5 Ways to leverage your hotel PMS data when demand returns

Interpreting data correctly has become a key to success in the hospitality industry today. While this is true in normal times, it’s especially relevant in times of crisis. Since nobody knows exactly how and when markets will recover, hoteliers need to keep a close eye on their market and demand shifts at their property.

Best way to do this: closely monitor PMS data since this gives all the needed information about everything happening at the property. Can be difficult because a PMS often presents data in cumbersome reports which hotel staff have to sift through to get the info they need. Instead of wasting time on this, using a modern business intelligence tool can help you:

• Visualise data and make trends apparent
• Generate ideas on how to improve distribution
• Better understand your property’s overall performance

Making the most of your data this way can give you a deciding edge, especially in these unprecedented times.
Let’s take a look at five ways you can use your hotel PMS data to make the most of business recovery after COVID-19.

Get pick-up and pace insights

Hoteliers will need to look at early signs of demand (pick-up) and know where it comes from (which segments recover first) to:

• Allocate spending
• Update forecast
• Optimise distribution

For example: use overview to easily determine over the last 30-day period, which segments and channel breakdowns are starting to see pick-up, understand when guests are booking for (one day/week/month from now), become aware of rate disparity issues: an unexpected spike in pick-up could be a sign of rate disparity on a certain channel.

Track demand recovery

Due to recent developments, comparisons with figures from previous years are quite irrelevant today. Instead, drawing comparisons between any custom time period (e.g. last week, month…) would be more relevant for informed business decisions.

For example:

• Compare the first week of government restrictions being lifted with the following week
• Compare the first two months of post-lockdown markets with each other

Check changes across all segments to see if their pick-up is going as expected. Track changes after you update distribution or channel mix, add packages or other promotions, loyalty benefits… Get a bigger picture of how rate changes and marketing efforts impact your hotel’s recovery.

Time is of the essence here to make good decisions at the right time: using a BI tool that allows custom period comparisons can help you save time and stay on top of the most recent developments.

Review and adjust forecasts

The ability to forecast demand remains crucial, and companies will need to reconstruct their processes from the bottom up. This year, you can only rely on numbers and information from previous years to a limited extent since the usual travel patterns are disrupted, making it harder to predict consumer behaviour.

Forecast will be changing frequently as news develops and restrictions are lifted.

Focus on regular (weekly) updates of short-term forecast (1-3 months) to reflect the most recent developments.

Necessary in order to keep operational departments, owners, stakeholders informed.

Using a BI tool to present these forecasts in a visually appealing and easy-to-read way will help you make good business decisions (forecast by segment) and effectively communicate with all parties about your property’s performance and future outlook.

Understand shifted business mix

Understand how the rebound is unfolding at your hotel. Look at time of booking, LOS, source market.

Example: monitor which countries start picking up first and via which channels they book. Concentrate pricing decisions strategies on those channels to maximise the results you get from the very beginning.

With transient business at hotels likely to recover faster than group business, it is important to see in which segments, channel mix, and booking window business is picking up. Collating and visualising this information can be time-consuming and difficult. Timing is crucial now though, so working with a tool that helps you quickly see the details you need, is the key to taking the guesswork out of your decisions.

For clusters and regional teams: Oversee your entire portfolio

The importance of keeping an overview becomes even more apparent when you oversee a portfolio of multiple hotels. Track data by market, because the onset, pace, and intensity of the recovery will differ by region and by customer segment. Using a strong BI tool that supports multiple properties can grant instant access to performance data across a portfolio to make faster and better decisions appropriate to each hotel and where the property is currently at in the recovery phase. Can be used by the entire commercial team remotely to improve communication.