With many countries in Asia finally reopening their borders to foreign tourists, now is the time to prepare for the return of travel demand. As early as mid-October, countries such as Singapore and Indonesia began welcoming the return of international guests. By welcoming fully vaccinated travelers from countries such as Great Britain, France and the United States without the need for quarantine, Singapore is leading the way to establish the “new normal” and re-establish itself as a major international travel destination. This is welcome news for the thousands of global companies that call Singapore home and rely on the connectivity that the destination offers. 

As of November 1st, Thailand will follow suit and allow fully vaccinated visitors from 63 low-risk countries to enter without the need for quarantine. What does this mean for you and your hotel? Well, with travel set to gain steam and increase demand, you must ensure that your house is in order and ready to welcome company again! 

Time for a check up

Periods of soft demand are a great time to handle housekeeping type items such as ensuring your website is accurate and up to date. Here are our top tips to prepare your property for the return of demand:

1. Audit your website and your OTA presence

Your online presence is the first step in the booking process. If this does not draw the guest’s attention, or if the information is inaccurate, you are setting yourself up to fail. Ensure that your photos are up to date. If business demands have caused you to close amenities, such as your spa, be sure that this is noted on your website. 

2. Organize your re-opening offers

In order to maximize your recovery, a plan needs to be created for attracting short term and long term business. Be mindful that much of your historical business may not return for another year, be sure to have plans in place to attract that segment when the booking windows open.

3. Stand out!

This is where you need to get creative! What aspects or amenities in your hotel make you unique? Discover what those are and offer them as value adds. Additionally, you can optimize the use of higher room categories as opposed to offering discounts. Keep in mind that lowering rates does not equal generating demand.

4. Prepare your marketing materials

Make sure that these are ready to GO! With all the uncertainty in our industry, we cannot be certain when large celebrations such as weddings or New Year’s Eve parties will be allowed to resume. Prepare those ideas and marketing materials now, so that you can be the first to position your product once restrictions are lifted.

5. Understand your lead time

Booking windows have changed considerably due to the pandemic, but if you are utilizing a powerful business intelligence system such as Avalon, you will be able to understand how this has shifted. With this information at your fingertips, you are properly positioned to set your pricing when the majority of your guests are shopping.

6. Prepare a voucher sale

This is a tactic that you can employ to drive future business and focus on need periods. Be sure to stimulate excitement around it by letting your guests know with a countdown through your email, social media and other marketing channels.

7. Be Flexible

We saved this one for last so that it sticks in your head. Guests prioritize flexibility over everything else in this current climate. Prepaid & Non-refundable offers are not likely to be popular again until we have more certainty in the market. Do away with these and create flexible rate plans that will be attractive to your guests. 

Driving Demand

As you prepare with the above tips, taking advantage of the information that is available in your business intelligence system is key. Knowing your travelers is essential to implementing any of the ideas that are outlined above. Truly understanding customer patterns of behavior is paramount, and these trends can be found in the data available to you with a robust BI system.

Additionally, building operational efficiencies through accurate forecasting will be crucial to your financial success as well as customer satisfaction. While demand is picking up, we continue to struggle with staffing levels as we slowly bring back our associates. In many cases, we are struggling as an industry to get associates to return to the workplace for various reasons. Accurate forecasting is crucial to meeting financial goals while ensuring that the guest experience does not suffer as a result of low staffing levels. With a flexible system like Avalon, you have the ability to create multiple versions of forecasts based on these varying scenarios. As demand fluctuates constantly in this ever changing market, the ability to change with it and forecast for multiple outcomes will help to minimize risk and provide confidence in the future.

Perhaps most importantly, the information that is gathered needs to be shared with the entire organization in a manner that promotes collaboration. Your system needs to deliver information that is easily digestible by those associates who do not spend their entire day looking at Excel spreadsheets like many of us. To summarize, data analytics is a crucial component of revenue management for hotels and your revenue management software needs to be able to adapt with these ever changing times.