How Hotels can Increase Revenue with Optimal Pricing

Optimal room pricing is one of the cornerstones of successfully running a hotel or B&B. This important assignment was typically only achievable for large hotels, chains and their revenue managers. Smaller or independent properties, on the other hand, often lacked the necessary staff, time and knowledge. Thanks to new technology and automation, every hospitality professional can now implement a profitable pricing strategy.

Why is optimal pricing indispensable for accommodations?

Optimal pricing is a vital aspect of running a hotel, B&B or vacation rental profitably, especially in today’s highly competitive and difficult market. It ensures you don’t lose bookings due to overpricing and your profitability doesn’t suffer from filling rooms too cheaply.

Dynamic pricing is the best – if not the only – way to beat the competition and earn more per room or per booking. In essence, this strategy means charging exactly what the guest is willing to pay by adjusting your room rates based on real-time demand.

How to optimise your hotel pricing

Adjust your rates regularly based on demand

Instead of just looking at high versus low seasons and weekdays versus weekends, adjust your prices more regularly.

Raise your prices in response to events in your area, prolonged weekends, competitors and your real-time occupancy. For example, when your hotel is unexpectedly almost fully booked, you can charge a higher rate for the remaining room(s).

Simultaneously, this allows you to offer more competitive rates and promotions (e.g. free breakfast included, early-bird or last-minute discount) at low-demand times to stimulate bookings and longer stays.

Automate your hotel pricing

Dynamic pricing – though crucial – can be very complex and time-consuming without the right tools. It involves monitoring trends, competitors’ prices, market conditions, … and updating your rates accordingly. That’s why more and more accommodation owners are opting for automated dynamic pricing.

With Pricing Manager, Lighthouse has made dynamic pricing accessible to accommodations lacking the necessary staff, time or know-how that this task used to require. The pricing tool uses historic and forward-looking market data, competitors’ rates and your occupancy levels to offer tailored price recommendations for maximum revenue.

By integrating it with the Lighthouse Channel Manager, these optimised rates can be sent instantly to your booking channels, ensuring maximum efficiency.

Try automated dynamic pricing for free: Would you like to maximise your profitability with optimal pricing? You can now discover the advantages of Pricing Manager + Channel Manager in a 14-day free trial.

Offer value-added options at higher rates

Many travellers are interested in experience-rich stays that include extra perks, services or products. Capture this target audience by adding extra features to rooms and upgrading certain ones to deluxe rooms or suites, if possible. You could also create enticing packages that offer more value in order to nudge guests towards choosing this higher-value option instead of the (cheapest) standard rate.

The key is to set the right expectations and match or exceed those on site. Clearly highlight all the perks and amenities on your website, direct Booking Engine and other channels through photos and detailed descriptions. This way, when potential clients see the price, they also see the amazing value they’re getting.

Want to know more about the solutions Lighthouse offers?

Lighthouse offers the tools you need to optimise your accommodation’s online distribution, from driving direct bookings to efficiently managing your OTAs and optimising prices. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us, we’re happy to help you thrive.

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