Managing a hotel is like spinning plates, you’ve got loads going at once. But if you can’t easily see which ones are wobbling, you can’t save them before they crash. Your property management system (PMS) should be your eyes and ears, monitoring performance right across your property in real-time. It’s where every critical data point from the night before comes to roost. The most successful managers know this and ensure they’re armed with the information they need to make decisions that: Keep any issues from the day before becoming crises. Give their staff the guidance they need to excel. Unlock new revenue opportunities wherever they arise. Never leave anything to chance.
Occupancy and Arrival Reports
Starting the morning without having updated or accurate details of your house guests is like heading into battle blind-folded. Your strategy for the day is practically predetermined by your arrival list…so, do you have the Marching Orders? A templated excel sheet or custom software that shows you exactly what you need to see each morning, including some basic revenues and occupancy stats from yesterday, and forecasted revenue and expected arrivals for the week are the essentials every day.
Pair your occupancy data with your departure list. Do you have 20 checkouts tomorrow and nothing on the books for the day after? Go ahead and close availability for that night, proactively. Chasing those one-night bookings is rarely worth the additional operational cost (or wear and tear on your team). Better to give employees an occasional breather. They’ll thank you with lower turnover.
Revenue and Rate Performance
I am sure you must be receiving a daily revenue report which gives you yesterday’s performance in terms of cash or revenue “that hit your books”. But what precisely is a daily revenue report? Simply put, it gives you a snapshot to understand what you sold in the last 24 hours. It further details this selling for the room, food & beverage, and other (ancillary) services. This means you analyze cash earned yesterday from rooms, restaurant & banquets, and other services. It will separately show how much cash or revenue was earned yesterday as well as how much cash it should be if you’re on target. Most of the reports will have last year’s figures against yesterday and also the percentage of the year gone by, so you can compare year to-date performance.
What about using ADR to hunt for those hidden profits? Low ADR can hint that you’re undercharging for in-demand services. You can use that information to fine-tune your revenue management strategy. It’s time to adjust those rates unless you’re sure that you can cover costs in other ways. ADR gives you hard evidence to back up decisions you know will be unpopular.
Housekeeping and Room Status
The housekeeping status report connects your front office with housekeeping and maintenance. Their work and your revenue depend on it. A housekeeper can’t do their job if they don’t know which rooms need cleaning. Housekeeping also notes the status of laundry and minibar supplies as well as any maintenance repairs required. Use it to monitor your team’s productivity. An unusually high number of rooms marked out of order for too long should make you wonder if anything’s wrong with your rooms or your records.
This report also highlights maintenance issues. Do you have rooms marked out of order? If so, they’re costing you money , but you can use this report to see exactly how much they’re costing you. If a room is out of order for two days, how much potential revenue was lost? Knowing , and being able to see , that number helps push your maintenance team to get things done quickly and helps them understand the urgency.
No-Shows and Cancellations
The GDS code is your key to the global distribution system! New hotel partners often have no idea how vital these four letters are to their visibility. It’s how travel agents and websites access your rates and book guests. As the product manager at an online travel agency, I arranged GDS codes with partner hotels. They had to understand that without this key, no one would even know they exist. It’s up to you to explain this process to your uninformed colleagues.
Cancellations can impact you in multiple ways beyond losing revenue from that booking. From the initial acquisition cost through all subsequent transactions, every cancellation’s a sunk cost. Promotions that attracted that booking indicate a certain amount you were willing to pay to acquire that guest’s business. You can’t get that money back. If you spent more to reach them, it might’ve been an OTA booking that cost you 20% commission, for instance, you lose even more. That’s money out the door, dough that costs you the same whether it eats breakfast in your restaurant or doggie-bags its FREE continental breakfast. That guest also costs you expenditure on utilities, upkeep, housekeeping, and laundering for a room that generated no new revenue. None of that’s recoupable. The toiletries, the advertising and sales costs, probably foraging expenses, gone, gone, gone, and gone.
Guest Feedback and Service Alerts
PMS software won’t replace a good manager. It will provide the information you need to act in that role. Access your hotel’s PMS to obtain details of the rooms to be serviced. Work orders for any necessary maintenance should also be generated for you electronically. If a cleaning crew needs to make a second pass, you want to know early so rooms aren’t still getting cleaned by the time guests start arriving.
Include some light feedback questions in your check for guests who are departing that day. This could be as simple as booking.com’s ‘How di you like your stay?’ or some more direct questioning relating to some new ideas you’re implementing or concerns with the cleanliness and maintenance of the property. A score is just the end result of getting everything right long before the guest checks-out.
Building Your Daily Reporting Routine
The best managers don’t merely read them. They have a morning routine built around them. The first 30 minutes of their day is exactly the same , with their PMS data over a cup of coffee. Anomalies, trends, opportunities , reality. Was my ADR up again yesterday or down? Occupancy? How does that compare to prior month? Same day last week? Forecast for today? How are we pacing against the same day last month. Reality. How many TripAdvisor reviews were posted yesterday? How many of them referenced service? How many referenced price? Reality. How many tripadvisor reviews were posted after 1 stay? How long after departure did they post? Reality. How many positive reviews were scored by my staff? How many analytics did they read over yesterday?
