Revenue management in hospitality

BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION
How is hotel occupancy forecasted? How is hotel inventory managed? What is the optimal level of overbooking? How is a hotel pricing strategy designed? What tools are available to distribute hotel products? This course answers the above questions, among others, and provides an introduction to the science of Revenue Management in Hospitality. It starts with a brief overview of the origins of Revenue Management and an introduction to its application. Students are then provided with tools to make predictions, manage inventory, manage pricing, and distribute hotel products.
 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Identify key aspects of hotel products.
2. Know the quantitative and qualitative methods applied to the hotel sector
3. Apply basic tools and applications such as: market research or marketing plan, creation of tourism products, pricing, marketing and communication.
4. Know the main negotiation techniques.
5. Know the effects of ICT in the operating procedures of hosting companies.
6. Use hotel marketing tools: Revenue Management, e-marketing, web 2.0.
7. Create products, determine sales prices, and plan service delivery with a marketing approach.

ACADEMIC CONTENTS
1. Introduction and fundamentals of Revenue Management in Hospitality
The origins of Revenue Management
The definition of Revenue Management in Hospitality
The fundamentals of Revenue Management
2. Hotel industry analytical foundations
Who are the players in the hotel industry?
Categorizations used by the hotel industry
Competitive Sets
3. Hotel math fundamentals
Property data and KeyPerformance Indicators (KPIs)
Comp set data and KPIs
Industry data
International issues
4. Forecasting
The importance of forecasting in Revenue Management
Basic forecasting methods
Measurements of forecast deviation
5. Inventory management
Inventory management definition
Overbooking
Inventory management restrictions
6. Pricing The importance of pricing
How can we set the price?
Price discrimination
Pricing matric
OTA, opaque, wholesale partners and group pricing
7. Performance using STAR Data
 Introduction to STAR Property Data (XLSTAR & dSTAR)
Benchmarking with Monthly STAR Data
Benchmarking with Weekly STAR Data
8. Distribution channels
The importance of distribution channels
Metasearch engines
OTAs and Meta across different geographic areas
Needed software for managing distribution channels

LEARNING METHODOLOGY
The learning methodologies planned for the subject combine a number of processes being the most remarkable the cognitive methods related to the comprehension of the principles of tourism and the global tourism system as well as the inclusion of a set of skills, mainly technical. The activities and methodologies -both group and individual- designed for this subject are the following:
• Lectures
• Practical exercises
• Project-based learning
• Cooperative learning

ASSESSMENT SYSTEM