What's the Secret to Omni's 10-Year, Record-High RevPAR?

Summary:  As the online market continues to expand rapidly hoteliers are having to find new innovative ways to implement revenue management strategies. Omni hotels and resorts have been able to implement these new techniques and have seen the conclusive positive results.

Omni noticed a reduction in business travel and had to change their rates to keep competitive in 2010 they reduced discount rates, which improved their overall ADR dramatically.  Omni owes it all to the revolutionary revenue management system from The rainmaker group, which helped Omni to achieve a record high RevPar index. Omni found that other systems utilize a broader price-setting process to recommend the most competitive rates, but Rainmaker’s solution is more micro-focused.

Omni has installed this management system brand wide. Each of the Omni hotels is equip with a revenue management team that is familiar with the system. They work with it to make sure they are capturing as much rate as possible. Lesli Reynolds, VP of distribution systems and revenue strategy for Omni Hotels & Resorts, states that they are now able to make data based decision not gut based.  With this revenue management system in place they are able to maximize and capture RevPar everyday of the week.

Reflection: I think this revenue management system is incredible. I would recommend every hotel brand to look for systems like this to implement into their hotels. Having a group of skilled revenue management individuals with this system could make your hotel extremely profitable and there would be no money left on the table.

I like the idea that in the article Lesli Reynolds describes that the revenue management team is no longer making the gut based decisions. They have all the data and numbers from previous weekends and seasons, to base the RevPar on. It is no wonder they hit a record high. I think that the systems will become more and more popular and other brands may catch on but not quick enough. I think that this is a big trend that we should start top see in the near future.

I can’t believe that they are able to capture a large amount of RevPar everyday of the week even on Wednesdays.  I am really looking forward to seeing more companies like The rainmaker group come out and see what other types of information these systems will be able to gather to help increase the ADR for these hotels.

http://hospitalitytechnology.edgl.com/news/What-s-the-Secret-to-Omni-s-10-Year,-Record-High-RevPAR-70755

Ipads Replacing Restaurant Menu, Staff

By Bruce Horovitz, USA Today

Summary:

This article is about a new food chain: Stacked and how they will be implementing there 3 new restaurants in California all equip with Ipads for their 60 table tops. Using these ipads customers will be able to design and order their meal right on the spot. They will not only be able to design their meal from the ipad they will also be able to order from it too. 

The co-founder of stacked said that they came up with the idea of ordering from your table before the ipad came out. The ipad just confirmed their decision to do it.

There are a few restaurants that have started to use the ipads and have seen a positive outcome. 

In Bone’s restaurant in Atlanta they have used ipads for the selection of their wines and the co-owner Richard Lewis has seen a 20% increase in wine sales. 

In past surveys that made by the national restaurant association has found that younger people between the ages of 18-34 tend to go restaurants that favor high tech gear.

The owners went into detail how they would be mounted to the tables so that they were out of the way and not susceptible to theft.

Reflection:

I think that this is such a cool idea.  I think with the technology era that we are in it is important to incorporate technology in our day-to-day experiences when we are out. I definitely think that Stacked is ahead of the crowd for becoming a trendy restaurant. I also think that these ipads and the concept will become very big in a short period of time. There are many reasons why I think that having Ipads as your menu is cost effective and efficient. I think that it eliminates the cost of having to print a menu all together.  You will also be able to change the menu with the seasons and it will not cost a lot.  Having the ipad eliminates mistakes that might have been made with a waiter.  Not only are your guests able to order on these ipads they would be able to have gaming apps that they could play with there table so that waiting for their food does not seem as long as a wait and it is enjoyable. I am so excited to see what restaurants around Florida try a concept like this, but with the average age so old I don’t know how lucky we will be.

Hospitality Technology Trends Website

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-02-16-ipadcafe16_ST_N.htm