Hotel Emma is a family hotel in Rotterdam run by me, Luigi, for the past 26 years. My grandparents opened the hotel in the 1930s, after which my parents took over and then me. I went to hotel school to learn the trade. Revenue-management was something I taught myself while running the hotel, and I enjoy the revenue-management aspect of the job.
“I struggled to find the time”
The problem I had was that I struggled to find the time to do a good job, as I was doing things day-to-day myself, manually. We’ve changed our PMS a lot in the past, but we’ve finally found Mews and we like the system a lot. However, there is nothing to help you with the revenue management so we had to find revenue management software that we could afford, because for a small hotel like ours Mews was already an expensive system to have. So initially we went to RoomPriceGenie because of the pricing. The product was at the time not perfect, but was constantly evolving and improving, and I made the decision to take the time and trust the process.
“It’s a great tool because we were too late to notice changes in the market when we could sell for much much higher price and we were fully booked already.”
Even with an earlier version, having RoomPriceGenie made my life easier very quickly. And I am very happy with how RoomPriceGenie is developing. It’s a great tool because we were too late to notice changes in the market when we could sell for much much higher price and we were fully booked already. And that was one of the most important reasons to reach out to a revenue management software. I was doing everything manually and I was trying to look 365 -days in the future, but I was always too late. I was either fully booked much more in advance or I missed the opportunity to sell at double the price. I was spending hours a week and I was not always correct. Also, with automation, with a good system, the machine is less likely to make mistakes than a human would if they are taking care of things.
“It’s better to learn from the big guys than looking at competitors who do not know anything about revenue management“
So, as I mentioned, 90% of the reason I went for RoomPriceGenie was the price. But also I really liked the strategy. You are comparing rates with the ‘big’ hotels within the market, hotels that are spending good amounts on revenue management. So when they go up with their prices you also go up, obviously there is a good reason for doing that. I also like that you look into the region, the wider picture. It’s better to learn from the big guys than looking at competitors who do not know anything about revenue management
What has improved in my life since using RoomPriceGenie?
I am still checking all the time, but instead of 5 times a day, now I do only once!
That may sound a lot still. But for me, the fact that I am only checking once a day means I feel very confident about the prices!
What is my favourite feature?
I really like the lead-time option. I can set it to the specific booking window and kinda influence the prices based on that. You will never skip a date or opportunity with RPG
What are the financial results?
It is a difficult year to compare, or provide figures but already because of the errors that I could have made and mainly because of the time I would have spent; it has definitely had a positive outcome.
I am sure it is much much better with RoomPriceGenie, than before. It does not make sense to pay for a revenue management software and not to see positive return of the investment, right?
Why I would recommend RoomPriceGenie:
I would definitely recommend RoomPriceGenie. Because we are small hotels and we don’t have the money to spend on additional but important products/solutions and it really made my job much much easier. This is especially now that the product has developed so that there are now quite a few features that also makes it possible for me to have my personal input.