The secret data source making accommodation platforms smarter

Published on April 04, 2022
Valerie Williams
Content Marketing Manager

Platforms provide a competitive edge in the accommodation industry

To stay competitive with the likes of disruptive home-sharing companies like Airbnb, major hotel chains have begun embracing data-driven decisions to better meet customer needs. And many of them are using platforms to help them with these decisions. 

Technology platforms collect, analyze, and leverage vast amounts of data to enhance operations and the guest experience for major hotel chains, traditional bed and breakfasts, and more. Partnering with these specialist platforms enables accommodation groups to deepen their organizational intelligence and planning accuracy, without having to task whole teams of people to do R&D for months or years.

In fact, there is one dataset that’s quietly adding a deeper level of understanding to these platforms, and explaining the why behind fluctuations in hospitality demand: events. 

Today we’ll explore how event data is empowering platforms to unlock a whole new world of possibilities for the accommodation industry.

Event data powers actionable insights for accommodation platforms

Staffing, inventory, and rate management platforms for the accommodation industry are using event data to reveal significant spikes and dips in demand in advance. 

Hospitality platforms such as HQ revenue add PredictHQ’s intelligent event data to their revenue data sources to increase RevPar by 10% for their customers. Others such as hotel revenue management platform OTA Insight use event data to scale up and enable more accurate, continuous forecasting for hoteliers across the globe.

PredictHQ covers 19 categories of events, which each impact demand differently for different industries and business models. Insight into accurate, dynamic events tells hoteliers which event categories have historically driven higher occupancy rates for them. For example, an industry expo or large conference will drive millions of dollars in accommodation demand for people coming to town just for these events.

Enriched event data reveals the connection between booking frequency and specific arrival dates at different locations. These details makes it easier to understand booking curves ahead of time and plan accordingly:

  • Identify periods of low demand, and initiate marketing campaigns to combat them

  • Fine tune prices in response to identified surges or dips in demand

  • Optimize guest services such as food and beverage

For hoteliers, using verified event data to better manage staff schedules is a substantial source of operational savings, considering how much labor expenses cost them.

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When you tell platform users how much staff they need in advance, they can ensure they have just the right amount of people on the schedule. No more overstaffing and unnecessary overtime to pay as a result of inaccurate demand forecasts.

In fact, one of PredictHQ’s global hotelier customers found that reducing forecasting error could add an additional $90 million to their annual revenue.

Demand intelligence enables data-driven decisions

When hospitality and accommodation platforms integrate external events, they reveal critical demand insights their customers miss out on by relying on only historical data. Our system has collected, verified, and enriched 22 million events and counting so platforms can paint a complete picture of demand for end users.

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Hospitality platforms use enriched event data to surface relevant, impactful events to their customers, enabling hoteliers to optimize pricing and packaging in advance to match real world conditions.

For example, a revenue management team at the Hampton Inn Manhattan/Times Square Central may know about a major concert taking place nearby, but what about the other events that are compounding demand within the same 10 mile radius.

Individually, these smaller events make a minor impact. But when they take place in such close proximity and within a small time frame, the impact on demand is significant. Especially in this case with Times Square being a busy intersection in Midtown Manhattan, right at the center of New York City. Areas like these are prime for demand surges, which demonstrate how events compound impact:

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There are over 3,000 events taking place within a 10 mile radius of the Hampton Inn Manhattan/Times Square Central in April 2022. 

We know from our accommodation customers from Accor Hotels to rate-setting startups that work with us that many types of events drive major impact for hotels, such as:

  • Expos

  • Conferences

  • Festivals

  • Sports games

Here are four of the most impactful ones:

These are the opportunities event data consistently reveals for each location – of which Hampton Inn has 2,200+ across the United States. That’s over 220,000 rooms that can be priced dynamically to maximize profits.

How event data powers 5-star customer experiences

Major and smaller hotel chains alike are facing a harsh new reality – a brand name isn’t enough to satisfy changing customer preferences. Now, it’s all about the guest experience. If guests don’t get the service they expect, they’ll simply try another option next time. 

With readily available alternatives such as Airbnb out there, accommodation platforms need to provide their users with the foresight needed to compete in terms of guest experience. Demand intelligence enables your customers to make sure they’re fully staffed for high demand periods well in advance, ensuring a smooth guest experience every step of the way.

With enough employees on the schedule, hoteliers can efficiently operate on-site guest services such as: 

  • Restaurants and bars

  • Valet parking

  • Room service

  • Front desk 

  • Spa and resorts

  • Pool facilities

Verified event data helps hospitality platform users ensure the staff availability and responsiveness todays’ consumers expect during their stay. When you uncover impactful events for each of their locations, you empower your customers to provide high quality, fast service no matter the day of week or time of year. No unattended front desks, slow room service, or late check-ins because rooms simply weren’t ready yet.

Empower your users with intelligent event data 

Hospitality platform users need accurate, location-specific demand insights to succeed in a competitive, constantly changing market. Providing context around why demand will be higher or lower than usual is a powerful advantage. The platforms that efficiently integrate and deliver these details will rise above the competition.

PredictHQ’s demand intelligence platform gives accommodation platforms users the power to nail their pricing and staffing strategies to attract and retain customers. This only scratches the surface of how powerful event data is – but only if you put the data to use. 

Claim your free PredictHQ account today, including a free 14-day trial of our developer plan, and see for yourself how it can be used to deliver greater value for your customers.