Technology revenue management system for customer groups in hotels

Abstract

This paper discusses revenue management; a technique that focuses on decision making that will maximize profit from the sale of perishable inventory units. New technologies management plays an important role in the development of revenue management techniques. Each new advance in technology management leads to more sophisticated revenue business capabilities. Today decision support revenue management systems and technologies management are crucial factors for the success of businesses in service industries. This paper addresses the specific case of customer groups in hotels.The paper introduces a new decision support system that sets the revenue maximization criteria for a hotel. The system includes a set of forecasting demand methods for customers. It addresses a general case considering individual guests and customer groups. The system also incorporates deterministic and stochastic mathematical programming models that help to make the best decisions. The actual revenue depends upon which reservation system the hotel uses. A simulation engine makes a comparison between different heuristics of room inventory control: the results include performance indexes such as occupancy rate, efficiency rate, and yield; it compares results and chooses one of them. The system proves its suitability for actual cases by testing against actual data and thus becomes an innovative and efficient tool in the management of hotels’ reservation systems.