December 2023 Newsletter
December 2023 Newsletter
Join us in viewing the December edition of the GuestPoint Newsletter! In this issue, We dive into why it’s important to add value to increase demand and not decrease prices. Recognising the value of an online payment solution and understanding why it could be a crucial addition to your property. Discover a new hub for management tips, also how to use a stop sell within your PMS. Look into what’s new with our updates. Join us in viewing the property of the month and how they set themselves apart. And lastly, can you figure out this month’s trivia?
Industry News
Why you shouldn’t reduce room prices, instead look to add value to increase occupancy
During times of low occupancy, it can be tempting to drop prices of rooms in order to drive an increase in occupancy. Although this may produce value in the short term, in the long term this could do your property harm. In order to combat this, there are a variety of different solutions to drive demand for your property that don’t involve changing the price of your rooms. Listed below are some simple tips that can increase demand for your property.
Increase Value on Original Prices
How do you produce more value for your product at the same price? Get in contact with local businesses such as cafes or attraction businesses. With the same price on the room, you can offer discounts for many iconic activities within your area. This brings benefits for both businesses, driving demand and increasing revenue. This could also be done through in-house packages. If you have an onsite bar or spa, you could package this with the room potentially offering a small drinks package or a discounted rate of spa packages.
Invest in loyalty
After a guest’s initial stay look to offer a returners package. This package would increase the incentive to rebook your property. What would this look like? Offer a complimentary bottle of wine, a free upgrade in rooms or a complimentary breakfast package. Again this doesn’t decrease the value of your rooms. It builds upon the value you have set, creating the perception for customers that you are creating value for them and not just trying to fill
Targeted Marketing
Look to tailor your marketing toward your periods of low demand. If you experience low-demand periods during the middle of the week, then you need to target mid-week travelers. This would include business travelers or retired travelers looking for new experiences. Once you have identified your target audience, look to promote your properties in their channels. For business travelers, this would be the GDS. However, the next challenge is how do you stand out from other properties in your area. This is where your value-adding packages can come to fruition by advertising these, they can set you apart from other properties in your area offering similar rates and rooms to you.
Conclusion
Don’t overlook the importance of creating value in order to boost demand during periods of low occupancy. Avoid the traditional habits of decreasing prices from your rooms in order to achieve this. You don’t want the guests’ perception of your property to be undervalued. Instead, look for alternative options that create value at the same price. This can be done through the combination of a few methods. Guests will appreciate the effort in order to create benefits for them that other properties aren’t willing to make.
Blog Article
Benefits of online payment solutions
What is an online payment system?
A payment gateway is a technology used by businesses to accept debit or credit card purchases from customers. The term includes not only the physical card-reading devices found in traditional retail stores but also the payment processing portals found in online stores.
How does this look inside the hospitality industry? If a customer were to make a booking online either through an online travel agent (OTA), booking sites or your website, then this process including payment could be done online. This initial payment could hold the card on file and when they have checked in or out then the same card could be charged again online, this decreases the need for customer front desk interaction.
What Benefits does it bring hoteliers?
Increased convenience of online bookings
The ability to process online bookings with the use of a payment option has become vital to the accommodation industry. The ever-expanding online booking industry has created a positive problem for hotels. The need to keep up with demand from either direct or third-party booking agencies has been solved with the ability to hold and charge funds through an online process. The ability to charge a specific amount automatically at the time of booking without human interaction adds great value not only to the guest but hotelier simultaneously.
These online systems provide a secure and effective way for hoteliers to process online bookings and collect payments from guests. This also offers a range of convenient options for guests to make payments in whichever way suits their needs. If you haven’t implemented some form of online payment system into your property then this potentially is deterring tech-savvy customers from booking your rooms. With online bookings being an everyday occurrence this could be costing you hundreds of potential customers.
No more cash or need for in-person check-in
The ability to hold a card on file allows front desks to charge guests directly from their card. Meaning there is no longer the need for in-person payments, eliminating the need for cash and increasing fund security. No longer will there be the need to keep cash on the premises of your property. Online payments allow for a seamless check-in experience with a card already on file means no exchange of unnecessary extra guest details and the ability to seamlessly pay directly out of the card on file. This allows for a positive guest experience as they can just drop the keys off at the end of their stay into a drop box or at the front desk.
Reservation rate
The reservation rate is a payment made by guests in order to secure their room reservation. This money is then held by the hotel through the use of an online payment gateway. These held funds then can be used to pay for the booking. However, if the booking were to be cancelled these funds wouldn’t be refundable. This process is vital for a hotel as this guarantees some form of revenue for a room being booked, and covers potential losses in case of a cancelled booking.
