on certain dates. This
allows us to consider adjusting our rates accordingly to ensure we maintain our positioning
and maximise bookings and revenue whenever possible.”

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With real time rate changes at your fingertips
the process of analysing your compset’s rates
and then setting rates is simplified. Revenue
managers can react within seconds – efficiency
improves, and time is saved to work on key tasks.
Rate Insight displays current positioning and a
long-term outlook to shape your pricing strategy
well in advance. With this data available in one
dashboard, with simple reporting, accessible
to all teams – not only do revenue managers
benefit but all commercial departments have a
bird’s eye view of the rate environment to inform
their own strategy.
Marketers stand to gain from the analysis
provided by a rate intelligence tool by using
data such as compset monitoring and your
hotel’s competitive price positioning to fine-
tune and improve the performance of marketing
campaigns. It is knowledge sharing like this that
unlocks new opportunities and efficiencies.
Building a successful discounting and market and own-property information.
promotional strategy
In the current environment, granular insights on
your competition are a real asset when trying
to stay competitive. There are several levers at
your disposal when trying to drive growth. But
how do you choose which lever to pull (and at
what time?)
In order to make the right decision with absolute
confidence, you need advanced rate intelligence.
Without accurate data on discounting and
promotional activity in your market, the ability
to construct a long-term pricing strategy that
is adaptable to market conditions is highly
challenging.
Central to the developing dynamics in the hotel
sector is how the pandemic has shifted the
priority to flexibility and agility. There is now
greater variety in cancellation policies, ancillary
bundles, length of stay discounts, and discounts
for mobile bookers.
Further complicating the pricing process for
revenue managers. This level of complexity
requires a simpler way to view data.
The new Rate Strategy feature, within Rate Insight
(enterprise subscription), provides a high-level
overview of pricing and promotional strategies –
showing multiple insights regarding competitor,
As a starting point, in the positioning section, you
can see how you’re ranked in the compset with
your best available rate (BAR). Underneath you
can see if this position is impacted by certain
strategies and how. This will further guide you
through the dashboard, helping you decide what
to focus on.
15
Fig 4. Rate Strategy - Positioning
With key promotional insights from median
breakfast cost, length of stay discounts, the
percentage of hotels with mobile discounts, to
semi-flex and non-refundable rates – all in one
dashboard – you are now able to immediately
spot patterns to help make informed pricing,
discounting and promotional decisions.
Fig 5. Promotion and pricing strategy
You can uncover the underlying reason behind
changes in your rate position – expose the long-
term promotional and discounting strategies
of your competitors – then benchmark your
own strategy and discount levels against your
compset.
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These types of insights can help drive Price doesn’t always determine how guests
interdepartmental meetings. Do the food and feel about a certain offer. Marketing can look
beverage (F&B) department need to further at these insights, decide what’s relevant and
investigate meal type offerings? Should then also factor in non-price offers, such as a
e-commerce consider altering the mobile complimentary breakfast to convert potential
discounts in play? guests.

Fig 6. Rate Strategy - Median breakfast cost and Median breakfast cost detailed view

17
 IN PRACTICE: Adam Salem | Director, Commercial & Digital at Dur Hospitality

“On top of seeing the competition’s rates for various room categories, we can even monitor
their inclusions and discounts now. This reveals their complete pricing strategy and helps me
understand the impact on our properties.

That way, you’re not benchmarking hotel versus hotel anymore. Now you’re benchmarking
selling strategies. That’s something unique I’d never seen before. It makes it much easier to
react appropriately and maintain our positioning because we know the whole picture.”

Fig 7. Rate Strategy - Cancellation policy and Cancellation policy detailed view

18
In summary You can instantly spot trends in your competitors’
rates, while defining your own strategy.
Revenue managers and their fellow commercial Empowering you to remain nimble and efficient
teams need to continue to be more data-centric when deciding to hold or manipulate rates; or
when it comes to pricing – while pairing this with introduce different promotions and discounts at
an approach that compresses analysis, decision- the right time to match demand.
making and application into much shorter time
frames.

Advanced rate intelligence, like that found in the

Rate Strategy feature in Rate Insight (enterprise
subscription) gives a more rounded view of the
market and how it is evolving.

