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Qatar GM Debate 2013

Hotelier Middle East conducted the third annual Qatar GM Debate that took place in April at the Grand Hyatt Doha. The team managed to get an impressive lineup of top industry speakers to discuss current happenings in the market including the concern over influx of new rooms in a market already struggling with low demand.

The first session from TRI Consulting focused on exclusive market data from their latest research which brought forth the raw numbers that will be shaping Qatar’s hospitality industry through to 2014. The hard facts and figures set the tone for the rest of the event and it led to very focused and meaningful discussions between speakers and attendees. 

The interactive workshops offered significant insights on Delivering Ancillary Revenue and Best Practices of Revenue Management. The panel discussions covered a wide range of topics including how to deliver value through innovative product packages without discounting and leveraging potential of hotel F&B outlets.

Our workshop on Revenue Management & Online Distribution focused on how hoteliers can optimize online bookings. One in six travelers in Middle East today prefers to book online. They visit over 17 websites and check reviews before finalizing accommodation. With the range of choices they get across these channels, it makes it even more important for hoteliers to be visible at every touch point to capture customer’s interest. 

However, more channels mean more updates. The respite comes in the form of automated distribution system – a channel manager helps hotels to collect and access the multitude of data in their systems to analyze rates, market pricing trends, competitor selling activities, historical and trend information to achieve the best possible room rates from the most desired guests. 

We explained the case of Dedeman Istanbul in Turkey. One of the early users of internet sales channels, they wanted to use a system that would make online channel management easier and also allow access to regular rate  reports  to  see  how  other  hotels were pricing rooms and managing roomtypes and packages. Two years ago, they had installed our rate shopping and channel management tool in their property. The results were immediate and long lasting. Dedeman has since increased revenues by over 20%. 

The presentation was interspersed with suggestions and ideas on how to drive direct online bookings and through examples we tried explaining how hotels can optimize product value across online distribution channels.

Another important aspect is the direct competition that the region faces with Dubai – which attracts a major chunk of foreign tourists. Qatar needs to develop an effective tourism campaign to gain more traction and attract the eye of travelers. This is where the role of online distribution comes in – Qatar hoteliers need to leverage the opportunities presented through the internet to reach out far and wide to newer markets and grow its market share – slowly but surely.

With over 220 hotel GMs in attendance, the event was well received and the venue buzzed with lively discussions and animated chatter. The Qatar GM Debate was a not-to-be-missed event, and a great opportunity for everyone to come together to discuss issues that really matter to the industry.


Hisham Diab is Sales Manager – South Africa at eRevMax and has extensive experience in the hospitality industry – having worked with brands like Golden Tulip, Starwood Hotels and Emaar Hospitality Group. He can be reached at hishamd@erevmax.com

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HITEC 2012 – The Show That Was!

For four years I was whiling away in the London office, coordinating the prestigious North American tradeshow that is HITEC. Over 5,000km away, the RTConnect and RTSuite sales team along with management members swooned the delegates and built relationships with some of the biggest and brightest hotel tech companies. I waited in earnest to find out their experience, with often William Goldsberry getting overly excited by the opportunities.

2012 – and I am told I get to go. The prospect was daunting, Goldsberry and our CEO tried to reassure me that it is not the big bad beast I imagined. (I was having nightmares of conversations with CIO and CTOs about the best system integration techniques). Indeed they are right, HITEC is a friendly show and much smaller than that of WTM and ITB, but much more specific in its approach.

I met journalists from across all the North American publications; it was a pleasure to meet them in person after 5 years. And their enthusiasm to finally meet the face behind all the emails on product updates, customer wins and case studies, was inspiring. We talked distribution, channel mix, sales opportunities and how RateTiger will be in more places in 2013 than it has done in its 10-year history.

The rest of the team had a good show, in fact I never saw them for the number of meetings they had. The RTConnect team were talking about seamless connectivity, and channel integration as more companies look to direct connect, from CRS to PMS and plenty of channels.


We were pleased to be joined by Trust and Travel Tripper for our post – HITEC meal. We even had chance to head to Fells Point, on the edge of the Baltimore harbour. The old cobbled streets, red brick buildings and array of small restaurants, eateries, bars and pubs reminded me of a quaint town of England – home! We made sure we had some of their finest seafood delicacies including fish and mussels. But, Must go back for the Crab! 


Ryan C Haynes is VP – Marketing Communications at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities for RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at ryanh@ratetiger.com
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The Paul Hotels Achieves Online Rate Parity

The Paul Resorts & Hotels has further developed its revenue management operations to improve rate parity across multiple online sales bookings channels. The group implemented advanced allocation management capabilities through RateTiger’s Channel Manager to improve its position and rate management with third parties.
The award-winning luxury property in India has been selling across 15 online channels and wanted to ensure the same rates were available to customers across all channels. However, managing so many OTAs manually was becoming a challenge, especially when guests were discovering rate inconsistencies. To main group sales sells across global booking portals as well as regional OTAs with the prospect to add more channels the properties chose RateTiger.

