COVID has hit the global hotel industry hard. But as with every crisis, new opportunities surface. During the financial crisis of 2008/09, we saw Airbnb and Uber emerge.

Many revenue-generating ideas were born over the past year. From staycation and workation to renting out equipment and even offering outsourced services like housekeeping. Hoteliers have been creative in finding ways to keeping their business afloat.

What was born out of a need for survival might lead to a more permanent shift in a hotel's business model.

The idea of non-room revenue is nothing new and even pre-pandemic was something more and more hotels embraced. F&B or MICE revenue management is still in its infancy for the overall industry but terms like Total RevPAR have evolved from buzzword to serious KPI.

Is now the time to look at non-room, ancillary revenue? Where are the opportunities?

Any area of the business that has not embraced optimization has opportunity to do better. When we look at the other revenue streams we need to be prepared that things work differently, that systems are different, that other areas are requiring optimization besides "moving my rates up and down". Pricing might not be the single thing to focus on.

One thing that was highlighted during Covid is that many mistake "room revenue management" with "moving my pricing up and down and that's it" - and with that many failed as "what to do now?". Moving then into other areas we are just asking for trouble except if we accept that there will be a huge learning curve for everyone involved and that the hurdles to optimization are much greater. Plus couple that with the fact that we havent really cracked Revenue Management in the Rooms part as of yet, we are better, but a long long way to go still (80% of hotels not using systems comes to mind).

Overall there is opportunity, the revenue management field needs to decide though where to prioritise: Channel Management and Distribution optimization? Mice? or FnB? Total RM? etc. - and more importantly we need to accept that we will get it wrong at times and that is part of moving forward

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