19
Distribute
A hotel distribution strategy involves selling
rooms through various channels in an effort to
minimise the cost of distribution while increasing
revenue. These channels include direct, namely
a hotel’s website, and indirect channels such as
OTAs, GDS and wholesalers.
Hoteliers are faced with distribution decisions on
a daily basis that impact long-term profitability.
There are constant choices regarding how much
inventory to distribute at what price, and on
which channel. Though the dominant distribution
issue that continues to universally affect hotels is
rate parity (and disparity).
Disparity is the difference between quoted
prices on hotels’ own websites and those shown
by OTAs and other third-party channels such as
metasearch. The online distribution ecosystem
moves at pace, and as channels evolve, so must
the strategies to manage rate parity.
Smarter distribution analytics, powered by
accurate data, is crucial to the informed decision
that shapes a successful distribution strategy
capable of sustainably generating revenue.
Monitoring parity
Working with OTAs can bring considerable
reward to your business, providing access to a
large number of potential customers that would
be difficult to engage with otherwise.
However, conflict arises around the issue of
disparity. Disparity causes two major problems
for hoteliers. Firstly, being undercut by OTAs
discourages direct bookings on your own
channel, which eats into your profits by directing
customers to channels which you have to pay
commission on.
Secondly, it damages your brand reputation by
presenting a confusing, inconsistent message to
consumers, which undermines their confidence
in your business. This presents an extra layer
of complexity when setting your prices, and
optimising your channel mix and driving direct
bookings.
Monitoring parity and identifying where
instances of disparity occur is indispensable in
today’s landscape. Previously, the only way to
monitor disparity between direct, and OTA and
metasearch rates, would be manually checking
your own channel against individual OTAs. This is
incredibly time-consuming and gives an isolated
view on one room type and date.
With access to the right rate intelligence solution,
you can take a broad view and see where you are
losing revenue by checking rates and identifying
parity issues on all key OTAs and metasearch
channels, in real time. By eradicating manual
checks and having parity insights displayed in a
simple dashboard efficiency
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Fig 8. Rate Insight - Parity Tab

PRODUCT | Parity Insight

Parity Insight is a specialised platform to track parity for hotel groups and chains. This suite of
tools can discover and solve parity issues across your portfolio. The highly-intuitive solution
tracks your parity performance on OTAs and metasearch and automates fixing parity issues.

Manage and track your parity to better control your distribution and reduce your reliance on
OTA business.

Visualise all your parity discrepancies across the web, both with a single hotel view solution
and a consolidated dashboard.

21
Monitoring and managing your rate parity is
paramount for revenue and distribution teams
to drive higher ADR and profitability. You have
to sell the right room, to the right customer, at
the right time, for the right price, via the right
channel.
teams can see considerable benefit from
viewing parity insights when agreeing group
contracts and ensuring they see eye-to-eye with
the revenue team when deciding which partners
to work with.

Taking control of your hotel’s parity isn’t just for

But educating fellow commercial teams on your one commercial team, it seriously impacts your
hotel’s parity situation with a rate intelligence bottom line and is advantageous for the entire
solution like Rate Insight ensures others aren’t business.
flying blind on the subject of distribution. Sales

IN PRACTICE: Sunish Sadasivan | Vice President of E-Commerce & Revenue

Management, Chroma Hospitality

“Before using Rate Insight, around 25-30% of the time, our rates were in disparity and showed
up better on OTAs than our website. Since using the tool, we have been able to decrease this
number to 13-15% which contributed to our direct bookings going up by 5-7% depending on
the hotel.

Being able to address rate disparity so quickly saves us hundreds or even thousands of dollars,
depending on the volume of bookings coming from the channel in question.

We also save tremendous amounts of time when conducting parity checks. In the past, one
team member could review cases for two or three hotels a day. With Rate Insight, they can
check for rate disparity at all six of our hotels in a single day. Overall, we save around six to
eight hours a week on rate and parity checks and with Rate Insight.”

