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| During a private roundtable following HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Executive Roundtable, revenue management thought leaders discussed upgrading technology systems. |
MINNEAPOLIS—Hotel News Now was invited to Minneapolis to conduct a private roundtable following HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Executive Roundtable. Present were five revenue management thought leaders—three brand representatives, an owner-operator and a property-level manager.
During the 45-minute discussion, the executives shared their best practices in developing and adopting new technology:
Jason Q. Freed, Hotel News Now: Where are we headed with today’s hotel technology upgrades and what options are available?
Dev Koushik, director of revenue optimization, InterContinental Hotels Group: “We’re predominantly franchised so the challenge is how to make sure we’re able to upgrade our (central reservations system) technology to the state-of-the-art technology. That’s something that we have been working on. It’s not easy. You are replacing the vehicle of distribution. We are just exploring options on what needs to be done. We are collecting requirements from the business functions. It’s enormous, starting from operations all the way to brand management. The intent is how to represent the brand extremely well with the CRS systems, which will allow us to differentiate on the distribution space but also give revenue-management capabilities. But again, we are taking baby steps. It’s not going to be done overnight.”
HNN: Do brands see the technology as a differentiator, a reason why someone would go from an independent to a brand?
Alise Munns-Deeb, senior VP of revenue management at LQ Management: “I certainly I think so. At La Quinta we are looking at the cloud; we’re looking at the infrastructure as a service because we want to get out of the data-service management. We don’t want to have servers at our properties. I think we’re looking at updating a lot of the bandwidth so everything is faster, from the property-management systems to the service you provide the guests. I think technology, whether it’s limited service or full service, becomes certainly a decision-maker.”
HNN: How much ownership feedback do you take into consideration when you look at technology options?
Neal Fegan, executive director of revenue management at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts: “Owners are a key constituent in anything we do. And technology, it’s moving toward the cloud but in order to get to that point technology is needing to make some adjustments. The biggest one is increasing bandwidth. We’re worldwide, so in some locations it becomes a real problem where there’s not enough pipe getting in to that location to make cloud a serviceable option. … Some of the things we have already in the cloud. Some of the vendors we will work with to help us with this are also moving their information closer to us so decisions are happening on the other side of firewalls.”
HNN: What are the advantages and disadvantages to building revenue-management technology in house versus partnering with third parties?
Jack Easdale, VP of yield management at The Venetian: “Our meeting spaces arguably are our most valuable fixed assets. Something we’ve chosen to go out alone on most recently is our group-function-space optimization software because there was nobody in this space at the time. Frankly, we thought we could do it cheaper faster, less bureaucracy, on our own. So we put out a (request for proposal) and selected from among the best out there, individuals who had the right price. We wanted to make the right decision that would ultimately make us the most amount of money. … There’s two ways to alleviate the lack of meeting space constraint: The first is to build more, which is absolutely cost (prohibitive) in today’s day and age. The second is to get better at what you’re doing. Of course meeting space is a revenue generator, but it’s really what you do with the asset to generate the volume of roomnights.”
HNN: From the owner-operators standpoint, are the technologies that brands are offering and requiring living up to standards?
Denise Broussard, VP of revenue management at Interstate Hotels & Resorts: “We have some third parties that are doing it better. We have some brands you have online Web access remotely, so it’s much easier to access. Some brands do have prohibitive firewalls that we can’t access, so I have remote players trying to manage from afar. Some of the systems are age-old and ancient and in sore need of an upgrade. There’s a long way to go. … We know there are obstacles, being primarily franchise, it’s an ownership capital issue.”