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InnQuest roomMaster 2000 version 15

Posted on May 15, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

InnQuestI recently returned from attending the InnQuest Software’s User Conference that was held in Las Vegas at the beginning of the month. I went to represent one of my clients who uses InnQuest’s roomMaster 2000 as their property management system. It was the first time I have attended a conference like this. I had met with the Canadian division in October for some one-on-one training and problem solving, but this conference was much larger than that. I estimated that there were nearly 150 attendees according to the full list in our guide book.

The main focus of the conference is highlighting some features of InnQuest’s roomMaster 2000 property management system (PMS) that some hotels may not be utilizing completely. In addition, they were giving teasing glimpses of the next version of roomMaster, version 15. Since I know there are well over 400 properties in Canada alone using the software, I thought I would run down some of the changes for those interested. I’ve included contact information at the bottom if people wish to request a demo of the current version (14.5).

Version 15 is scheduled to be released at the end of July. It is currently going into a few beta hotels in the United States in May, then a few properties in Canada and Internationally to test for compatibility before being publicly released. There are quite a few enhancements to revenue management features, front desk operations, group blocks, and more. I can’t include screenshots, of course, but nothing has changed with the user interface apart from a few extra checkboxes here and there.

Revenue Management

A big change for the revenue management aspect of roomMaster is going to be the inclusion of Hybrid Rates. A Standard Rate is provided for a given period (range of dates, days), as is a Hybrid Rate, but the Hybrid Rate allows you to specify which Standard Rate is available beyond the dates of the Hybrid Rate. This is going to be useful for groups, special packages, promotions, and seasons.

For example:

CONV Rate is created as a Hybrid Rate for August 5–9th, with RACK as the alternative. CONV is set at $100.00, RACK at $150.00.

A guest calls in to make a reservation for August 4–11th, staying the full week of the convention. Their total stay would look like this:

Aug 4: $150.00

Aug 5–9: $100.00

August 10: $150.00

This change is probably the one feature I am looking forward to the most out of everything. It will make reservations much easier, and help with yield management. The Hybrid Rates can be a Derived Rate, as can the alternative.

  • The Availability by Room Type screen will include the colour code of the Yielding Profile. By selecting the Show Rates button, the rate will be displayed with the corresponding Yielding Profile.

Front Desk Operations

  • Upgrades/Wait List is being changed to help you determine whether there is a possibility to upgrade a returning guest to free up a room valued at a lower amount. This will help develop brand loyalty by rewarding guests who stay frequently with a complimentary upgrade to a higher priced room. The Rate Code on the reservation will also be changed to green so the agents can easily determine that the room was upgraded and the rate should not be increased.

Housekeeping

If a room is marked as “Dirty” and there was no revenue posted to that room for the previous audit date, the “Normal” cleaning status is changed to “Normal-Not Sold” on the Housekeepers Report. This will help management of possible improper room usage.

For example, a Front Desk agent takes a walk-in at 10 PM, has the guest pay cash. The same Front Desk agent is returning at 7 AM to check that guest out. Instead of checking them into the system, they set the room status as “Dirty,” and pockets the cash. Management will be able to see that the room was cleaned beforehand and can approach the staff as to why it was marked as dirty.

A nice feature, but one of those features you really hope you don’t need to use that often, if ever.

roomMaster.net

roomMaster.net is the backend service that allows bookings to happen through the website and be downloaded into the PMS automatically. The system is in sync with roomMaster, meaning room rates and availability are exactly the same – no chance of the hotel being oversold by accident. If a hotel receives a large amount of bookings through the website, this is a great service to use as it is commission-free.

With the new version of roomMaster.net, it is being optimized for touch screen devices and becoming mobile-ready. Guests can make bookings through their mobile devices easily, and the hotel can offer special discounts for people that book through their mobile devices, as well.

The next version goes a step further than that though. Once the guest has checked into the hotel, the mobile version of roomMaster.net will allow them to view their folio on their mobile, and allow them to do an express checkout.

The mobile version will allow users to get directions to the hotel using their GPS-enabled device, and quick access to the property’s phone number from the Contact Us screen.

iQ-Anywhere

iQ-Anywhere is the service that allows management/owners to access the roomMaster system through a web browser (mobile or desktop). It only provides access to the essential services, to get a quick snapshot of the hotel’s occupancy, the arrivals coming into the hotel, seeing maintenance issues, and look at the upcoming availability. You can also change the status of a room to clean/dirty/unavailable or enter in a maintenance issue. Useful if you want to provide your Housekeeping Manager with a mobile device to update rooms immediately, instead of returning to the Front Desk or their office to make the updates.

Groups

Using Group Blocks is incredibly easy in roomMaster, and they have made an impressive amount of changes to make it even better.