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Driving direct bookings
Marketing teams also see considerable benefit
when rate parity is managed correctly. OTAs like
Expedia, Booking.com and Ctrip may have high
commissions but they also have vast marketing
budgets which can help you tap into new markets
you may not be able to on your own.
By having rate and parity intelligence in place,
marketing teams see benefit from the increased
brand awareness among new potential guests,
without having to worry about damage to the
brand’s reputation.
There is the additional bonus of the ‘Billboard
Effect.’ Hotels that are listed on OTAs and
metasearch see an increase in traffic to their
website and more direct bookings as a result of
guests finding them on a third-party site and then
navigating to the brand.com website to make the
purchase.
In order to facilitate direct bookings you must
invest in a straightforward booking engine on
your website and optimise your site for better
SEO performance and a user-friendly experience.
Another way to win guests from third-party
channels is by offering a more competitive
package. For the same price, add on extras like
breakfast, activities and amenities - providing the
best value offer and more direct revenue.
Direct bookings deliver the highest gross profit
but your net profit is impacted by the marketing
costs correlated with direct bookings. Thus, they
are only one part of the channel mix.
Optimising the channel mix
Every hotel has an optimal channel mix which
maximises profitability in the long term.This
channel mix depends on a variety of elements
that affect the hotel’s position in the marketplace.
By analysing the data from your PMS (ideally via a
business intelligence solution) you can determine
the ideal guest segments for your business. By
weighing factors like commission rates, inventory
guidelines, marketing potential and the customer
mix, you can then decide which channels are
most attractive to partner with. It is also vital to
keep your offline distribution channels in mind,
like groups and MICE, wholesalers and GDS.
As global travel demand was suppressed by
lockdowns and government restrictions, the
channel mix was altered for many hoteliers -
pushing them to rely more on third-party channels
to provide as much visibility as possible in the
search for bookings. But hoteliers can’t afford to
lose too much ground to OTAs.
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Now during COVID-19, hotel commercial teams
should avoid over reliance on third-party channels
to prevent a similar scenario developing like the
one they found themselves in after the Financial
Crisis. Through the use of a market intelligence
solution, you can hone your distribution strategy
and circumvent this situation by comparing
market demand with your OTB data.
By identifying future high and low demand dates
at your hotel you can be more calculated in your
approach to working with OTAs and allocating
your marketing spend to push direct bookings.
On low demand dates you can use OTAs to
amplify visibility, on shoulder dates maintain a
healthy mix, while on high demand dates you
can focus on driving direct bookings. when
demand is very high, there is also the option
to close all rates except for walk-ins and best
available rates. You can then combine this with
a rate intelligence tool to compare the prices on
each date to make sure your pricing strategy is
on course.
Optimising your distribution channel mix is not a
‘set and forget’ activity. To maintain a profitable
strategy you need to analyse cost per acquisition
and use a business intelligence tool to keep a
constant eye on market fluctuations, changing
source markets and segments, and channel
performance.
In summary
Rate parity is still one of the biggest challenges
in the hotel industry as it continues to greatly
impact profitability. OTA and metasearch aren’t
going anywhere and the best distribution
strategy for sustainable profitability is a balanced
one, including both promotions that encourage
direct bookings and good relations with OTAs.
It is now of utmost importance for commercial
teams to take heed from past mistakes and not
fall into the trap of becoming over-dependent on
third-party channels during a sustained period of
low demand. When recovery is in full swing, you
want to be able to trigger highly profitable direct
bookings.
As the distribution ecosystem transforms,
revenue and distribution teams need the right
data and tech solutions to monitor, track and
act on their distribution performance. This is in
tandem with harnessing forward looking market
intelligence to identify demand fluctuations in
their market so they can tailor their distribution
strategy. Stopping business escaping to lower
rate and higher cost third-party channels and
attempting to drive direct on the right dates.
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Analyse
Playing a guessing game with the performance Refine your revenue and distribution
of your strategy is reckless in any year, let strategy
alone 2022. Every decision you take should be
grounded in up-to-date, accurate and reliable
data. All commercial teams will need to remain
flexible in 2022 – ready to adapt and adjust
strategy at the drop of a hat to meet changes
in the market. This requires continual monitoring
and optimising of your strategy.
The effectiveness of a strategy is contingent on
analysis of the results, and then following through
with an enhanced version. Throughout the whole
commercial cycle, you are collecting performance
data through your property management system
(PMS). You should be analysing this information
seamlessly with a business intelligence tool, so
you get a clear picture of how you are tracking
against your KPIs.
A business intelligence solution leverages your
PMS data into a user-friendly dashboard to
deliver instant insights into where your business
comes from, looking at your KPIs, empowering
you to make proactive commercial decisions to
drive revenue.
Revenue and distribution teams have a lot of
data at their disposal, particularly from their PMS
system. Correctly analysing this data can lead
to opportunities for growth. However, you don’t
want to get stuck in endless streams of data
which are difficult and time consuming to gather
reports from, slowing down decision making.
With a business intelligence solution at your
side, the heavy lifting of manually exporting
and compiling data from your PMS is removed.
Instead you have the benefit of automated
reporting and the ability to view insights on your
performance from a dashboard. The simplicity
of reporting and optimal display of data means
there is little need for deliberation and lengthy
discussions between fellow commercial
departments, heightening collaboration.
Market conditions are constantly evolving.
Elements like pricing amendments by compset
hotels, channel performance and pick-up need to
be examined in real-time. With Revenue Insight
you can combine a wide range of indicators such
as rate codes, channels, room types and quickly
understand what’s working, what isn’t, where to
continue with a strategy or change quickly to
drive more revenue.
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IN PRACTICE: David Gill | Director of Revenue Management at Silverado
Resort and Spa

