For most hoteliers, offering highly-discounted, last-minute rates is a sign of desperation or an indication that they are seriously struggling to maintain appreciable occupancy levels. As a result, the last-minute travel niche has been conventionally neglected. Often referred to as Flash Sales, last-minute sales are seldom interpreted as a mainstream source of revenue. To a certain extent, this is true. However, totally neglecting the last-minute travel niche could be a mistake, particularly if you want to ensure that your average revenue mark is sustained in the long term.
Don’t Ignore Last Minute Deals as they Promise Sustained Revenues
What makes Last Minute Bookings a sustainable source of revenue?
Like many other traveler niches, the Last-Minute Traveler represents an everlasting room reservation medium. There are always going to be travelers searching for last-minute rates. Reasons could vary from being on the lookout for the most discounted deals to being stuck in an emergency. Unless, room occupancy is not an issue for you or a few empty rooms in your property doesn’t bother you, tapping into the Last-Minute Travel segment seems like a constructive, business decision.
What does Google say?
The steadily growing last-minute travel sector has also become more tech savvy. According to Google, Last-Minute Travelers are increasingly going mobile. If the increasing penetration of smartphones and instant accessibility to the web is considered, searching for last-minute travel or hotel stay deals via mobile seems like a practical choice. Data collected by Google UK insists that last-minute queries for holiday packages and for hotel stays are steadily rising across the United Kingdom.
Visit this link to see the detailed Google feature report:
http://googleuk-travel.blogspot.ch/2012/07/last-minute-travel-has-gone-mobile.html
What does this mean for you?
This trend puts forth a few simple questions to you:
- Are you tapping into the Last-Minute travel sector?
- If you are a PMS user, does your technology provider offer any assistance in managing your visibility across channels displaying last-minute rates?
If you happen to be a Hotelogix PMS user, you can feel relaxed. This is because the Hotelogix Channel Manager (HCM) lets you create and publish your last minute rates across a pool of channels chosen by you. Using HCM, you can distribute your room inventory for last-minute bookings and publish the respective rates across multiple channels simultaneously!