  • Tentative Groups allow for block information to be entered, without blocking off any rooms.
  • Discounts to be added to a group block, instead of creating a new rate code. Enter 15% off RACK instead of the normal procedure of creating a new Derived Rate and using that rate code within the group.
  • Comp Factor is used to determine how many complimentary rooms a group gets per number of rooms booked. I wasn’t positive whether it makes the adjustment from the folio automatically or whether it was only for reference purposes.
  • Billing Type is used to let the Front Desk know whether guests pay on their own, all charges go to a Master Folio, room and tax goes to a Master Folio, or just room charges go to the Master Folio.
  • Online Promo Codes can be setup in the new version to allow guests to book through the website, if the hotel is using roomMaster.net
  • Booking Pattern is a screen that displays how well the group block is being used, plus highlights the dates the group is using outside of the original dates blocked.

In Summary and Contacts

There are probably going to be even more changes made in the coming months – in fact Robert Paresi, the President and main developer of roomMaster, made a coding adjustment during one of the breaks in the day. According to others, it wasn’t the first time he has made changes on the fly like this before. I also left out some of the new features for the iQ Scheduler and PoS system that I am not familiar with.

I am quite excited over what I did see presented, and am suggesting that most hotels strongly consider upgrading to the Premier Edition of roomMaster. The features available, plus the new changes, make it worthwhile in my opinion. The Yield Management system alone is worth the upgrade price as it has the potential to increase your revenues easily without much work.

To learn more, I would suggest getting in touch with the sales representative for your region. If you would like to hear more about the benefits of using roomMaster or my preferred CRS solution InnLink please contact me.

United States

sales@innquest.com

Phone: 813–288–4900

Canada

Tyler Tavernier

sales@canada.innquest.com

Phone: 1–888–477–0344

For other regions, check out the website: InnQuest

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Posted in Operations, Revenue Management

SimpleHoney – New Hotel Booking Site

Posted on May 14, 2012 by James McCullough — 1 Comment ↓

I read with interest about a new hotel site that launched, SimpleHoney. The initial article was from TechCrunch, SimpleHoney to Find Hotels You Love because the co-founders have been involved with some other startups.

While other hotel booking sites focus on price, SimpleHoney is going to focus on the user.

I went through the sign-up process and it’s different from the get-go. Enter in your email address, then choose what type of hotel you normally stay at (Modern, Boutique, Classic, and Rustic). After you receive the confirmation email, you go through a more in depth questionnaire to pin point to find out what kind of traveler you are and what sort of activities you do once you receive your destination.

Let’s keep it simple, but have a good time! You know what kind of vacation you want to have and you know where to get it, so why bother re-inventing the wheel each year and losing precious relaxation time? You know what you like – when you want to travel, where you want to go, which hotel and even what restaurants. But you also might check out a new place if you find a good deal for a location that a few of your friends have recommended. Either way, we know you will always come back relaxed and content from your vacations – well done!

 

The hotels SimpleHoney matches up to your profile are a bit limited right now, because the service is only operating in San Francisco and Hawaii. There isn’t any information about the hotels either, apart from its location. The links are for the hotel website but booking capabilities are supposed to be coming later this summer.

Reading the TechCrunch write-up, there will be more features to come that will give hotels opportunities to provide targeted offers to potential guests (the example that was provided was specials on surfboard rentals). This is a great idea from the hotel’s perspective. Too often hotel websites are full of offers that are trying to appeal to a broad audience and rarely display something that would be of interest to someone like me. The more SimpleHoney learns about me, the more likely the offers will appeal to me, in a similar fashion to how Amazon displays personal offers to me.

Going through the comments to see what other people (non-hoteliers) thought of it was a useful exercise, as well. As a hotelier, SimpleHoney appeals to me because it will help some of the hotels I work with rise to the top to find their guests. These two people offered a similar perspective:

 

While most hotels try to compete and differentiate themselves from each other, they may have to work harder at it. A service like SimpleHoney will help dig down deeper into discovering what guests are really interested in beyond the normal offers (wi-fi, comfortable bed, decent breakfast). New hotels in development could potentially buy some of the data from SimpleHoney and find out how many people are interested in surfboard rentals and boutique hotels to create new niche hotel experiences.

Eventually, SimpleHoney is going to be charging $100 to signup for their service as they expand and hotels have special offers available on the site. Right now, they’re waiving the fee for new enrollments, so be sure to sign up today if any of this interests you.

SimpleHoney

Posted in Operations

Free Hotel Resources (or Near Free)

Posted on April 17, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

The Internet is full of valuable resources directed at hoteliers and people running hospitality businesses, from large to small. I am always on the search for more resources to share and do so often on Twitter. I thought I would compile a list of some sites and books that I have found for free or a minimal cost compared to most books and resources you find online.