“With Revenue Insight, you have price insights within the tool when measuring ADR. This allows
a combination of sales and indexing on the price side, to make quicker decisions. You can then
quickly evaluate the length of stay, which channels are working best, and how to effectively
move between pricing decisions to shift channel contributions.

Revenue Insight gives you all the critical factors for revenue positioning in one platform.
Fully automated reporting allows us to become far more agile in decision-making.

We can see operational hard dollar improvements in time. I have a revenue analyst that no
longer has to put two hours into building a report.”

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Refine your marketing and sales You can visualise which marketing tactics are
strategy working, and which aren’t. If they are proving
worthwhile, then you know where to focus, and
Just as you were able to monitor and analyse double down on this strategy. And if not then you
your revenue and distribution strategy, once can switch your attention to a different strategy.
you begin applying your marketing strategy
you can immediately assess the success of
your promotions and offers with a business
intelligence solution.

Fig 9. Revenue Insight analysis

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With constrained resources at present and
changeable market conditions, you simply
can’t afford to misplace budget on ineffective
campaigns. A business intelligence solution
enables you to remain agile and quickly pivot
strategy, so you can make the most of your
marketing budget.
By using actualised visitor data, you can
constantly build and modify your tactics and
messaging used for each customer segment
through their booking journey. This can facilitate
greater personalisation of offers and upgrades,
and facilitates better upselling.
opportunity that is worth prospecting. When
looking at negotiated rates and groups, sales
can align prospecting with revenue to agree on
prices and availability, to drive room and ancillary
revenues.
By using Revenue Insight, sales can better
understand how demand is impacted and then
reassess how to maximise the revenue of each
of their accounts. Previous accounts that used to
provide minimal revenue may now be a valuable
option to pursue, and vice versa. Accurate
business intelligence can provide the insight
you need to find these new revenue generating
opportunities.

Sales teams are able to examine business

intelligence reporting to discover every available

IN PRACTICE: Sheldon Kuwabara | Regional Director of Revenue

Management at Pinnacle Hotels Hotels and Restaurants Canada

“We’ve used Revenue Insight to complement promotions with great success. We are able to
easily see on the timeline where pick up is happening.

Which means that if we want to start thinking about the next offer, we need to give ourselves
X amount of time in advance to get them out or else we’ll see a lull period in between, where
there’s nothing coming.

I am then able to communicate this effortlessly to my GM and to our asset management team.
We say, ‘Here’s what we did, this is how we recognize the time period’, and answer everybody’s
questions straight away.”

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In summary Revenue Insight’s action orientated dashboard
and straightforward reports pulled directly from
The analysis phase of a commercial strategy is your PMS data, you can effortlessly monitor KPIs,
critical. Rate Insight and Market Insight show benchmark, and act with speed.
how the market is developing and how you’re
positioned in it - Revenue Insight completes the
Standardised reporting makes the data usable
picture by providing a comprehensive overview
for fellow commercial teams, facilitating much
of your internal performance. Answering
more efficient cross-department collaboration.
questions like, are you where we want to be? Are
Teams can communicate granular information,
you meeting targets? Do you need to revise your
quickly grasp the effectiveness of strategies and
strategy to achieve your revenue potential?
align on goals.

