Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still in its infancy and an area that intrigues and frightens in equal amounts, but it’s clearly something the hotel sector can’t ignore.
Being able to gather data about guests’ behaviour, what they do when booking and what encourages them to book on a hotel’s official website or through an OTA are just some of the things we’ll be able to find the answers to in the not too distant future.
Hotels are increasingly applying RM to revenue streams to optimise every point of contact with customers and generate revenue. But the real question is where does this leave the revenue manager? They don’t have the time or the workforce to handle large amounts of data. And as large volumes of information become easily accessible, it will only make things more difficult. Fortunately, advances in AI in the hotel sector can be used to soften this burden. This will be how revenue managers can adapt to the latest digital advances and produce efficiencies and generate profits for their properties:
Gathering Information
While revenue management used to focus exclusively on rooms and was separated from other revenue sources, a higher level of integration would allow hoteliers to link guest data at each point of contact with its guests, from the moment the make a reservation until they check out. This will allow the revenue manager to better follow the behaviour and spending of different guests during their stay, and provide information on what types of guests are more likely to spend more or use a particular additional service.
For example, you might find that corporate guests tend to spend more money in the restaurant than guests staying in family rooms who may decide to have dinner outside of the hotel. This insight could be used to make the restaurant more appealing for families to boost revenue, and encourage more corporate travellers to book directly by offering them a discount coupon or bonus that they wouldn’t get if they booked through third parties like a travel agency.
Given this situation, two conflicting questions may arise. The first is how revenue managers will be able to manage all this customer data, and the second is how its official website will know what type of guest is each visitor. Artifical intelligence answers these two questions.
Automated Analysis
Integrating RM across all the revenue flows means that you’re not only going to manage the data regarding room reservations but also the flows in property like the restaurant and bar, spa and leisure, transport services, tourist activities, etc. It’s impossible to effectively manage all this information for all the guests at without including automated analysis in your RM strategy. This will go a long way toward reducing stress and improving the revenue managers’ efficiency.
Artifical Intelligence can analyse a huge amount of data at incredible speed, creating an opportunity for continuous learning as data is collected in all the revenue streams and at each point of contact with each customer. With this continuous learning, the level of knowledge you receive from AI will continually improve and so will your understanding of your guests.
Direct Driving
Another recent trend in the hotel industry has been to focus more on encouraging guests to book directly, rather than via external channels such as OTAs. As large hotel chains continue to witness the success of focusing on driving direct reservations through their own affiliate programmes, other smaller and independent groups are also making a big effort to drive reservation through their direct channels. With AI, hotels can get more direct reservations.
Emotional Intelligence
With automatization available to manage data and optimise the hotel’s direct channel, revenue managers must now focus on providing the emotional intelligence necessary to understand the data, connect with possible customers and maximise revenue. In this stage, it’s more about learning from the machines, working with them, asking the right questions and determining the goal.
The hotel sector is all about personalised service, and together with AI, revenue managers can offer this personalised service on all their digital channels.