Hotel Books

There are a lot of books available on Amazon that have to do with hotel management that are available for the Kindle. 156 according to Amazon, and 95 of them are rated as 3 Stars and up. Here is a quick list of the books that stood out for me:
* Spanish for Hotel Staff: Essential Power Words and Phrases for Workplace Survival – $2.99
* Hotel Bed Bugs – How to Check Your Room for Bed Bugs in 7 Simple Steps – $0.99
* How to Become a Perfect General Manager – $9.99
* Practical Hotel Management – $9.99
* Low Cost Marketing Strategies for Hotels and Guest Houses – $4.99
* e-Study Guide for Hotel Management and Operations – $9.99
* Hotel Sales and Revenue Management Book 2.0 by Carol Verret – $3.99
* Just Six Guests: How to Set Up and Run a Small Bed and Breakfast – $5.82
* Hospitality: Minnesota Nice – by Brian Nylander, $0.99

Hotel Blogs and Magazines

Lodging Magazine for iPad – It’s rare to come across full magazines available for free on the iPad, but this is one of them, and it’s a great find, too. Full of useful information for hotel operations large and small. Updated monthly, for free.

Hotel Business Magazine Podcast – published by Hotel Business Magazine on a semi-frequent basis, the podcast covers some broad topics with a focus on high-end hotels. I find it interesting to hear about the issues the larger hotels go through and think about how much simpler is to resolve the same issues at a smaller level.

Xotels – Xotels is a hotel management company focused on resorts from western Europe to the south Pacific. They also publish a great blog which details their accomplishments and provides tips on how to improve upon your own operation. I highly suggest subscribing to them.

Daniel Edward Craig – a hotel and travel industry marketing consultant, Daniel writes a wonderful blog with a focus on social media and online reputation management (through TripAdvisor and other review sites). Another great, must-read.

Hotel Yield Management – Educational Kit – this book is published through Scribd, an online repository for books and PDFs. It’s very detailed and provides a good understanding of what yield/revenue management is. It is available for free online to read. In order to download, you either have to submit your own PDF or purchase a subscription plan.

If you have other suggestions, please include them in the comments below and I will update this post with them.

Posted in General Reading, Operations

The Importance of Ambiance in a Hotel or Bed and Breakfast

Posted on April 8, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

They’re cheap, and anyone can stay there. As a result they house some of the oddest of the oddballs who keep LA interesting. The Ukranian screen writer, the crack addicted spiderman, the ingenue from South Dakota, the faded hair metal bassist, the Brits on a 5 day bender, etc. Anyone can stay in these dumpy motels. I’d write “dystopian egalitarianism” but then I’d seem even more pretentious than I already do.

Moby

The most effective way to be really successful in business is by challenging the status quo. Especially in a highly saturated industry like hotels, to compete and outperform the market you need a disruptive business model which delivers on a level competition cannot reach.

Patrick Landman, Xotels.com

I read Patrick’s piece a few weeks ago and have been letting it ruminate in my mind until I read Moby’s piece about his love of dumpy motels in Los Angeles. Moby offers an unexpected insight into the hospitality industry: by doing less, you can stand out from the rest. Patrick’s message is to do something different than your competitors in order to stand out – offer a different service, perform a service differently, decorate your rooms in a different style, and so forth. Combined, these two pieces offer some ideas in how to differentiate your property from others in the area.

Moby finds the motels of LA to be a curiousity partly because of their physical appearance, but also because of the people they attract. I find this to be an interesting idea. A property can attract people to stay there, because of the other people to be found there, not just because of the services they offer. I am certainly not going to suggest that the world needs more dumpy hotels so people can interact with “crack-addicted spiderman,” but I do think the hospitality industry can do a better job at showcasing the people that do stay at the property.

The charm of the local coffeehouses or the neighbourhood pubs are the people that go to those places to drink and to hang out. If a coffee shop serves good coffee and pastries, but lacks that ambiance of a thriving environment, it rarely succeeds. I often hear people talk about getting coffee to go from these places because it isn’t a great place to stay. The even more obvious example are pubs. Take a great bar with some great food, add some roughneck people and the previous clientele will most likely disappear.

The question then becomes how does a property create these ambiances and attract people to stay with them?

Patrick highlighted some hotels’ approach to this question. Their solution was highlighting a different kind of service and offering an experience that the guest wasn’t expecting. One hotel was offering a bowl of soup (that changed daily) to someone checking into the hotel, for example. Most properties will not be equipped with the space requirements or expertise to do something like that though. An alternative would be having fresh coffee available in the lobby (especially during peak hours), a bowl of fruit to choose from, or other treat.

People enjoy sharing with others when the environment encourages it. Think back to moments when you have talked to someone you didn’t know outside of a work environment. Maybe it was on a long plane ride and you were both alone, or waiting for a performance to start. Perhaps you were both caught in a rain storm and trapped under a bus stop waiting it out.

There are plenty of these moments on a daily basis, and we can somewhat duplicate them in the hospitality industry by encouraging guests to come together. Have them visit in a lobby space where they can share stories about their travels or some tips about what to see or do locally. Some of the larger hotels have a happy hour in the lobby with champagne or white wine, and I’ve seen people mingling about more than I thought they would.

People love these little moments where they discover something new that they have the opportunity to see for themselves or it’s something they can relate to. These moments are unlikely to happen on their own unless the property has a space where they can happen.

If you have a property, think about how you can re-purpose a space and use it for gatherings. The space can either behave like an invitation to gather (a reading room, a coffee/refreshment area) or a space that they are invited to (a cocktail hour, a movie screening, a guest speaking about local events).

