Rate availability

[System data Reservation Rate availability]

 

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Strategies for optimal room pricing

You can achieve better rates by flexibly adjusting the rate availability for each day and situation. Using protel Air, you can quickly and easily create a strategy for any given time period or day with an immediate effect on your sales via all distribution channels. By blocking low prices during peak periods and periods of high occupancy, for example, you can exploit your potential revenues to the full.

Important note

When choosing a rate strategy: Use a reservation enquiry to create the reservation and choose the relevant rate code on this screen.
This approach is recommended because reservations created using the room plan are always subject to the standard rate and any strategies implemented are not taken into account if the rates are changed at a later point in time.

We therefore recommend that you create reservations using a reservation enquiry as this allows you to choose and book the desired rate directly. This is the only way to ensure that the defined strategy is actually being implemented.

Only one strategy which changes the pricing can be created per price. In other words, a strategy which increases the rate, e.g., by €10.00, cannot be combined with a strategy that increases the price by an additional 50%! As soon as the first price altering strategy has taken effect, no other price altering strategies will be taken into consideration. A combination with MLOS or Close strategies, on the other hand, do not pose any problems.

If your system is integrated with a booking portal, please note the following: If the portal allows defining a minimum stay, you will need to adjust the relevant settings in the “Rate availability” dialog box. Note that the booking portal interface does not consider minimum stays that were entered under “System data > Pricing.”

The “Rate availability” window

Timespan From/To: By default, this window displays all rate strategies set for the next 4 weeks when opened. If you want to see more information, use the date boxes to change the display period.

Rate groups: This is where you make your selection when only wanting to see the action which has been set for a certain rate group.

Rate code: Strategies may be valid only for certain rate codes. Use this option to view only the strategies set for a certain rate code.

Categories: Use this option to view only the strategies set for a certain room type.

[Add]

Create a new strategy.

[Edit]

Select a strategy in the table and click “Edit” to amend the strategy.
TIP: If the strategy you want is not displayed, check whether it falls within the selected period of time.

[Remove]

Select a strategy in the table and click “Remove” to DELETE the strategy.

Please note: The strategy will be removed for all configured season periods!

Creating a strategy

  1. In the “Reservation” menu, choose the “Rate availability” menu item and click the “Add” button.

  1. Available at seasons: Enter the strategy start-date and the strategy end-date. A strategy is always effective until and including the end-date. Use the icon to create additional season periods.

  2. Rate group: Should the strategy only be valid for certain rate groups? Then make your selection here!

  3. Room type: Use this option to specify whether the strategy is applicable for certain room types only.
    Caution: In the “Choose Categories“ window, all available room types are selected by default. You must therefore remove all room types that you want to exclude from your price strategy.

  4. Price: Use this option to specify whether the strategy is applicable for a certain rate code only.
    Caution: If you select all prices here, the strategy will be effective for all rate codes. For example, if you create a strategy + € 10.00 and start the price query for a virtual rate that has selected "Ignore price modification strategies set on base rate" as "rate availability" setting, the price strategy + € 10.00 will still apply. After all, the rate strategy applies to all rates as set here - including the virtual rates!

  5. Occupancy: Strategies can also be made dependent on the occupancy level of the booked room. if you only want the strategy to take effect when individual bookings are posted, remove all values apart from “1” from the “Chosen Occupancies” panel.
    Caution: Avoid this option in combination with the Close strategy when using an IDS channel manager or an external booking portal. Because many booking portals do not support the "Close by capacity of x %" strategy, the relevant room types may be completely closed in the Channel Manager or booking portal! However, the strategy can be used without any difficulties in the Front Office and the Web Booking Engine.

  6. Only available on: Specify the weekdays on which the strategy is valid. When the rate should be available e.g. on Saturday and Sunday, define also if the rate should be available only for guests who arrive on Saturday or also for inhouse guests.

  7. Only on arrival: Tick the "only on arrival" check box in order to only make the rate available on a certain arrival day. Example: You have selected Monday and Tuesday. The rate will only be offered when arriving on Monday or Tuesday. Another example: Your weekend offer should only be valid upon arrival on a Saturday.

  8. Only if booking date is: the rate can only be booked for a certain time period. This option is specially suited for  early bird or last-minute rates. Simply tick the  checkbox and select the desired date range.

  9. Choose Strategy: Finally, select the rate strategy from the drop-down menu.

 

Available strategies

The following strategies are currently available:

Open

Sell Rate. The rate is available and is not subject to any strategy. As long as you do not change anything, all rates remain available.

Close

Stop Sell.  The rate is not available for the given time. No booking can be accepted for either arrival on or staying through the selected timespan.

Close to arrival

The rate cannot be chosen for the given arrival date, i.e .a guest cannot book this date if their stay begins on this date. Example: Block low rates for arrivals if other guests such as trade visitors may want the rooms on the given day and are willing to pay more.

Close by capacity of X%

The rate closes automatically if the occupancy is between X% and Y% or if it exceed a threshold of Y%.

Minimum stay of X days

The rate is available only for a minimum stay of X days. For this strategy, protel differentiates between Minimum Length of Stay (Minimum Nights Arrival) and Minimum Length of Stay Through. The set Only on Arrival option is crucial for this (see above Point 8):

 Only on arrival is set:

Minimum Length of Stay

Minimum length of stay in nights upon arrival on this date.

