Revenue management for boutique hotels
We review the price every day using your hotel’s data and your competitors’ prices, to protect margin as well as occupancy.
Free assessmentThe problem with gut-feel pricing
You lock in the high-season rate in January and leave it fixed until December. Meanwhile your competitors’ occupancy rises and falls every week, and yours stays at the same number, whether it’s a low-season Tuesday or a holiday weekend.
A study from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration measured up to 7.3% more RevPAR in the first year of applying revenue management. What makes the difference is reviewing the price every day instead of once a quarter.
Every point of commission Booking or Expedia takes comes out of that same margin, between 15% and 25% of the booking depending on the platform. Dynamic pricing doesn’t remove that commission, but it decides the margin you compete with for the guest.
Four fronts, reviewed every day.
Daily pricing. Every morning we review your rate against your direct competitors’.
We cross occupancy, booking pace and competitor prices on Google Hotels.
Rate parity. The same price on your website and on every OTA, always.
A cheaper rate on Booking than on your own site hands the booking to the commission. We check it every day and fix it the same day.
Restrictions. Minimum stays and closures that respond to your real calendar.
Minimum stays on long weekends and peaks, arrival closures when they help, and rules that tighten or loosen with your booking pace.
Total revenue (TRevPAR). We measure everything each room earns, beyond the rate.
Add-on sales (breakfast, transfers, late check-out) and a 90-day forecast go into the same account. The goal is margin.
How we do it: one strategy a month and a review every morning.
Audit. We review a year of your hotel’s prices, channels and cancellations.
We work with access to your PMS and the OTA extranets. The result is a list of the five biggest opportunities, which we share with you before touching a single price.
Rate structure. Fernando sets the floor, the ceiling and the price steps for each season.
They’re built from your costs and the return you need as an owner. The price moves every day, always within those limits.
Daily review. Every morning we review bookings, booking pace and competitor prices.
Carlos crosses your PMS bookings with competitor prices on Google Hotels 90 days out, picks the day’s price step, fixes parity and adjusts minimum stays and closures.
Monthly review. Fernando goes over the month with you and sets three decisions.
What happened, why, and what we’ll do next month, each decision with a date. And every week we send marketing the dates that need guests.
Done with
Within the methodology
Revenue Management is the core of the strategy step in our methodology: it’s where the work of the other pillars turns into revenue.
It uses what Data measures to know which channel leaves the most margin per booking, and it hands Hotel marketing the calendar of soft dates so the budget lands where it’s needed. The website that Technology looks after is the channel where every night sells without commission.
You can hire revenue on its own. With all four pillars, the price Fernando sets also reaches the guests searching for those dates, which is why that’s what we recommend. Having that level in-house would mean a commercial manager and a marketing person on payroll, with payroll taxes, benefits and vacation time. They cost more than Roomflow’s four pillars together, which include a revenue consultant with twenty years in chain hotels.
Frequently asked questions
What is hotel revenue management?
It means deciding every day at what price and through which channel each room is sold, so the hotel earns more from the same nights. For a boutique hotel, that means checking your rate against the competition, adjusting minimum stays and making sure Booking never sells cheaper than your website.
Do I need pricing software (an RMS) to start?
Not at first. For a hotel with ten to eighty rooms, what makes the biggest difference is reviewing the price every day with judgment, using the bookings in your PMS and your competitors’ prices on Google Hotels. An RMS, software that suggests prices automatically, makes sense later, once there is a rate strategy for it to follow.
Should I hire a revenue manager or work with an external one?
For most boutique hotels, external. An in-house hire with pricing and channel experience adds salary, payroll costs and the time it takes to find them, and then they work alone. With Roomflow, the strategy is set by a consultant with twenty years in chain hotels and your price is reviewed every morning.
How long before I see results?
The groundwork (daily pricing, rate parity and minimum stays) goes live in the first month. In bookings and revenue, the effect usually shows between the second and fourth month, depending on the season we start in.
What access do you need?
Access to your PMS and to the extranets of Booking, Expedia and the other OTAs you sell through. With that we review a year of prices, channels and cancellations, and share the five biggest opportunities with you before touching a single rate.
How it starts
The assessment is free: you answer a few questions about your hotel and see right away where your revenue stands, along with the other three pillars. Then, if you like, we walk you through it in 15 minutes.
The four pillars
- Data
- Technology
- Hotel marketing
- Revenue ManagementYou are here