“Given our small inventory and high occupancy rates throughout the year it’s essential we engage in more future planning across our sales channels.” said Shelley Thayil, Director of Revenue Management.


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RateTiger presents at HSMA’s Pricing & Distribution Day


Germany’s Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association (HSMA) hosted its annual “Pricing & Distribution Day” in Frankfurt recently. An audience of around 300, consisting for mostly hotel executives involved in distribution and revenue management, was keen to learn about the latest trends and strategies in their sphere of action.

In the light of rising distribution costs and the increasing feeling amongst hoteliers that they are no longer in control of their own rates, sales channels and products, the guiding theme of the event was how to find and apply the right balance between direct and third party distribution. Clever online marketing, a strengthening of direct distribution channels, Web 2.0 applications and mobile technologies were among the options discussed to lower the costs of distribution. Speakers included top managers from major hotel brands such as Accor and Best Western, HRS CEO Tobias Ragge, consultants and industry experts. Amongst the latter, Ragnar Strerath, Division President RTConnect at RateTiger, was invited to share his expertise.

His presentation titled – “Learning against helplessness – How hoteliers can rid themselves of feeling dependent on their distribution partners” – dealt with options to get back on eyelevel with OTAs and other sales channels. The key message: it needs both distribution management technology and market insight, none of these two will do the job alone. Ragnar explained which competencies are essential, these ranging from insight in the distribution landscape and its options and conditions, product development and placement skills to revenue management, online marketing and competitor analysis. But how can hoteliers obtain this knowledge? While technology can be bought – and Ragnar pointed out relevant features for channel managers and the most important questions to ask possible suppliers – the latter can be acquired in various ways: by training existent staff, by employing specialists, or by working with external experts.


Ragnar listed the pros and cons of each option: while in-house training takes time and hardly ever reaches the level of focused experts, it might also be too expensive for smaller hotels to employ a specialist. For these, consultants who help setting up a strategy and choose suitable technology can be a promising alternative, particularly if these consultants are largely paid per booking and consequently interested in the hotel’s success. Ragnar concluded with some statistics on Ramada’s performance, which has improved significantly since implementing RateTiger, quoting hotel’s Regional Director Markus Barth as testimonial.

The presentation was followed by an intense discussion, which showed that the speaker touched the needs of today’s hoteliers and that his insights were well received.

Jasmin Keller is PR Representative for the German speaking markets and is responsible for driving all PR activities for RateTiger and eRevMax brands in the region. Jasmin is based in Hamburg and can be reached at ratetiger@jasminkeller.com

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ITB Berlin 2012

The travel industry was at centre stage at ITB Berlin – the world’s biggest travel trade show, and one of the best predictors of upcoming trends in the industry. 

With over 230 travel technology companies exhibiting and over 110,000 trade visitors attending, the technology halls were buzzing with activities. The industry is really embracing channel management and the travel technology revolution is at its full steam. I was glad to see that this is mostly being driven by opinionated bloggers and well read journalists who understand the relevance of technology in travel.

RateTiger had a corner stand, giving us enough room to accommodate our never ending stream of visitors. Most of the audience this year showed an increased level of awareness towards the key online distribution technologies and the critical role of an efficient sales channel management strategy as part of the Revenue Management process. 

Cristina Hernandez, Sales Manager, Germany saw a lot of discussion around HRS and the price-fixing issue in Germany. She says “This could spell a game-change for HRS which is expected to launch a new business model. While one of the largest OTA websites, HRS could easily fall victim to consumer and industry dissatisfaction with so many other channels vying for their market. The big question – what happens to rate parity? We will soon see how hoteliers themselves need to respond to this price-fixing ruling.”

On another end of the scale, Cristina Blaj, Sales Manager, UK witnessed discussions on voucher-sites – Groupon growing its travel offering – its marketing activity ramping up, and gaining a greater consumer foothold. However many discussed how damaging this is to revenue and profits. It is claimed that Groupon encourages return purchases at the normal rates following a significant promotional offer, yet the impact of Groupon on this is yet to be seen.

While my colleagues were busy understanding trends in their interest areas, I managed to get involved with discussions on marketing in revenue management, how it is today being forgotten and yet it is so much a part of the buying process. I believe it is important for hotels to have visibility and exposure across as many channels as possible, yet have a strong website for direct sales. Even Cornell University recently published a paper showing how listing on Expedia increases direct website visits. The idea is to have a good distribution mix and keep flexing the different websites while assessing volume to improve occupancy and revenue through different channels.

Overall, like every year, ITB had put up a great show, offering exhibitors and visitors what they came looking for. Check out our pictures from the event. I look forward to the Asian edition of the event in Singapore later this year. Cheers!


Ryan C Haynes is VP – Marketing Communications at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities for RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at ryanh@ratetiger.com