This one small thing will help you build an ambiance at your property and help you stand out from the competition.

People love sharing with others, so remember to give them something to talk about.

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Posted in Operations, Rapport

The Guest Vortex

Posted on March 27, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

I was logging into the portal site for the main CRS I work with, InnLink when I noticed a video they had on their main page to promote the company. During the video, there is a sequence where they cover the relationship of a potential guest and the journey where they end up being a guest and a returning guest. They call the process the Guest Vortex, and I thought I would share it here (click to enlarge):

Guest Vortex

As you can see, the Vortex consists of various stages, and the more often a guest returns, the more tightly they become loyal and part of the hotel (which is the eye of the storm).

A lot of hotels and properties focus on only a few of these points around the Vortex:
1. Awareness
2. During

The other points around the Vortex are what can help distinguish one property from another if the other two points are equal. What I mean by this is that if the websites are comparable with their layout, the rates are the same, the quality of the rooms and service offered are the same, the guest is basically flipping a coin to decide on which hotel to choose. They will often choose the one that is closer to their desired location, or it may just be that one looks more inviting than the other (maybe there are kids present in the pictures and it is a family that is booking the room).

While Awareness and During are extremely important, the remaining points are important, as well, and building a rapport with the guest. The better the experience booking a room, arriving at the hotel, and departing the hotel a guest has, the more likely they are to become a returning guest. Here are some ideas on how to build that rapport with a guest before they arrive at your property, and as they depart.

Planning

When a guest is planning, they are looking at two main things: eating, and activities (things to do, sites to see, close destinations, etc). The simplest way to let them know what to do or where to eat is by having local listings on your website, or at the very least links out to the related content (a local tourism website, TripAdvisor restaurants, Yelp and so on). When I’ve analyzed the Google Analytics for the hotel websites, I have found that visitors browsed around more when there was more information available, and booked more frequently, as well. I would not regurgitate a lot of the information that is available on other sites, but enough for people to be aware of what is available in the area that may entice them to stay longer than they originally had planned for.

Booking

A lot of properties miss out on an opportunity to sell something more to the guests when they are going through the booking process. When the guest clicks on the “Book Now” button to start exploring rates, they are in that “Buy Now” mode and can be influenced to make other purchases. The offerings will vary on the property, whether it be massages or other spa treatments, or discounts on golf packages, or something simple like flowers and a box of chocolates. Most Property Management Systems are designed to handle these add-ons, as are most Central Reservation Systems. If they are available, try to include at least two different add-ons that your Front Desk Agents or the web booking engine can sell to the guest. If your property has nothing available, try building partnerships within your community with flower shops or tourist attractions, and possibly earn a commission.

Pre-Stay

A pre-stay email is a great way to not only remind the guest of their booking details, but it’s another opportunity to remind them to make dinner reservations at your restaurant, or a helpful reminder that they are staying on a busy weekend so they may wish to purchase tickets to a music festival in advance. If your property is small and you’re willing to personalize these emails further, you could include the local weather during their stay or a link to movie listings.

Post-Stay

The post-stay period is important because it’s the final chance you have to get them interested in staying at the property again if they haven’t made that decision already. There are three things a post-stay email can consist of:

1. A thank you note for staying at the hotel.
2. An invitation to connect on Facebook, Twitter, blog or newsletter.
3. Completing a survey, posting on TripAdvisor, or emailing comments to the hotel.

The email could consist of all three of these points. I like having the thank you note at the beginning, and including links to social media profiles in the signature of the email. After the thank you note is the invitation to fill out a survey with SurveyMonkey or posting their thoughts on TripAdvisor.

Hopefully, after completing one cycle through the Vortex from Awareness to Post-Stay, the guest will be won over by your hospitality and the quality of the property. They will either stay with you again, or at the very least, spread a positive review about you, which is equally as important.

If you have any questions on how you can improve upon any points through the Vortex or require assistance in getting things setup, please get in touch. Also email me to learn more about InnLink’s services and I can put you in touch with the correct sales agent to help get you the best deal possible.

For more information about InnLink, contact: Deanna Smith, and mention my name for the best deal possible.

Here is the video for anyone interested:

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Posted in Operations, Rapport

Aligning with Your Guest’s Needs

Posted on March 19, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

The more features you add to a product, the more it dilutes the core reason for a product’s existence and confuses people.

Marco Arment, Build and Analyze Show #68

Marco Arment is the creator of Instapaper, an online and mobile application for reading online articles without all the advertisements and other distractions[1]. The above quote occurred during his podcast when he was talking about his competition who had released a new version of their application. When I first heard it, my mind started wandering to how it could be applied to other products, not just the world of design and application development. Later in the episode, he says something else that appealed to me (and I’m paraphrasing this time):

Better to leave certain things to your competitors instead of trying to incorporate all the features.

One of the first rules about revenue management that I have learned is to adjust to your property’s needs, not to adjust when the competition changes. I have seen it happen more and more, where one property drops their rates dramatically, so the property’s owner you are working with want to follow suit in fear of losing guests to the competition. It’s simply not the case in terms of rate, and it will also be true with other hotel features.

