Social Media Data and Revenue Management. How their interaction can provide benefits to the Hotel Industry

There certainly is the understanding of the need of being more involved with and engaged with, the same as other teams of the hotel or group are doing, which relates to social media. That can relate to review and customer feedback that are certainly linked to the overall value which therefore has a part to play in revenue management decisions; or it might be related to tactical activities, like offers and promotions that are being rolled out at any given point. But the key issue is that the effectiveness of revenue management can definitely be improved if we broaden the picture.

Therefore, by taking into account the impact that a promotion might have or the improvement of the position in Tripadvisor’s ranking might have (4-1-2011 Search, OTAs, and Online Booking: An Expanded Analysis of the Billboard Effect), whatever we are doing, it need to be a holistic approach and definitely not based on one or two historical trends that we might be able to pick up from existing data sources.

Finally, revenue manager need to identify the specific key measurement and work those into the overall process. It is important to think of this process as something that builds on and expands on the already existing data and tools, rather than as a completely new method of taking revenue management decisions. The original model should be broadened to take account of more of the factors, which today are clearly having an immediate and future influence.