LONDON - Fornova, a leading provider of distribution intelligence and automation solutions for hotels, have released their latest on Distribution Trends for impact of availability and allocation management. The report analyses and highlights key trends around allocation and availability management by hotels that are impacting revenue and profitability .
Poor management of inventory allocation to contracted OTA partners can severely impact occupancy and revenue. Similarly, availability issues on brand.com can increase risks of overbooking, resulting in higher cost of booking and affect brand perception.
The key findings in the report revealed that the majority share of allocation and availability issues are occurring during wrong demand periods. Hotels were found to be closing channels or not allocating enough inventory to partner channels during low demand periods increasing risk of lost bookings. Similarly, OTAs were found continuing to show availability during sell-out dates for brand.com increasing risk of overbookings.
Dori Stein, CEO at Fornova, said, “The impact of poor allocation and availability management can directly impact occupancy and profit for hotels.” He continued, “Though relatively only a small percentage of the inventory is affected by these issues - they can have a ripple effect. Poor allocation management can hurt hotel rankings on OTAs. It also creates a poor guest experience which can then impact brand perception and loyalty.”
The research also reveals that on average only 15% and 2% of hotels in a chain contribute to nearly 50% each of all allocation and all availability issues, respectively. By focusing on a small group of hotels, chains can realise big impact very quickly.
Fornova are announcing the launch of their brand new dashboards for direct channels in Fornova Distribution Intelligence. The market leading platform that empowers hotels to monitor, benchmark and manage their distribution health has been extended to now include direct channels. Chains and hotels can now quickly identify and address distribution challenges, beyond just rate parity, such as allocation and availability that is affecting their revenues and bottomline.
“Hotels and chains are beginning to realise the importance of looking beyond rate parity, and understand what is really affecting their distribution health and respond quickly” said Ohad Chenkin, VP Product at Fornova, “Having proper monitoring infrastructure and distribution intelligence that can quickly identify and classify underlying issues affecting occupancy and revenue is critical. Our platform and the latest updates are designed to help revenue and distribution teams to be more agile, targeted and prioritise issues that can have big impact.”
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