GDU Ninja Update 35 - How this customer doubled their room sales.

Over the last couple of years we have been following the progress of one particular hotel who has successfully managed to double their room revenue and just as importantly managed to bring 32% of their bookings direct through their website.

We asked them if they could take everything they have done and prioritise them ie Say how much each item contributed to their performance improvement.

The result of this unscientific process is below, and some of it surprises even us. Unfortunately the hotel is publicity shy so did not want to be named, but agreed we could share it with our customers. We couldnt resist tagging some notes onto each sentence.

Weighting vs What factors help to drive room sales and how important are they?

20% Rate Flexing - After some initial scepticism we found that at least midweek when we are buy with Corporates we were able to fill our rooms most nights by flexing the rates up or down, but this would not have been possible without 'Derived Rates' (Ed Note - They only have to manage the Double Room Rate and all the other rates follow suit. This makes rate flexing much faster and easier because only one room rate has to be adjusted).

15% Occupancy Pricing - We used to sell rooms as Doubles only, but we decided to offer a price for just one person midweek. We can see in 'our PMS Charts' the 1 person rate is now 34% of our rooms sales. (Ed Note - They dont offer this at the weekends in Summer when they are selling to the Leisure/mainly couples market). 15% Room Only - We used to sell only Bed and Breakfast to keep our breakfast operation simple, but we tried Room Only and can now see that 32% of our rooms sales are Room Only so we put up with the inconvenience of having to charge guests for breakfast if they had not booked it.

10% Extra Rooms - We were holding back 2 of our older rooms from online sales, but eventually we put them online with a clear description and at a cheaper rate. These 2 rooms now form 7% of our room sales. (Ed Note - These are only offered through their own website where they can describe them honestly).

10% Google Adwords - We spend around 9600 per year on Google Adwords but we get a report each month that shows us the value of rooms sold through them. (Ed Note - At present it appears to be around 7% of their room sales but is almost certainly higher).

10% Special Offers - We have as many as 6 different Special Offers, mainly to sell rooms at the weekends when our Corporates are not travelling. We can see that on average 16% of our rooms sales are Special Offers. (Ed Note - This seems to work well for them at the weekends).

6% FaceBook - We spend around 8100 per year on FaceBook and although our marketing person can tell us how many people click on the ads we cant see exactly how much revenue they generate, but it seems to help. (Ed Note - This property has over 8000 Followers on their FaceBook page alone).

6% Corporate Rates - We created Secret Corporate Rates and sent them out to various big businesses in the area. We can see in charts they now form 5.5% of our business. (Ed Note - It took 2 years to get to this point, but also has the advantage that corporates are booking online, not ringing or e mailing).

4% Road/Internal Signage - 3 or 4 times a year we change the signage around our hotel. We cant prove what extra business this generates, but we know we have roughly 1000 people walk through the doors of our hotel every month so it made sense to advertise to them.

4% Google Hotel Ads - We are paying Google HotelAds 11% commission, but this is better than the other OTA's and again we get a report each month that shows us the value of rooms sold through Google Hotelads (Ed Note - Appears to be around 1.5% of their room sales)