Activate the  only on arrival check box, the strategy is triggered when the guest arrives on the given date . The strategy limits the rate's availability by specifying a number of nights that must be booked for stays that include the restriction date as the arrival date.

The strategy ensures that reservations will only be available to arrivals that want to stay at least that many nights. For example, you may allow a guest to arrive on a particular day only if the total stay is 3 nights or more.

 Only on arrival is not set:

Minimum Length of Stay Through

Minimum number of nights the guest must stay if any part of the reservation touches the specific date.

Remove the check mark from  only on arrival, the strategy limits availability by specifying a number of nights that must be booked for stays that include the restriction date in any part of the stay date range, i.e. if the booking falls into the given time period or date.

For example, if the minimum stay through for a Saturday is 3, then any guest whose stay includes that day must stay at least 3 nights.

Minimum advance booking of X Days

Using this strategy, you can determine how many days in advance a reservation must be booked in order to obtain a certain price (for example, early booking discounts, etc.).

Example: If the guest books a reservation at least 20 days before arrival, they will receive a 15% discount.

Maximum advance booking of X Days

Define how many days in advance a certain rate can be booked (example: a discounted rate should be bookable up to 6 months in advance, but not beyond that).

Set rate manually (raise/reduce)

Raises or reduces the price by a defined amount.

The following options are available:

Change price

Specify whether to raise or reduce the rate and which method is to be used (example: “multiply with 0.8” corresponds to a reduction of 20%).

Reduce of

Reduces the room rate by the defined currency amount

Raise of

Raises the room rate by the defined currency amount

Override with

Overwrites the rate with the defined amount

Multiply with

Multiplies the price by the defined value

Percentage of

Increases or decreases the rate by the entered percentage value. Enter a positive value to increase the rate. Enter a negative value (-) to reduce the rate percentagewise.

By setting the checkmark  you will be able to change the conditions that are valid for the raising or reduction of the price.

  • by capacity of X % to Y %

The rate applies only to the capacity range specified here, e.g., if the rate is only to be increased above a capacity of X%.

  • when booked  X to Y days before arrival

This box allows you to make the rate dependent on the time of booking (e.g. when booked between 14 and 21 days before arrival).

  • having a length of stay between X toY days

This box allows you to define the minimum number of days that have to be booked for the rate to be available.

When using the ''Set rate manually (raise/reduce) '' strategy, various rate conditions can be combined via repeatedly selecting the check box. In doing so, you can create a very finely composed rate structure which offers the appropriate rate for every market situation.

Fig.: Reservation > Rate availability > Choose Strategy: "Set price manually (raise/reduce): Combination of capacity, booking times, and length of stay.

Examples:

  • By a capacity of 40% - 60% and when booked 7 to 14 days before arrival, the price should be increased by 10% if a stay only consists of one night.

  • For the same capacity and when booked 7 to 14 days before arrival, the price should only be increased by 5% if a stay consists of two to four nights.

The following features can be combined arbitrarily:

  • The more guests book a date, the more expensive it will get; the fewer the less expensive.

  • Certain days, such as Sundays, are especially inexpensive.

  • Saturdays during the season are especially more expensive.

  • The longer a room is booked, the lower the rate is going to be.

  • The earlier a room is booked, the lower the rate is.

  • Rooms are usually cheaper during the off-season than during the peak season.

Set hurdles

Define a minimum as well as a maximum rate for the selected rate codes and room types. All strategies and rate codes falling short of or exceeding the value will be blocked for the given date / defined time-period. Example: During a trade-fair, your rooms are to be only sold for the valid rate codes starting at €100. All rate codes offering your rooms below this rate will be closed.

 

Please note!

  1. Is a rate code blocked ("close" strategy), the rate block will have priority over the other strategies which had been set for the same time period.

  2. Make sure that the conditions of numerous strategies do not overlap. Example: Action A increases the room rate by 10% for the time period 01-10 April, whereas action B overwrites the room rate with € 65.00 for the same time-period.

Removing strategies

When removing a strategy, the following prompt appears:

The prompt appears because a strategy can be configured for several seasonal periods, and when the strategy is deleted, it is deleted for all of the seasonal periods. Sometimes, however, this is not deliberate. If you are not certain, check to see if the strategy has been set for several seasonal periods, before deleting it. Answer the question above with [No] and open the strategy by double-clicking on it.

Override rate availability

You can allow a user to make bookings, contrary to the set rate availabilities. For example, users with this right can select rate codes which are usually faded out by the rate availability. To do so, the respective user right "override rate availability" has to be set.

For details on how to ignore set price strategies, please refer to section "Reservation enquiry > Show original / closed rates".

Should the user right not be available in your user administration, please contact the protel Air Support-Team at (cloudsupport@protel.net) or contact your protel Air partner.

Virtual rate codes

When working with virtual rate codes, please mind the following:

Virtual rate codes can adopt or ignore the restriction values of the base rate code. Or, they can be blocked if the base rate code has been modified by means of a strategy.

The program's behavior especially varies if you set a strategy for a single rate code which is also the base rate code for additional virtual rate codes.

For example: By means of a price strategy, a base rate code of €100 is increased by €10.