If a guest’s needs change, they will switch to a property that suits their needs, but they won’t switch to a property that offers something different unless it fits their need. For example, if a competiting property installs an indoor pool, that may not be something that the business traveler will take advantage of, but if a property installs higher-speed internet connections in all the rooms and free printing at the Front Desk, they will most likely switch.

It’s important for a property to have its own identity, be aware of it, and have everyone entering that property be aware of it, as well. Knowing your base identity, you can build upon it when the time is right by offering additional services that complement the original services. If people can recognize the indentity of the property immediately, they will buy into the services that are offered, and the ones that are not. If the hotel is selling itself as a high-end resort, but there are no services that make it a resort (no pool, spa services, golf course, etc.), there will be a disconnect between the guest and the property, which will drive the guest away. But if the property sells itself as a boutique hotel with limited services, and does those limited services very well, it will help to build loyalty to that property.

At the same time, guests have their own identity. This is something that goes missed by some properties, but you can’t try to cater your property to a guest who’s needs are going to be met. If your property doesn’t have a dedicated work space in the room, you can attract a leisure guest but probably not a business guest. You will be wasting valuable advertising dollars by trying to sell to the wrong person. Once the guest is in your hotel, it is important to be in touch with them to make sure their needs are continually being met (email newsletters, Twitter, surveys, Facebook, and talking with them while at the property).

If you notice a strong number of your guests requesting a certain feature, that would be a good time to pivot and go in that direction as long as it aligns with your original identity. If you notice a strong majority requesting a certain feature, you better act quickly before they are lost to your competition.

Aligning your guest’s needs with the features your property offers is the way to build a successful property longterm.

  1. It’s quite awesome, and I highly recommend using it.  ↩
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Posted in Operations, Rapport

Revenue Management Essentials: Hotel Pickup Report [Free Download]

Posted on February 23, 2012 by James McCullough — 6 Comments ↓
Pickup Sheet

When I first started down the path of revenue management when I worked as the Revenue Manager for two hotels, it quickly became obvious to me that I was going to have to learn and master Excel. The reason for this is because revenue managers have to keep track of a lot of data and be able to analyze it quickly and effectively. Having to run the same reports constantly grows tiresome quickly, so you start to throw quick spreadsheets together to keep track of the data you want in a way you can read.

These spreadsheets that get thrown together can track all sorts of data depending on the day and the line of work you are in, but one of the most essential reports that a revenue manager will have to build is a pickup report and/or a revenue tracking sheet. Anyone using a decent PMS knows that you can easily get daily revenue reports or monthly reports that break down the numbers daily, so why build one in Excel?

Working with Data

The problem with most reports that you receive from a PMS is that you can’t do anything with the numbers. You can’t figure out quickly a lot of things, like how well Mondays do in comparison to Sunday nights without picking up a calculator and plugging away at it. Building a revenue tracking sheet allows you to easily develop the formulas you need to give you answers to the questions being asked by yourself, members of your team, or the ownership group.

Developing a hotel pickup report allows you to prepare answers to other questions more firmly without a lot of guess work, such as:

  • How much revenue has the hotel picked up for the summer months over the past few months?
  • How much revenue is on the books for March, and how does that compare to a year ago at this time?
  • How much revenue did we pickup within the past month or past week?

Pickup reports can be as simple or as complicated as you see fit. At the Xotels website, Patrick Landman suggests having a pickup report that can track how well the various segments (rate tiers, for example) are performing. A more complicated pickup report could be useful for a busy resort, but I tend to keep things simple for my own tastes.

Developing a Pickup Report

A pickup report is extremely useful in determining rate strategies and can help calm the fears of the owner who sees $0.00 on the books for a month down the road. With a properly filled out pickup report, you can tell when it’s appropriate to raise the rates slightly (i.e. during the month of April when people book the most rooms for June) or whether you need to target a certain month for some marketing campaigns because booking activity is relatively soft.

I have been on the search for a decent pickup report that wasn’t too complicated to work with from Day 1, and still have yet to find something worthwhile to use. I have been slowly developing my own over the course of the year and thought I would share the bare-bones version of it to see if anyone is interested in using it.

Here is what it consists of:

  • A Summary sheet – Monthly Rooms, OCC %, Revenue, ADR, Quarterly Revenues
  • Monthly Pickup – to track monthly revenues for current and following year
  • Pickup Sheet – the backend of the file, tracking the daily rooms and revenue for a given month
  • Weekly Comparison – Weeks from January 1st to the end of the year, compiled automatically.
  • Monthly Revenue Sheets – Cleaned up versions of the Pickup Sheet to show actual daily numbers with summary of pickups.

Also, weekends are highlighted in both the Pickup Sheet and the Monthly Sheets (except for January).

Using the Report

I have tried to make this as easy as possible to limit the amount of time you have to spend entering in information so you can get the most out of using the report.

