Superbowl 2016: Rate Management

By now you probably know that Superbowl 50 is being hosted in the Bay Area (-ish—it’s actually down in Santa Clara). If this is news to you don’t worry, the only NFL player I know is Tom Brady, for obvious reasons. I found out about this upcoming local extravaganza upon arrival to work last week where everyone was discussing their transit, or lack thereof, options. Aside from the excitement of having a ton of free events there’s money on people’s minds and conversation has turned to the throngs of Bay Area homeowners hoping to cash in on the big game and the week of revelry preceding it. With the growth of the sharing economy like Airbnb and HomeAway, it’s simple for people to turn their places into impromptu inns, creating dynamic supply that arises to meet demand. 

Unless you’re a Panthers or Bronco’s fan you may be asking “why should I care about Superbowl San Francisco?” Well, and there is a point to this, not every city gets the Superbowl but even the smallest of towns have local events and high demand periods. So whether it’s the Indy 500 or the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain your hotel can prepare and ensure they have the best rates possible.

Here’s our checklist to make the most of local events in your area:

• Keep your ears open. Obviously, you know what are the regular local events that help increase your occupancy - if not, look closely at your lodging statistics reports, and spot what are those periods, weekends, etc. where your hotel is the busiest, and if you’re doing any rate management, where your rates are the highest.
  But the event world is always on the move, and you also want to know as early as you can what are the new events that may impact your property. 
  
  

• Create specific rates for those specific high periods. Add minimum stay restriction, which is a good way to make sure your hotel makes the most of high demand periods. Make sure those changes apply to all the rooms you want, and more importantly all the channels you want. With Frontdesk Anywhere this is easy as 1 2 3. And fast too.
  
  
• Get a backup. Use a yield management solution to make sure you’re still capturing value even if you missed an important event happening around you. Frontdesk Anywhere’s yield solution allows you to set up automatic rate increase (or decrease..) depending on your occupancy level at a certain point ahead of your booking dates. This means once you hit, say 75%, occupancy a week before a particular date, your rates will automatically increase by say 15% or whatever increase you'd like.
  
  
• Get help. We’ve recently upped our support levels. We’re always happy to help and train you, so you really make the most of our system, and boost your revenues accordingly.

Feel free to ask any questions or comment below.