QUARTERLY CLASSIC
HOTEL RATE FENCES
Discounting in the
Hotel Industry
A New Approach
Here’s the case made ten years ago for an approach to discounting that provides a rational method of price segmentation. The hotel industry is just now getting it.
BY
RICHARD D. HANKS, ROBERT G. CROSS, AND R. PAUL NOLAND
T
hree busy executives approach a hotel’s front desk, check in, receive their room keys, and head for the elevator. On the way up to their rooms, the topic of room rates comes up. As it turns out, Roy is paying $20 more than Jeanne, while Jennifer is paying $18 more than Roy. Yet all three are staying in essentially the same type of room.
Those of you familiar with yield management already have figured out that
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While most of those conditions are straightforward, the last characteristic—segmenting customers—is both the most difficult to achieve and the most important. To maximize revenues, most hotels need to separate customers and charge them different rates based on their differing needs
From both the hotel’s and the customer’s and behavior. It is essential both to segment the point of view, we believe that approach is a suboptimal way to arrive at the appropriate rate for 2 For discussions of yield management, see: Walter J. Relihan
III, “The Yield-management Approach to Hotel-room Pricthat customer to pay.
Caller: “I’d like to book a room for next Tuesday.”
Agent: “Our single rate is $189.
Caller: “Do you have anything cheaper?”
Agent: “Our corporate rate is $159.
What company do you work for?”
Caller: “Well, I was hoping for something less.” Agent: “Let me check. Oh, yes, we have our super-special rate of $129.”
Caller: “Do you have anything under
$100?”
Agent: “Well, we do have a few rooms available at our value rate of
$99.”
Caller: “I’ll take it.”
1
For a discussion of how discounts are (or are not) negotiated through a reservations system, see: Robert C. Lewis and Christopher Roan,
We must know which visitors we can expect. For example, guests for a wedding (because a wedding will be held in one of the halls of the hotel), or businessmen who come for a business meeting, or a family on vacation.
As every customer has unique needs and expectations towards certain products, the ultimate goal of market segmentation is to organize customers into groups which allows targeting of customers with similar needs of and response to the products. The key is to minimize differentiation within each segment
The first part of the process is segmentation “The purpose of market segmentation is to identify relatively homogeneous groups of consumers with similar consumption patterns” (Pervez &Cateora 2014.) segmentation is the application of grouping the customers into segments which may have the same common needs or that will respond similarly to a marketing activity. It is the ability to recognise the consumers which exist that have different needs. For example do the consumers prefer speed and performance or do the customers prefer safety and quality.
Market segmentation as a term came up to describe the concept that all customers are not alike. Because in hospitality industry marketing money and resources are limited, it has to concentrate on specific groups of people, or target market, to avoid waste in time, money and quality. As a result, it’s ensuring the highest returns. [1 pp19] The reasons why segmentation is so important for hospitality industry are – more successful use of marketing money, clearer perceptive of the needs and wants of special customer groups, more effective developing of service, greater correctness in selecting promotional vehicles and techniques. [1 pp173]
This will lead the hotel succeeding in filling up all available capacity, which is impossible for single segment. Moreover, serving several segments also bring profits to the hotel.
special attention should be given to maintain quality in the case of the Hotel and
If hoteliers have a better understanding of the expectations of their Mainland Chinese tourists, they will be better able to meet and serve this market to ensure guests are satisfied with their stay. (Tsai, Yeung & Yim, 2011).
Practical implications – The findings can maximize utility by (1) helping consumers identify those amenities of hotel rooms that they have to pay for as opposed to those that they do not; and (2) providing hotel managers with a
Hospitality services are based on fixed points of sale, whereas hotel customers are mostly travelers,
Customers in groups sharing particular wants or needs are known as market segmentation. Marketing segmentation divides the whole market of the company into segments which are targeted, using developed methods and on products so as to make basis for the company’s product in market.
business and pleasure travelers can be split easily into separate groups. The basic idea is that hotel managers will have different marketing plans for the different types of customers. Hoteliers would like to be able to sell these segments rooms tlmt best fit tbeir needs. In tbe case of pleasure travelers, lower-priced rooms that must be booked a certain length of time ahead may be most appropriate. With business travelers, higfier-priced rooms that have no time penalty may work best. Perishable inventory. Clearly, hotel rooms are a perishable inventory item. If the room is not sold one night, that room-night is lost
Service is the most important aspect when it comes to handling a hotel. A hotel’s main objective is to provide the best service and tend to all of the guests’ needs and requirements. If there is no service then there would be no business. When running a business, the costumer is always placed first. Poor services can results in a complaint from a guest. But that complaint can be used to better the business in the future.
Application of revenue management techniques is perhaps the most important part of hotel operations. In this assignment I will try my best from my learning to provide
‘Market segmentation represents an effort to identify and catergorise groups of customers and countries according to common characteristics’ (Keegan and Green 2016, p.228). For any business, it is crucial that they segment their market accordingly or they will risk forgoing sales opportunities. Fahy and Jobber (2015) identify the objective of market segmentation as distinguishing groups of customers with similar requirements so
As a service manager, he or she should know its capacity, for example the number of rooms, the personal from low to high levels. The Harvard Business review explains, “A resort operator decided to increase the number of rooms in a lodging facility and not to expand the central services required to support the additional guests. In fact, the room rentals contribute up to 90% of total revenue and that tennis court, swimming pools, meeting rooms, parking areas, chat rooms, telephone hub. Etc. contribute almost zero in profit. So, the service managers thought those should be opportunity cost, as soon as the customers still coming to rent the rooms or He or she convinced to create imbalance in favor of revenue -producing activities. In opposite, the number of guest adjust itself to level of occupancy; the level services could support not to the level of room capacity. The room capacity beyond the level supported by the services was wasted. The benchmarking of “our” organization verse “their” organization (the competition): The Orlando, Florida lodging industries’ response to the announcement of Disney World’s opening is a