To set it up properly, you need to enter in a few pieces of information on the Summary sheet:

  • Hotel Name
  • Year
  • Hotel Rooms (used in calculating OCC%, RevPAR)
  • 2011 Totals
  • Budget (Revenue only, in 2012 section)

After that, you’ll do most of the work in the Pickup Sheet and the Monthly Pickup Sheet.

In the Monthly Pickup Sheet, at the beginning of each month, go through the revenues for the year and enter in the amounts going down. The 2013 grid is there if you would like to track revenues beyond the current year.

With the Pickup Sheet, it is the same process. On the last day of the month, pull up the daily revenue report for the following month and enter in the Rooms and Revenue in the far left columns. The ADR will adjust automatically.

Then at least once a week (or it becomes too cumbersome to do properly) enter in the Actual Rooms and Actual Revenue. When you enter in those numbers, you should see the numbers start to shift in other parts of the spreadsheet. The pickup totals will be calculated, and the numbers will be transposed to the corresponding month sheet and to the Weekly Comparison sheet.

At the end of the month, you will be able to tell with a quick glance which weeks performed better than others, which days did, and how much revenue you picked up within the month.

Please note that the 2013 file will import the data from the 2012 file, as long as the files remain in the same folder and the file names go unchanged. It will pull in the data for rooms and revenue for the month, and compile the numbers for the weekly comparison.

Getting the Pickup Report

The file is a small Excel file, which is completely blank – meaning you won’t have to go through and clear out any old data.

Price? Free

There is the option to specify a price. Any amount will be greatly appreciated as it will go towards my time to develop future versions, and more advanced versions. If you have ideas for what you would like to see, please let me know.

Hotel Pickup Report 2012 + 2013

Note: I do not provide support for people who download the file for free, nor will updates appear on the website.

Here are some screen shots of the file:

 

Weekly Comparison

Pickup Screen

Summary

 

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Posted in Operations, Revenue Management

First Impressions Mean Everything, Especially on TripAdvisor

Posted on February 6, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

I was listening to a video of one of my favourite (and sassiest) writers online, Ashley Ambirge, talking about how all the marketing in the world doesn’t matter if the website is crap. First impressions are especially important in the hospitality industry since the time invested in the website and other marketing materials greatly effects people’s judgment about the property itself. Of course, it’s not entirely true that a poor website = a poor property, or a great website = a great property, but most people will come to a quick conclusion to pass on a property if they can’t find the information they are after.

The website isn’t everything for the property, though. The appearance of the physical property is equally important, and like Ashley says, all the marketing in the world can’t cover up how crappy of a place it really is. That should be common sense for a lot of owners and managers. Unfortunately, a lot of people are quite oblivious to the problems around them and refuse to see what is in front of them.

I can understand why things get bad, but what is inexcusable in my mind is avoiding problems and believing things will correct themselves. You reach a tipping point where adjustments can be made, but the damage of previous negative reviews is beyond repairable. This happened with a property that I tried to help out last year.

Like most travelers, I visit TripAdvisor and other hotel review sites to gauge how well a property is actually doing. I read about the guest concerns so I can bring something to the table in my conversations and find solutions to problems that currently exist. When I visited the profile of this hotel, it was a horrifying experience, to say the least. Here’s a snippet of one review:

The word ‘resort’ needs to be removed from the title of this disgusting motel. It’s a long story but I’ll stick to the main points:
1. dirty room – with dirty towels and blood on sheets
2. bathroom had fungus (actual mushrooms) growing
3. garbage bin outside of room smells like DEATH!!! We were told 3 times that it would be removed – it wasn’t! The smell made us gag – literally
4. at 12:30am an employee banged on the door then kicked it in, breaking the lock – NO JOKE! (all because we didn’t return the extra key because ours was in the room) We are a family with 2 adults and 2 kids – needless to say, the kids were petrified to stay.

It went on for another six points, and is surrounded by other negative reviews. Incredibly, it’s managed a two star rating on TripAdvisor.

An owner or manager can’t edit or delete these reviews, of course, but they do have the opportunity to respond to them. Being humble and apologetic can repair some of the damage if the complaints are minor. With the above complaint, an appropriate response would be to be honest, admit the mistakes, and announce the plans you have in place to make changes. What makes the above complaints worse (if that’s even possible) is that there were responses to other reviews, but this one and other really negative ones, did not have a response. Reviews that happened after this one were responded to, so the owner had been following up with the reviews.

Mistakes like this are not easily fixed. Apart from fixing everything happening at the hotel level, there needs to be some serious work on rebranding the hotel, rewriting the copy and design of the website, engaging with these former guests to address their concerns, and making public statements about how the hotel has revamped their operation.

To protect yourself, I suggest visiting TripAdvisor and taking control of your property’s engagement with the public. You can receive notifications of the reviews, get monthly newsletters, and get access to website badges to include to show off your ranking. Vist this link to start taking control now.

Here is Ashley’s video. Short, concise, and possibly Not Safe for Work.