This constant process of analysis and fine-

In this highly competitive situation where you are
tuning improves business performance and
fighting for every single booking, extra time that
facilitates strategic flexibility – allowing you to
is made available to focus on your commercial
be more responsive and better prepared in
strategy is invaluable.
the face of disruptive market conditions. With

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Afterword
The hospitality industry has changed and
hoteliers need to adapt - efficiency is now vital.
It is shortsighted at best - damaging at worst -
to think that commercial teams can continue to
work in silos.
To knit these teams together for optimal efficiency
you need a holistic commercial strategy that is
supported by the four pillars of: predict, price,
distribute and analyse.
Each of these pillars are connected through
shared data. Data is the common currency that
unifies commercial divisions and in the world
of data, quality is everything. You will only see
real value with quality data. The success of your
commercial strategy hinges on data quality as
well.
OTA Insight supplies hoteliers with the industry’s
most accurate, complete and reliable data sets,
so you can confidently make decisions that
inform your commercial strategy and align teams
toward mutual goals.
With this data at your disposal and a tech stack
that takes you all the way from understanding
booking intent to analysing and benchmarking
your internal performance, you can establish a
full-circle commercial strategy. Setting your hotel
up for success 2022 and many years to come.
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 IN PRACTICE: Adam Salem | Director, Commercial & Digital at Dur
Hospitality

“All four of OTA Insight’s solutions are connected in one platform to offer a holistic market
overview. This makes data much more accessible and actionable than when you use several
separate tools.

Being able to see forward-looking demand data, the compset’s rate strategies, and our
performance metrics in one shot gives our entire commercial team a chance to navigate our
highly dynamic markets successfully.

Since implementing OTA Insight’s tools, communication and collaboration between the sales,
revenue, and marketing departments have drastically improved.”

When building a holistic commercial strategy of the most vital insights so you save time and
around technology, integration is critical. become more efficient by instantly spotting the
Disparate systems and fractured data can days and areas of your strategy that need your
create inefficiencies. At OTA Insight you have attention.
fully integrated, intuitive solutions, where each
department can easily visualise data.
2022 is the year to finally break out of silos
for good. And now with The Overview you
In 2022, OTA Insight is taking its commercial will be able to seamlessly align your revenue,
product suite a step further with the launch of marketing, sales and distribution strategies to
The Overview. consistently maximise revenue. Follow us on
LinkedIn to watch our latest product launches
and innovations.
The Overview is the only solution on the
market combining your revenue, marketing and
distribution KPIs in one place. You get a clear
and cohesive overview of your business health,
market conditions and commercial performance
in a glance. This includes a dynamic watchlist

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About our tools
Make smarter pricing decisions. Get real-time rate
intelligence with the industry’s leading hotel rate shopper.

Rate Insight
Make smarter pricing decisions

Make better, faster decisions with dynamic hotel PMS

analytics and unlock your revenue potential.

Revenue Insight
Unlock your revenue potential

The industry’s first predictive market intelligence solution

that captures hotel booking intent in real time to uncover
new revenue opportunities.

Market Insight
Harness real-time market intelligence

The end-to-end solution for groups and chains to track hotels’

parity performance, efficiently manage online partnerships and
solve the right parity issues across OTAs and metasearch.

Parity Insight
Keep control of your distribution cost

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About OTA Insight
To learn more about how to implement a commercial strategy with actionable data get in touch with
us today. For more information, visit www.otainsight.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

OTA Insight OTA Insight empowers hoteliers to make smarter revenue, distribution and marketing
decisions through its market-leading suite of cloud-based business intelligence solutions including
Rate Insight, Parity Insight, Revenue Insight and Market Insight. With live updates, 24/7 support from
our customer success team, and a highly intuitive and customisable dashboard, the OTA Insight
platform integrates with other industry tools including hotel property management systems, leading
RMS solutions and data benchmarking providers.

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