Google may be the key to protecting your revenue role

Revenue managers already have a lot on their plate – especially right now. From predicting where demand is likely to come from and how best to capture it to spending hours crunching numbers and collating spreadsheets to secure buy-in for new promotions or offerings.

Little surprise then that strategic decisions around Google and other metasearch websites continue to fall to their marketing teams rather than be owned by their revenue teams.

Here’s why we think this needs to change….

1. Bring on the data! You might not know it, but your job description has changed…

Look back 10 years and the role of the revenue manager was pretty straightforward – focusing on pricing, sales and marketing to secure heads in beds at the best net RevPAR. Today, things aren’t so simple. There are so many different touchpoints that can influence a potential guest's decision whether to book that revenue managers must have a granular understanding of both their customer and their service offering to secure whatever demand is out there.

Whether you like it or not, your role is now the go-to person for trusted data insights and strategic guidance. To truly make a sustained difference, revenue managers need to take into account all of the data passing through their properties and better interact with it – relying on dashboards and third-party reports is no longer enough. You need to own the data!

That’s where data from the likes of Google comes in. Google now offers extensive and dedicated service to the hospitality industry called 'Hotel Insights with Google' with valuable insights into the travelers who are searching to stay in your area, as well as tools, advice and tips for making your business stand out online. Also available are advertising bidding strategies that help you to reach more of the right guests, in the right way with higher conversion rate and without the risk of paying commission on cancelled bookings (Google Hotel Ads Commissions Per Stay Programme, a.k.a. Google PPS). By combining Google’s suite of tools canceled with an automated business intelligence platform revenue managers can get to the heart of what motivates and inspires their guests to book, understand what feeder markets they need to be targeting and dynamically adjust prices to stay ahead of the competition.

2. Role as a strategic advisor

Having greater end-to-end oversight of your property’s and guests’ data positions you in a central role – elevating the revenue manager to that of strategic advisor.

You are best positioned to estimate if this model is right on a CF point of view, best positioned to estimate cancelations and how they affect the Cost of Acquisition and best positioned to decide on the commission. As a revenue manager, you know when the hotel has occupancy needs or is full and therefore increase or decrease the commission.

In the near future, Google will allow a different commission fee based on the booking window - so the dependency on someone who has the right level of insights to change and optimize the commission will grow even further.

No longer just crunching numbers, with actionable insights at your fingertips you can play a senior role in setting the agenda, helping the hotel navigate the Covid-19 recovery and steering it to a sustainable future.

3. Greater control and better decisions.

As the data gatekeeper, you will be best placed and most trusted to make the right strategic decisions every day and at the drop of a hat. With insights from across the property and from guest demographics and a deep revenue understanding, you are ideally positioned to, working with marketing colleagues to implement the right Google strategy for the hotel – not the other way around.

Fornova has recently become a Google-approved Hotel Ads Connectivity and Bidding Partner, providing seamless connectivity and automatic monitoring of Google activity.

Speak to our team about how we can help you step up to become your property's or chain's trusted strategic advisor.