Preferred Hotel Group Members Drive Profitability with IDeaS Revenue Management System

The Story

“One year later, I can definitively say that IDeaS RMS exceeds our automation needs for revenue management efficiency,” said Christopher Lynn, director of sales and marketing, The Colonnade Hotel. “Manual yield management is the equivalent of using a flip phone to stay connected or driving a Fiat at the Rolex 24 in Daytona. I’d rather accelerate our path to profitability in a Porsche 962, and IDeaS allows us to do just that.”

Shifting gears

Based in Newport Beach, California, and Chicago, Illinois, Preferred Hotel Group™ is a global provider of sales, marketing and distribution services to more than 650 independent luxury hotels and resorts in more than 85 countries. As part of its mission to ensure the highest standards of hospitality services for members, Preferred Hotel Group partnered with IDeaS Revenue Solutions—the leading provider of pricing and revenue management software, services, and consulting to the hospitality industry—to give members negotiated pricing for IDeaS Revenue Management System (RMS).

“In order to be successful, today’s revenue managers need pertinent data at their fingertips,” said John Enright, executive director of revenue account management, Preferred Hotel Group. “By partnering with organizations such as IDeaS, we can better ensure that our member hotels have the resources and tools they need for a higher level of analysis regarding demand forecasting, rate strategies, and channel management.”

Highway to profitability

Amid the high-speed, changing nature of booking patterns today, IDeaS RMS offers members a more sophisticated, automated approach to revenue management. Yielding 365 days a year, the system provides reliable, up-to-date market information quickly and easily so that users can more accurately optimize demand and increase profits. Using the system, revenue managers don’t have to manually collect, evaluate, and calculate booking trends via spreadsheets—a tedious process that could lead to errors and missed opportunities.

Preferred Hotel Group members who take advantage of the partnership with IDeaS, including The Colonnade Hotel and The Lenox Hotel—two upscale, boutique properties located in Boston—typically experience greater operational efficiency and revenue because it frees up staff time for strategizing market opportunities.

The system provides us with the critical data we need on a daily basis to identify, forecast and optimize our demand to achieve the most profitable outcome.

“As hoteliers, we think we can do everything better than a machine, but IDeaS has proven to be a great tool that helps us make not only everyday decisions but long-term decisions,” said Dan Donahue, general manager of The Lenox Hotel. “It allows our director of revenue to do his job more effectively and precisely and determine, for example, whether a specific group is actually the right fit for our hotel.”

A game-changer

“Our STAR Reports have shown IDeaS to be worth every penny,” said Donahue. “We are number one in our competitive set for the third consecutive year, a feat we can certainly attribute, in part, to IDeaS.”

The Lenox Hotel implemented IDeaS RMS a few years ago as part of a technological overhaul that included not only a revenue management system but also a new property management system and central reservation system. Equipped with forecasting capabilities, the Daily Best Available Rate (BAR) module, and the Group Pricing module, the system provides the hotel with a much larger picture of its business. The Colonnade Hotel implemented IDeaS RMS following a $25-million renovation in order to efficiently maximize the hotel’s potential for growth across multiple channels.

Results for both properties include improved operational efficiency, better and more strategic pricing, increased competitiveness, and a greater culture of revenue management.

“Using IDeaS, we’re able to generate complex reports, forecasting, and analysis in seconds instead of hours,” said Christopher Lynn. “The system provides us with the critical data we need on a daily basis to identify, forecast, and optimize our demand to achieve the most profitable outcome.”