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Posted in Operations, Rapport

Staying Organized: The Importance of a CRM for a Motel or Bed and Breakfast

Posted on January 31, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

Guest relations have always been an important part of the hospitality industry, but it is extremely important as the size of the operation scales down to the smaller bed and breakfasts, and motels. Larger hotels use expensive computer systems to keep track of their guests to tell when they last stayed, how much they spend in a year, and which rooms they prefer. Chain hotels can access a lot of that information between properties, as well.

People enjoy having a more personalized experience when staying at smaller operations. They have developed a romanticized vision of what it means to stay in a small bed and breakfast – having meaningful conversations with the owners, sharing stories with their fellow guests, and staying in a relaxing environment. It is easy to share that experience with people the first time around and have their needs met while at the property, but how do you do that the next time they stay with you?

If there is one thing that quickly annoys people more than anything it is repeating themselves. The more often you visit a coffee shop, for example, and keep repeating a special request, the less likely you may be to return there. What makes a coffee shop special is when one of the baristas remembers your order and can fix that drink for you without you putting in the request. It’s a magical moment for both the barista and yourself when you get served without having to ask for room for cream.

One of the challenges faced by owners of any business is keeping track of these special requests. At restaurants and cafes, it’s by memory. Most others are using some kind of system, whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet or a paper trail. Thankfully, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have been widely developed on the web lately to make this easier and make the information more organized than ever.

Here is a simple description of what a CRM is from Wikipedia:

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.[1] The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service.[2] Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments.[3] Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy.[4]

There are four different kinds of information that a motel or bed and breakfast will want to keep track of with a CRM:

  1. Who the guest is.
  2. How to connect to that guest.
  3. What that guest enjoys.
  4. When that guest stayed.

Who the Guest Is

This is the most logical item to keep track of, but it goes beyond the name of the guest. Where they are from helps you develop a marketing plan to target that city, that region. Odds are if one person from that city enjoyed your hospitality, someone else will, as well. A simple ad in a local newspaper or radio advertisement may be overheard by one of their friends, they will bring it up in conversation, and then that person will mention that they stayed there and share their experience. Word of mouth is by far the best advertising practice – but it is up to you to put the bait out and help them spread the word.

How to Connect to a Guest

Again, this goes beyond an email address or phone number these days. With 700+ million users out there, nearly everyone has a Facebook profile now. Twitter is also a growing social network, and LinkedIn is the goto site for business connections. Knowing this information is related to the above mention of advertising. Inviting your guest to connect with you on one of these networks will be signaled to everyone else in their network. A small portion of those connections will likely ask for further details or look up your profile or website right away to explore. An email address is an invitation to join a newsletter or social network to keep in touch year-round. Even if that guest does not stay with your property again, they will most likely influence others to stay with you.

What the Guest Enjoys

This information is going to vary greatly between the guests and the properties as everyone and every place is different. The chances of a person enjoying their room as is are very small. Everyone has their preference with how many pillows they use, whether they like their sheets untucked, the temperature of the room, to whether they put their luggage on a rack or not. Some details are more important than others, of course. Maybe they prefer a different view from their room, or want to be in a quiet section of the building. It may sound tedious to keep track of this kind of information, but it will be quite useful in building up longterm relationships with guests that keep them coming back for years down the road.

When that Guest Stayed

This information is the most vital in determining when you reach out to the guest again. People get quickly annoyed when they receive multiple emails from the same address without their permission. One email a year without their permission is allowable, however. If you do not have an email newsletter, the best time to send the email out to the guest is within 30-60 days of the time period they stayed before. Most couples are taking getaways around their wedding anniversaries, birthdays, or other important dates in their lives. If they received an email 60 days before their anniversary, for example, inviting them to stay again, they will enjoy the personal touch and likely book again. Others will be staying while on holidays, so perhaps an email in March or April when they are planning a summer vacation is more favourable. Like the guest preferences, this will likely vary greatly depending on the property and the guest.

How to Store the Information

Knowing what to collect is important, but just as important is where to store it. Most of this information could be stored in an Excel Spreadsheet, or even your Address Book for your email account. The Excel Spreadsheet can be useful for deep analysis (i.e. tracking where people are from), but tedious to actually enter information into. The Address Book could quickly become a mess and the information is not easily trackable either.

I am a big fan of using online CRM solutions to keep track of information. I will mention three possible CRM solutions, although there are probably dozens of them out there, if not more.

Salesforce.com: a premium CRM solution with many other options available to customize the software dependent on your needs. It is probably a bit out of range for most budgets, but I include them because they are highly regarded in this space.

Highrise: another premium CRM, but there is a free version for a limited number of contacts, and their plans are quite affordable as you grow. You can easily keep track of contacts, tasks (connected to people, or not), deals (which I would use to keep track of individual stays), and more.

Base: a CRM with an emphasis on being free. They are paid upgrades to allow for more deals, but they include an unlimited amount of contacts, notes, to do’s, and other information. It is my preferred CRM solution, because of its cost, but also because it offers a few little extras that are quite useful, which I’ll detail below.

