Hoteliers looking to take the guess work out of room assignment while simultaneously increasing guest satisfaction, revenues and loyalty should plan to visit hospitalityPulse March 9 to 12 at ITB Berlin in Hall 10.1 / 112a. Using a patent-pending optimization process and intuitive user interface, hospitalityPulse will show attendees how they can assign the most optimal room for every guest – every time – with consistent efficiency using the company's roomPulse and pulseLINK solutions.

"One of the biggest problems hoteliers are facing is assigning rooms to guests upon check in that match the features and characteristics they requested during the booking process," said Pierre Boettner, hospitalityPulse CEO. "More than 50 percent of guests are not checked in to their pre-assigned rooms upon arrival due to overbooking situations, housekeeping status or competing last minute guest requests. As such, it's not uncommon for guests to be unsatisfied with the rooms they receive – especially if they are a frequent customer or loyalty club member with a specific profile and specific room preference. Not getting the room you request translates into lower guest satisfaction and less repeat business. For the hotel, we see the negative financial impact of being forced to upgrade guests complimentary in much higher-valued room categories, as no other option seems available when balancing the house.

hospitalityPulse to Showcase Solutions for  Resolving Room Assignment Challenges at ITB Berlin — Photo by hospitalityPulse, Inc.hospitalityPulse to Showcase Solutions for  Resolving Room Assignment Challenges at ITB Berlin — Photo by hospitalityPulse, Inc.
hospitalityPulse to Showcase Solutions for Resolving Room Assignment Challenges at ITB Berlin — Photo by hospitalityPulse, Inc.

"At hospitalityPulse, we understand that room assignment is a complex, multidimensional task that is easy to mess up," Boettner said. "It requires training of front desk personnel and integration into the broader operation of a hotel. Looking at the many variables to consider when assigning the optimal room, it is a task impossible to solve without the support of technology Rather than allowing owners to leave money on the table by not optimally assigning guests the right room at check in, we developed roomPulse, a radically different multi-dimensional inventory engine that automates room assignments to streamline check in."

roomPulse is the first real hospitality solution that dynamically optimizes each room assignment in real time, all the time. It solves all possible movements based on reservation requirements, reservation and guest value and room availabilities, resulting in more optimal upgrades being granted to the right guests. It defragments the inventory, provides clarity of available rooms, and facilitates better upselling. More importantly, roomPulse reduces costs, increases guest satisfaction and revenues, and it makes employee tasks a lot easier too.

With roomPulse, hoteliers can:

  • Automate the room assignment process by taking into account all aspects of imminent and future arrivals – at the same time
  • Reduce guest complaints due to unfulfilled expectations
  • Become acutely aware of true room availability and room conditions
  • Prevent inventory fragmentation and increase upsell opportunities
  • Support automatic enforcement of loyalty-related upgrades for top tier guests
  • Allow for better visibility into front desk activities
  • Streamline and accelerate the check-in process
  • Eliminate inefficiencies and conflicts caused by manual pre-assignment

"Room assignment is complex and tedious due to the vast number of reservations and inventory variables," Boettner said. "Until now, to meet even basic expectations while considering detailed available inventory, all hotels could resort to was add more manpower. For example, when considering just arrival dates and stay lengths, it is already difficult and time consuming to find a solution that avoids conflicts, guest satisfaction issues and unnecessary upgrades or downgrades. Now, add more guest expectations in the form of room feature requests and loyalty-based upgrades, and the complexity increases exponentially. roomPulse takes all these variables into account and assigns rooms to guests optimally and efficiently using computational reasoning. We've taken what once was complex, and made it easy."

The 'pulseLINK' Advantage

Also at ITB Berlin, hospitalityPulse will showcase pulseLink, an extension of roomPulse that is designed to reduce the amount of time front desk staff spend searching for rooms during check in. pulseLink is designed to automatically select the most optimal room available at the moment of check in directly within the PMS reservation screen. It enables agents to easily find and hold other rooms or increase the hold to have more time more time to offer an upsell.

With pulseLINK, front desk staff can:

  • Leverage roomPulse for instant optimization of available rooms
  • Receive clear assignment recommendations via the intuitive room card
  • Stay up-to-date on housekeeping status in real time
  • Conduct flexible advance room searches
  • Avoid assignment conflicts using automatic room holds
  • Enhance customer satisfaction by having more accurate fulfillment

"Today's hotel operations are being pressured to meet guest demands and generate higher revenues all while trying to deal with technological limitations," Boettner said. "It's a daunting task. At hospitalityPulse, we have developed a way to embrace this complexity, not turn away from it. It's room assignment made easy, and it's on display at ITB Berlin in Hall 10.1 / 112a."

To pre-schedule an appointment at ITB Berlin, call Mario Bellinzona at +49.163.70.70.978, or email [email protected]. For more information on hospitalityPulse, visit www.hospitalitypulse.com.

About ITB Berlin and the ITB Berlin Convention

ITB Berlin 2016 will take place from Wednesday to Sunday, 9 to 13 March. From Wednesday to Friday ITB Berlin is open to trade visitors only. Parallel with the trade show the ITB Berlin Convention, the world's largest tourism convention, will be held from Wednesday, 9 to Saturday, 12 March 2016. The WTCF (World Tourism Cities Federation) is Co-Host of the ITB Berlin Convention and Studiosus and Toshiba are Basic Sponsors. More details are available at www.itb-convention.com. ITB Berlin is the global travel industry's leading trade show. In 2015 a total of 10,096 companies and organisations from 186 countries exhibited their products and services to 175,000 visitors, who included 115,000 trade visitors.

About hospitalityPulse

hospitalityPulse was designed by hotel technology and operations veterans tackling one of the most difficult problems hotels are facing: room assignment and its direct effect on guest satisfaction. Our patent-pending optimization algorithms, combined with an intuitive user interface enable hoteliers to assign the optimal room for every guest, every time, with consistent efficiency. Using the multi-dimensional FIRE engine, hoteliers can rely on providing the booker with the trueAvailabilityTM of room and feature combinations on the dates selected. roomPulse dynamically optimizes each room assignment in real-time, all the time. Visit us at www.hospitalitypulse.com.

Pierre Boettner