Revenue management has made great strides in recent years. The transition to cloud-based systems built flexibility into the software development process, accelerating the pace of new features. The shorter cycles allow the software to more accurately meet the evolving needs of hoteliers. This is a relief to many hoteliers with less-than-pleasant memories of the shackles of frozen legacy technology.

A review of today’s revenue management technology highlights just how far the industry has come in fulfilling a vision of connected revenue management systems that use data to dynamically price room inventory. Real-time, data-driven intelligence now comes standard in the industry-leading tools.

An agile approach to releasing new features is also a requirement. As the industry experiments with new ways to sell its inventory, such as attribute-based selling, the best revenue management software anticipate change, test features, and deliver on the promise of true revenue optimization.

Even so, only 1 in 10 hotels deploys some level of revenue management software, due largely to the complexity of practicing proper revenue management. A comprehensive approach to revenue management generally includes a solution from each of the following categories: CRS, RMS, rate shopper, and business intelligence. Some solutions offer more of a one-stop-shop, while others overlap.

Whether you choose to stick with one multi-purpose solution or craft a bespoke tech stack, be sure to prioritize agility, flexibility, and extensibility. You want a vendor that keeps ahead of the trends, while also offering a flexible product that can be customized to your needs through flexible implementation and extensible integrations.

With that in mind, here are some of the key categories that you should be leveraging to optimize revenue management at your hotel.

Revenue management software automates the process of using analytics -- mainly supply and demand -- to determine the right price for hotel rooms to maximize revenue and profitability. The primary goal is to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price on the right channel. Revenue management software ingests historical and market data, combines this with forward-looking demand signals and recommends a rate for each segment and room type at your hotel, specific for each channel on which you are selling. Recently, modern software has moved from on-premise to cloud-based applications that are delivered as Software-as-a-Service, meaning multiple users can login to the applications from anywhere they have an Internet connection.

Key Features:

Integrations - It’s important that your RMS integrates with your PMS, CRS, CRM and booking engine with a reliable, two-way connection so that the systems can share the right data.
Open Pricing - Your RMS must be able to price room types and channels independently of each other, rather than in lockstep with a set BAR price. For example, on some days you want your AAA rate to be 10% less than BAR, on other days you may want it 1% less than BAR.
Cloud technology - An RMS that runs on multi-tenant cloud architecture allows your systems to integrate and share data more seamlessly, and allows developers to push updates to your software in real time. No more purchasing new versions of software just to get the latest features.
Intelligent reporting - It’s important that your RMS be able to build, export and share your most critical reports. Revenue teams must be able to share reports at the push of a button with management, ownership and other departments within the hotel.
Data Visualization - A good RMS not only presents your data in tabular reports, but allows you to visual your data and reports in graphical form. This allows revenue teams to better understand trends, outliers and patterns in data.

Key Players:

Market intelligence tools help hoteliers make more informed decisions on pricing and revenue strategies. Previously manual processes, such as monitoring competitors’ rates, managing your own property’s (or properties’) rate parity across multiple channels, predicting your competitors’ demand, pulling local event and weather data, etc. are now fully automated. For those who operate a broader portfolio, the time savings is multiplied for each property under management.

Key Players:

A central reservation system (CRS) is a platform used by hotels to centrally manage and distribute room inventory, rates, and reservations. The CRS typically receives inventory from the PMS, then distributes rates and availability in real-time to direct and third-party channels, including the hotel’s own website booking engine and call center (direct channels), as well as channel managers, OTAs, GDS, and metasearch (third-party channels). Reservations from these channels are sent back to the CRS and subsequently synced into the PMS for room allocation. Hotel revenue managers and marketing/e-commerce managers use the CRS to create various promotions and offers through rate plans for different channels and to adjust pricing quickly to be updated across all channels. Reservation agents also work in the CRS to manage reservations.

Key Features:

Integrations and distribution: channels The CRS should integrate seamlessly with your existing PMS and allow your hotel to distribute rates and availability through a wide network of channels, including direct channels (website, call center) and third-party channels (OTAs, GDS, metasearch).
Pricing capabilities and flexibility: Every good revenue manager needs a good toolset. Your CRS partner should offer dynamic pricing tools that will give your hotel enormous flexibility when it comes to executing complex revenue strategies. Also consider whether integrations between your revenue management, merchandising, and CRM platforms with the CRS would help to increase operational efficiency (e.g. being able to automate pricing from an RMS, being able to enter rates only once within a backend, etc.)
Booking engine / e-commerce platform: A huge deciding factor for many hotels is the quality of the CRS’s booking engine, which should offer conversion optimization features to encourage direct bookings. Key features include the ability to showcase strikethrough pricing, social proof, scarcity messaging, and incremental pricing, among others.
Support and account management: A good CRS partner should not only provide round-the-clock technical support, but should also have active account management focused on customer success. Client services should include performance reviews with detailed analytics and reporting, as well as advice on revenue and pricing strategies.
Innovation: Your CRS partner should always be seeking to enhance features, support the latest technology trends, and evolve the platform to fit the needs of today’s hotel.

Key Players:

Business Intelligence tools are designed exclusively for analysis; to provide fast and widespread access to accurate information and insight. Through dashboards, reports and analytics. users can explore their business – both historical performance and future activity. BI automates reporting, turning report producers into information consumers who can in turn analyze and apply their findings to influence business results. Business Intelligence is about gathering data from a variety of sources and then utilizing technology to serve information to decision-makers in ways that help them to understand where opportunities exist within their business.

Key Features:

Cloud Infrastructure: Ease of access to BI across devices. No expensive, lengthy implementation or physical on-site installation.
Depth of Information: Ability to not only view statistics/figures, but to dive deeper into the data and understand what’s impacting those results.
Data Management: Ability to manage & clean data to maintain data & reporting quality and accuracy.
Forecast & Budget Support: Forecasting/Budgeting at the most granular level allows hotels to measure their performance on an ongoing basis to achieve their goals.
Enterprise Level Reporting: Allowing users to view performance of multiple hotels using unified standards makes for easier reporting at an area or portfolio level.

Key Players:

A channel manager is a technology that allows a hotel to expand its reach and visibility online, as well as more easily manage its rates, availability, and reservations. With a channel manager, hotels can access hundreds of online distribution channels and connect to as many as they like at the same time. Hotels can list all of their rooms and availability on all channels and the channel manager will update these automatically and in real-time when a booking is made, thanks to a pooled inventory model. This allows the hotel to maximize occupancy and reservations with minimal risk of being overbooked.

Key Features:

Supports your existing booking sites and has a large network: Hoteliers will want to make sure their preferred channels are supported by the channel manager they plan to invest in. Additionally, it’s important the hotel has the opportunity to connect with many new booking sites, in new markets, to grow business and revenue. It’s important the hotel can have the opportunity to connect with many new booking sites, in new markets, to grow business and revenue.
Deep system integrations: The channel manager should be able to integrate with existing systems such as the PMS, RMS, and CRS, and ensure seamless, two-way reservation delivery.
Simple and effective reporting: To manage revenue properly, the channel manager needs to provide the hotelier with a clear view on channel performance for as many channels as the hotel is connected to.
Pooled inventory: It’s vital that the channel manager operates on a pooled inventory model, to minimize overbooking and maximize the room sales.
Real-time channel management: Manage room inventory, availability and rate plans across all channels through a simple user interface, in real-time.

Key Players: