Good News at Last
I monitor reports from various sources including Smith Travel Research and HotelNewsNow. For the first time this year I am beginning to see some positive numbers. Eighty-two of the 228 areas that STR monitors (35%) have shown increased in year to date transient demand. Ten of the tracts posted double-digit increases led by Jacksonville Beaches, FL with whooping 18.6 percent increase over the same period last year.
The following states had tracts with positive demand change: Florida, California, Texas, DC, Virginia, Arizona, New York. With the exception of New York. all or part of these states are warm in the winter.
The week ending October 3 showed a 4.9 percent increase in transient occupancy over the same period last year. In addition, REVPAR, while still in negative territority, is LESS negative than is has been. That week's REVPAR is the best since mid-January, 2009.
Group occupancy in certain key cities has also gone up. For Example:
Minneapolis 50%
St. Louis 41
San Francisco 34
New York 27
Los Angeles 18
Other analysts are saying that things will get worse before they get better. However, I think we can say, with caution, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Hotel Measurements
Revenue managers monitor ADR on a daily basis. However, there are a number of other measurements that should be taken into account:
REVPAR - Room revenue per available room. This is more meaningful if the out of order and employee use rooms are subtracted from the total room count. Some managers feel that rooms designed for handicapped access should also be subtracted since they are hard to sell to the typical guest.
TREVPAR - Total revenue per available room. This would include F&B revenue, telephone charges, on-demand movies, resort charges, minibar, etc. During these tough times many hotels are depending on these other revenue sources for needed income. This is especially true of casino hotels and cruise lines.
TREVPEG - Total revenue per guest. Always remember that your guest is your customer not your room. Also wear and tear on the property is more closely related to the number of guests than the number of occupied rooms. Theoretically the more guests the higher your F&B revenue.
GOPPAR - Gross operating profit per available rooms. The numerator does not include debt service. However it does include all salaries, utilities, consumables, etc. Fixed costs are typically the largest part of a hotel's expenses and they are the hardest to cut back on. The marginal cost of selling an additional room is very low and the inventory of available rooms for a given night disappears when the night is over. This can lead to aggressive discounting.
REVPASH - Rood and beverage revenue per available seats per F&B outlet. This can be measured by the hour but it would be more meaningful to measure it per meal. Careful analysis of this number can lead to adding or subtracting meals, removing seats from a dining room, etc.
Every one of these measures can be calculated from your PMS. I can help.
Corporate Connection
HOST allows you to indicate a corporate code when entering a reservation. This is useful for corporate accounts and promotions. In order to create a meaningful report using these data you must link the reservation table, IN_RES.DBF, to the table containing the corporate information, CS-CORP.DBF.
Here is how you create the link:
1) Pick the RCORP field in the IN_RES table as the source.
2) Pick the CS-CORP table. Chance the alias to CS_CORP. R&R does not like a hyphen here.
3) Pick the Exact Lookup relation type.
4) Pick the CS-CCODE.IDX as the index file.
5) Click OK. All the other choices are good.
The actual name of the corporation is stored in the CFIRM field in the CS-CORP table.
New Courseware
We have just published the latest edition to our courseware for Crystal Reports. It comes in two volumes, Level 1 and Level 2, and covers just about everything you need to know to become proficient in Crystal Reports. The latest books have been updated to Version 2008 of Crystal -- the latest version. New features, new icons and other changes are covered. The books are written to use a student database that can be downloaded from our website without charge. The books themselves cost $80 each. They are about 320 pages each, printed and spiral bound. Order them though our secure website or call 800-783-2269.In addition to the latest version we have courseware for the following versions of Crystal Reports:
Version XI (11)
Versions 9 & 10
Version 8.5
These books are suitable both for individual study and for instructor-led classes. Quantity discounts for more than 10 manuals are available.
Back From Alaska
I have been back at work since Sept. 8. The trip to Alaska was memorable. First, Alaska is a long way from Mayland. It took about 24 hours door to hotel door. Alaska is 4 hours behind eastern time.We got to Anncorage on on a Friday and left Saturday evening. So we didn't see much of the interior. There was a great native/farmer's market. I learned what a ulu is. Besides being a great word for scrabble, it is knife used by native women in Alaska.
We boarded the Diamond Princess on Saturday evening, August 22. I was both impressed and overwhelmed. The shipp is almost 3300 feet long: a third of a mile. It is about 120 feet wide. It has 18 decks available to the public. I was in the same boat with 2600 other passengers and 1300 crew. The ship was built in 2004 and is completely wired for the internet, security and point of sale. On boarding one is given a plastic card that serves as both a room key and a charge card. No need to keep a money in your pocket. And the ship is very happy to apply charges on your card for just about everything.
But I am being cynical. We got to see a lot of Alaska from the sea while moving through the latitudes in comfort and beng overfed. We saw a bear family, whales, eagles and other wildlife. Next time I would like to go there by land.
We got off the boat in Vancouver and then took the ferry to Vancouver Island. I taught an "R&R for SMS-HOST" class at the Tigh-Na-Mara resort while my wife "worked" as a secret shopper at the spa. Together with the resort staff I created some very creative reports for the spa manager, revenue manager and the comptroller.
We drove the rented Prius to Victoria, the capitol of B.C., and took the ferry to Seattle. While there I finalized the specifications for a reporting tool for the MTM Luxury Lodging group. We spent some time as tourists at the Pike street market and other spots and finally took the red eye flight home.
It was a great vacation and I am also glad to be back. I am working on the schedule for the Fall classes for both Crystal Reports and R&R Report Writer.
We have published our "Jump Start Crystal Reports" teaching manuals for the latest version of Crystal: Crystal 2008. Check the website for details.
We will start supporting a new Crystal tools in a few weeks. More details later.
Off to Alaska
My wife and I are off to Alaska on August 21. We will cruise along the coast and look at glaciers, whales, etc.
At the end of the cruise I will teach a class at Tigh-Na-Mara Resort on Vancouver Island and visit with my clients at MTM Properties in Seattle.
Manage OTA Portals
There are so many portals. Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, local ones for your area. Each one has a password and each one has its own protocols for setting rates and availability. And in this competitive economy it is imperative to adjust rates and restrictions to reflect demand. And these factors change hourly.
Parity Rate is a gateway that makes all this easy. It is an on-line application that does all the submissions for you. You can see all you accounts on one screen and on that screen you can change rates, revise availability and impose minimum stays. All with a few clicks of the mouse. When you click "update" you changes are posted to the various websites.
In order to introduce Parity Rate to the US hotel market the publisher is giving away a one-year subsription. Here is what you must do to qualify:
Your property must have at least 100 rooms.
You must be open year round.
You agree to provide feedback on your experience.
You can drop out at any time. There is no obligation to renew after a year.
If you are interested, please call or email me. First come, first served.
Howard Hammerman
800-783-2269
howard@hammerman.com
