The Rainmaker Group Adds Automated Group Forecasting
The Rainmaker Group (Rainmaker) announced the official launch of a major enhancement to its grouprev and guestrev solutions, adding automated group forecasting capabilities to the platform. An industry first in revenue management, the addition of group forecasting to existing Rainmaker solutions provides the unique ability to project future group business demand. This allows hotel revenue managers to significantly improve the accuracy of their pricing, as well as the overall profitability of their property or portfolio-wide revenue management strategies.
“Rainmaker’s automated group forecasting element is the last missing piece of the puzzle for revenue optimization,” said Jamie PeÑa, vice president of revenue management at Omni Hotels & Resorts. “For us, transient demand is largely short-term, so having the ability to anticipate remaining group business will empower our sales team to price with greater confidence than ever before.”
For most hotels, forecasts and pricing decisions have traditionally been based on data from transient business and have not factored in group business data. This creates a risk for hotels and casinos of underpricing both transient and group business for future dates that may have considerable group demand. With the addition of group forecasting, Rainmaker addresses this issue, allowing for more accurate transient pricing, based on projections for group demand and a hurdle rate that considers potential displacement of both business segments.
“Forecasting any remaining group demand and pickup has always been a time-consuming manual process in both my big-brand experience and certainly from Omni Hotels’ experience,” adds PeÑa. “Rainmaker is definitely taking the lead in adding science to this aspect of the forecast process, giving revenue managers more of their time back, and creating a new level of value-add to this method.”
The addition of group forecasting capabilities to Rainmaker solutions is projected to drive increased revenues for its hotel and casino clients, that are estimated at a 2 to 3 percent lift, depending on group volume. Additionally, the optimal group-transient mix that is output from the forecast will help to better inform revenue managers on what their optimum mix strategies should be. Users will also benefit from having a business forecast readily available for their group segments.
Key features of Rainmaker’s group forecasting include:
“Rainmaker’s automated group forecasting element is the last missing piece of the puzzle for revenue optimization,” said Jamie PeÑa, vice president of revenue management at Omni Hotels & Resorts. “For us, transient demand is largely short-term, so having the ability to anticipate remaining group business will empower our sales team to price with greater confidence than ever before.”
For most hotels, forecasts and pricing decisions have traditionally been based on data from transient business and have not factored in group business data. This creates a risk for hotels and casinos of underpricing both transient and group business for future dates that may have considerable group demand. With the addition of group forecasting, Rainmaker addresses this issue, allowing for more accurate transient pricing, based on projections for group demand and a hurdle rate that considers potential displacement of both business segments.
“Forecasting any remaining group demand and pickup has always been a time-consuming manual process in both my big-brand experience and certainly from Omni Hotels’ experience,” adds PeÑa. “Rainmaker is definitely taking the lead in adding science to this aspect of the forecast process, giving revenue managers more of their time back, and creating a new level of value-add to this method.”
The addition of group forecasting capabilities to Rainmaker solutions is projected to drive increased revenues for its hotel and casino clients, that are estimated at a 2 to 3 percent lift, depending on group volume. Additionally, the optimal group-transient mix that is output from the forecast will help to better inform revenue managers on what their optimum mix strategies should be. Users will also benefit from having a business forecast readily available for their group segments.
Key features of Rainmaker’s group forecasting include:
- Granular forecasts by day and by group segment
- A displacement module within grouprev® that captures effects of both transient and group displacement on quoted group rates
- Re-optimization of transient pricing in guestrev® using group projections, instead of on-the-books block, to derive yieldable transient capacity
- A high-level, forward-looking view of optimal transient and group segment mix
- Visualization of group and transient demand mix in grouprev® and guestrev®, which easily identifies opportunities for revenue enhancement
Group forecasting will be included for all grouprev users, as well as those who have both grouprev and guestrev. Properties or groups using both solutions will benefit from additional features offered in guestrev that address transient pricing.