First thing to do is to get contacts into Base. There are three ways to do this:

  1. Manually enter in contacts
  2. Import with a CSV file
  3. Connect with a Gmail Account

Base has some great help features about using the import feature, but I thought I would share how a contact will actually look on the site.

Contact Details

Note that I filled in the Twitter profile section. You can also do this for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Skype. This is what the quick look of a profile will look like:

Profile Page | Base | Futuresimple

On the profile page, it adds the latest status message from Twitter right away. Highrise also has this feature built-in, but you have to switch to a different tab to view the information. With Base, the information is available right away.

Also note that I included a basic deal on the profile. The deal consists of a name, the amount, a date, a source, and a tag for quick reference. A basic deal would have the name be Length of Stay, the Total Amount of Revenue, Date of Stay, and the room (as a source). A more complicated deal could include the tags as the various services being offered or preferences (i.e. king bed, mountain view, in-room spa treatment, late riser, etc).

You can also include emails with a contact instead of writing manual notes. I’ll include a video that showcases this feature:

The report section of Base is terrific, too. Apart from getting the overall revenue through a time period (displays daily if only a month is selected), you can also generate reports based by tag or by source. If you are diligent with your information records, you could tell right away which room generates the most revenue for you, or whether one service is more popular than another. If you are real detailed, you could even tell whether the majority of your guests prefer having untucked sheets. The options are endless.

Another great feature with Base is that it includes a contact form to include on your website. When a person fills out the information, it gets imported into Base automatically and you get notified. This is useful when you wish to reach out to a potential guest after a week of their initial email to see if they are interested in booking if you haven’t received a response yet. You can see an example of this in action by visiting my Contact Form.

The final feature I wanted to mention is their mobile apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android devices. It gives you the ability to look up your contacts information on the go, which will be handy when preparing rooms in advance of the guest’s arrival. Instead of printing out notes, you can review the information at your finger-tips or make notes as you think of it instead of waiting for the time to sit down at your office.

Summary

Collecting and organizing this information about your guests is a lot easier now with these versatile CRM solutions made available. Keeping track of it is a lot easier and the options available with what to do with the information are endless.

If you would like further assistance with getting an account setup on Base or Highrise, importing your contacts, and doing some of the initial groundwork in getting the database setup correctly, please get in touch. I would love to help you and your guests have the best experience possible.

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Posted in Operations, Rapport

Expedia Hotel Support Series: Partnering with Expedia and Support Numbers

Posted on January 25, 2012 by James McCullough — No Comments ↓

Using Expedia as a channel for revenues remains important and not a site that can easily be ignored. I am finding with the properties that I work with that it accounts for a good 20% of the overall online bookings. Finding support on how exactly to maximize revenues through Expedia is difficult to find online, however.

I thought it would be useful to have a series of posts outlining some of the important details on how to get started with Expedia, and how to take full control of your offerings on the site to ensure you do not lose out.

Partnering with Expedia

Signing up with Expedia is signing up for multiple sites all at once. You enroll into Expedia.com, hotels.com, and venere.com. The first two sites are heavily promoted on television and online. Venere.com is not as heavily marketed, and is not supported by a lot of the CRS companies, either. It appears properties have to enroll with Expedia directly in order to appear in the search results for Venere.com.

To get started, the process is quite simple. You can either get in touch with your account manager for your CRS (if you have one) or visit their website, JoinExpedia.com.

The process is a bit lengthy, so do set some time aside to fill in all the information properly. This is a process that can not be completed in five minutes. Alternatively, you can have someone from Expedia contact you, but you will either have to fill out the information on paper and fax it back to them, or tell them over the phone. Filling out the form online is much simpler and quicker, in my opinion.

After all the paperwork is filled out, you will still need to sign a contract to get started with them. A short time period after the contract has been signed and sent in, your account manager will get in touch with you to show off your hotel property on the site. Then it is up to you to close off inventory for sold out dates, change rates for special occasions, and watch the reservations show up.

Do be aware of the different options in receiving reservations from Expedia. You can either receive the reservation information through fax, or through their Expedia QuickConnect which sends the reservation directly to your CRS. The QuickConnect will mostly have an additional fee of $2.00 or so per reservation for transmitting the information down to your Property Management System.

Contact Numbers for Expedia Hotel Support

When your property is live, and you have problems with bookings or need to close off inventory when the power is out, the best way to get a hold of someone at Expedia is by phone or fax. This information is tedious to search for online, and is not easily discovered in the Hotel Extranet for Expedia. You can find it by running a Rooming List Report, for example, but who wants to run a report just to get the contact number?

I have pulled it out for everyone’s convenience to pass around to Front Desk Agents or others who may need it in times of need.

Expedia Support: (702)  939-2667

Expedia Market Management
Phone: (888) 663-9733

Use the Support line to get assistance about closing off inventory or details about a reservation that need to be re-sent. Market Management is great for increasing exposure of your property in the listings (having Expedia Special Rates, for example).

If you have any questions about partnering with Expedia, get in touch. Next up, I’ll discuss inventory and rate management.

 

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