The challenges of pricing group booking requests
Setting a price for a group requires a completely different approach from calculating the public room rate for your website. How can you be sure you are using an optimal approach to price group bookings?
Answering the following questions is a must:
- How large is the group?
- Will the guests use hotel facilities such as restaurants, the spa or conference rooms?
- What are the stay dates, and will everyone arrive and depart at the same time?
- Which room type are they requesting?
- Will all guests stay in the same room type or are different categories required?
Considering these variables makes drawing up a group booking proposal complex and time-consuming. While pricing guidelines help revenue managers make these decisions more quickly, every group booking is unique, and the rate must be calculated individually to get the best results. Determining the ideal group rate isn’t enough though. Once the price is set, it must be assessed against the forecasted distribution of pickups along the booking curve as part of a displacement analysis. In other words, you should check what will bring you more revenue, accepting the group or selling your rooms on the open market. Making this choice can feel like a gamble. Should you take the group at a lower rate now for guaranteed business? Or should you reject the group because you think you can sell these rooms at a better rate somewhere else? Manually checking forecasts, demand calendars, historic trends and even your competition can help you answer these questions but collecting and analyzing all the data takes a huge chunk of time, especially if you do it several times a day.
Atomize’s Group Booking Pricing Module: get the ideal group rate in a single click
At Atomize, we understand this challenge and have added a revolutionary element to our tool – the Group Booking Pricing Module. Within seconds you can determine the ideal rate to offer, what is the lowest rate you can accept and whether you are better off taking the group or filling your hotel with other business. Now, you no longer have to go through painstaking calculations and analyses for every request that hits your inbox or reservations system. Instead, you can trust data-driven group rate suggestions to help you fill your hotel with high-paying guests and get on with your day. Learn more about the Group Booking Pricing Module here >
How the Group Booking Pricing Module works
Like everything at Atomize, the Group Booking Pricing Module is simple, effective and easy to use. After entering the group’s details into the system and confirming, Atomize immediately calculates the current optimal group rate. You’ll also get a secondary price which is the lowest rate you can offer in a negotiation. If the group wants a lower rate, from a yield perspective you’d be better off selling your inventory on the open market instead. Of course, you make the final call. If a group can bring you good exposure or might lead to lucrative business in the future, you should consider that in your decision.
What you can gain from the Group Booking Pricing Module
Since groups often request proposals from multiple hotels, having a tool like Atomize can set you apart from the competition. Not only will you be able to offer a competitive rate in line with the market, but you’ll also send it out before your competitors have even had the time to do their first round of calculations. On top of that, you’ll know which price will bring you the highest revenue and profit for your hotel, so you can make data-driven decisions on which business to accept in the blink of an eye. The Group Booking Pricing Module is included in Atomize Professional Package. If you’re curious to learn more about this powerful tool and want to be the first to know about our other updates, book a free demo with us here >>
