TOP NEWS

📍 Mary Mapes, in the restaurant industry, emphasizes data's importance for personalized guest experiences and team development. She takes pride in her teams at Tock, celebrating promotions and a culture yielding high engagement scores. Mapes advocates for women's mentorship in hospitality tech, having received HT’s Top Women in Restaurant Technology Innovator Award. The award, chosen by Hospitality Technology magazine and its Research Advisory Board, was presented on March 13 at MURTEC in Las Vegas. Nominations for the 2025 awards open in mid-October.

🏨 U.K. hotel investments surged to £3 billion ($3.79 billion) in H1 2024, up from £990 million ($1,251 million) in H1 2023. Major deals include Blackstone’s £850 million purchase of Village Leisure, Starwood’s £800 million acquisition of Radisson Edwardian Hotels, and Landsec’s £400 million sale advised by Knight Frank. London attracted 70% of H1 investments, with U.S. investors dominating at 77%. Portfolio transactions accounted for 76% of total volume, a rise from 53% in H1 2019. Knight Frank anticipates a positive outlook and strong H2 with more hotel portfolios expected to sell. U.K. leads Europe with 321 new hotel projects/45,257 rooms in the pipeline by Q1 2024.

A/B testing is a powerful strategy for improving website conversion rates, particularly for hotel websites, as it allows for comparison between different elements like headlines, images, CTAs, and layouts to see what resonates best with potential guests. The article outlines a 3-step process entailing: identifying high-traffic but low-conversion pages using tools like Google Analytics, conducting the A/B test with variations of these elements to ensure statistical significance, and analyzing the results to implement the most successful version.

This article outlines three revenue maximization strategies for hoteliers: analyzing pick-up and sales pace to adjust pricing and strategies, monitoring competitors' pricing to ensure competitive positioning, and implementing length-of-stay restrictions to increase occupancy and reduce turnover costs. Additionally, it suggests using a Revenue Management System (RMS) to automate these strategies and offers a free guide on hotel pricing strategies for independent hotels.

Leadtime Analytics, a crucial instrument for hotels, enables detailed tracking of the period from booking to guest check-in, providing insights to optimize pricing strategies, enhance forecasting, and improve overall performance. By analyzing patterns such as segment behavior, channel impact, and seasonal changes, hotels can better manage revenue, target marketing efforts, and adapt to market dynamics, leading to increased profitability and control over performance.