Read more about the benefits of an online payment system here:
GuestPoint Guide to:
GuestPoint YouTube
Recently GuestPoint has been utilising our YouTube to demonstrate how easy our solutions are to use. We are looking to be using this tool more frequently. Currently, our most recent video displays how simple it is to use GuestPoint Pay and displays all its wonderful functions to assist with your online payments.
If there are any videos you would like created to help with the use of GuestPoint’s many solutions contact us at Info@GuestPoint.com
Management Tips & Tricks
How to Use Auto Sell Stop
Benefits:
Adding an auto-stop sell time to your rooms is important. As it allows you to close up for the night and not have to worry about any further bookings. It is suggested you add your stop-sell time an hour prior to when you plan to close up. An auto-stop-sell time stops your rooms from being booked past a certain time.
How to activate an auto stop sell time
- Click on the management tab on your PMS
- Click Setup at the top
- Under configuration click on the property tab
- On the far right under settings click the Web settings dropdown
- Select your preferred Auto Stop Sell All rooms After Time
Property of the Month
Sovereign Park Motor Inn
Located in the heart of Ballarat Sovereign Park Motor Inn is the definition of an all-inclusive hotel experience. With a genuine car for guests and their comfort, Sovereign Park has something for everyone.
Their extensive list of amenities for guests includes an indoor heated swimming pool. With a fully equipped gym with access to a sauna and two spas. With an undercover multi-story playground, table tennis, pool table, and a pickleball court this property has everything guests may desire.
Within their property is their very own restaurant, with a bar and cafe built-in, enjoy their highly specialised menu serving from 8 am-10 pm its become a staple within the community being known as “Ballarat’s place to meet.”
Not only is this property for those on holiday, but is tailored to business travellers as well. With access to three different conference rooms, this property allows for a plethora of different business opportunities.
Guests looking to explore Ballarat have a variety of activities to choose from. Amongst these is Sovereign Hill, which is located only 800 meters from the property and is guaranteed to give visitors a day full of fun. Also coated with history is Ballarats CBD with many historic buildings and unique small businesses to discover. Located close to the property is Ballarat’s Wildlife Park, which is host to a diverse range of animals. If you are looking to get outside the city lake Wendouree and Ballarat’s botanical gardens are also highly touted by locals.
Sovereign Park remains a first choice for accommodation in Ballarat for many reasons. They keep up with trends and new technologies by “acting on feedback,” putting an emphasis on connecting with their guests. Another key insight they use to keep up-to-date is building relationships and having consistent communication with industry colleagues locally and statewide.
They emphasised the importance of using GuestPoint’s all-in-one solution for their property for a few key reasons. Amongst these reasons was the convenience of GuestPoint Pay and how their payments could be processed with just a click of a button, being a massive time saver. They also identified the importance of the control they gained when using an all-in-one solution. The use of GuestPoint Channel Manager allows them to increase their bottom line through rate control on third-party channels but also allows them total control over their website rates. And finally, accuracy was identified with real-time communication between their reservation plan and third-party websites eliminating the over-allocation of their rooms.
New Updates
V11.5
We are excited to announce the launch of V11.5. Take a look at what’s new:
New Features:
- Reservations Tab: The guest name has been included in the search criteria, and the Status column is also now filterable.
- The ability to resend the latest revision on the Revisions tab of booking is fully functional now. This should only be used if the booking did not import into GuestPoint for whatever reason.
- The ability to fix the booking’s mapping has also been added to the Reservation Details tab of the booking in the event that the booking fails due to a mapping error.
- The ability to Allow Email Confirmation to be sent for RecOnline bookings has been added to the RecOnline mapping screen. (Do note that RecOnline does not send any emails themselves to properties if the property is set to import bookings automatically)
Improvements
- Improvements to our booking import process to better handle mapping issues.
- Increased rate update time, real-time updates for derived rates (i.e., local rate plans created in CCadmin)
- No longer will booking be cancelled unless the account balance is $0, improving the cancellation process.
GuestPoint Pay Updates
New Feature: option to expand settlement row. This then allows you to view the breakdown per payment type and you can drill down further by expanding each payment row.
New Search functions: Search now allows you to search by Tran Ref and Amount.
Holiday Message
Our team at GuestPoint would love to extend our best wishes to everyone over the holiday period. And we thank all our customers and partners for the year that was and we look forward to bigger and better things coming in 2024. Our team will be working throughout the holiday period to support any issues that may arise. However, we ask for your patience during this period as we will have reduced staff during periods of the holidays.
GuestPoint Trivia
What country started the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree?
A) Germany
B) England
C) Norway
D) USA
A) Germany, the first recorded Christmas tree was used in 1539 and was placed in the Cathedral of Strasbourg.
Want to read more articles? Click below to access more resources!
Simplify your operations, manage your revenue, and create great experiences with GuestPoint.
