Focus on Labor: Hoteliers Use Business Intelligence to Spot Unnecessary Expenses
As rising labor expenses take an increasingly bigger bite out of property revenues, leading hotel companies are focusing on controlling their impact with business intelligence (BI) tools that provide new visibility into operating costs and profitability. At most properties tracking labor costs is handled by automated time and attendance systems, but calculating labor as a percentage of revenue is still primarily a manual operation. However, automated solutions that integrate data from third-party time and attendance and property management systems (PMS) are adding greater awareness of the role labor costs play across hotel groups. Labor is the largest controllable expense for hoteliers, so fast response to inappropriate labor costs is enabling operators to make better decisions on staffing that improve profitability.