ChannelGain

ChannelGain
ChannelGain's logo
Platform Software as a service
Website rategain.com/channelgain.html

ChannelGain is a product by the company called RateGain. It's main purpose is to facilitate online distribution of room rates, availability, allocation and inventory of rooms for hotels to all their Online travel agencies(OTAs) for each of their selling dates.

Contents

Industry Background

Main article: Hotel

In hospitality industry, hotels could be run on various revenue models.[1][2] They could be

  • Owner Operated
  • Under Management Contract
  • Franchise model
  • Leasehold model
  • Others
    • License model
    • Joint Venture
    • Marketing Alliance

Hotel Revenue Management

Main article: Yield management

In hospitality industry, a hotel faces the twin problems of meeting business expectations (that of maximizing revenue, occupancy and profits across all their locations (for hotel chains) and rooms for each property for every given day of their operational year) while meeting customer expectations.[3] This is the goal that revenue management aims to fulfill by providing the required service to the customer at the right price at the right time[4]. Revenue Management, as a factor to organizational success, has gained significant prominence in recent times for the hotel and hospitality industry,[5] with several hotels creating dedicated full-time positions of Revenue Manager. Performance metrics like RevPAR[2], Best Rate Guaranteed, Best available rate(BAR)[6], Average daily rate, Rate Parity, etc have been developed to measure and track revenue performance of hotels and its management.

Revenue Classification

Revenue sources for hotels are primarily from room accommodation services, food and beverage services and some ancillary services like laundry, wi-fi/broadband, meeting rooms, etc.[7] Market segment wise the revenue sources of a hotel can be classified under two broad segments

  • Contracted business[8][9]
  • Non-contracted business(also known as Transient Rooms)[10]

As a high level estimate, contracted business is generally 70% in terms of total revenue and profit of the hotel and non-contracted is the remaining 30%. For the non-contracted part, online travel agents (OTAs) generally charge 15-25% in commission whereas for bundled rates, this could be as high as 35%.

Contracted Business

The key revenue sources are

  • Airlines
  • MICE: Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Events[11]
  • Corporate Contracted A: Procurement mostly Through RFP and bookings on GDS
  • Corporate Contracted B: Smaller Companies with Negotiated rates
  • Leisure FIT: Purpose of Travel is Leisure and Independent Travelers (Agency Booking)
  • Leisure Group: Leisure Travelers moving in a group (Agency Booking)
  • Government: All Embassy, Government and Military bookings

Non-Contracted Business

Here the key revenue sources are leisure travelers, transient travelers, last minutes business and personal travelers. This is generally the most profitable market segment as the cost of distribution is lowest for this segment.[12]

Rate Parity

Rate Parity is the concept of selling rooms of a certain hotel with exactly the same rate structure across all distribution channels.[13][14][15][16]

Rate parity is currently being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading in the United Kingdom for alleged breaches of competition law.[17]

Channel Management

A revenue manager in a hotel is tasked with inventory management, price management, distribution channel management and evaluation of revenue management efforts among other tasks.[12] In current scenario, for distribution channel management, the revenue manager is faced with managing two distinct types of channels for distribution of their inventory (no. of rooms)

  1. Offline (Non-Electronic)[12] Channels– Traditional phone and fax availability inquiries and bookings, walk-ins, etc. Different types include
    1. On-property transient sales[12]
    2. Property direct telephone sales[12]
    3. On-property group sales[12]
    4. Convention & Visitors Bureau[12]
  2. Online (Electronic)[12] Channels – Relatively younger means of distribution, and still evolving, these include
    1. Traditional CRS/GDS availability inquiry and bookings - CRS are the Central Reservations System and GDS are the Global Distribution Systems
    2. Internet[12] - Search, price comparisons and bookings via internet and now even mobile phones/gadgets. Internet Distribution Systems (IDS) typically comprise of websites which help hotels to sell their inventory.

Online Channel Management

For the online medium of distribution via internet and mobile phones there are various options. Some key players include Expedia.com/Travelocity.com[18] (in US), booking.com (in Europe)[19], Ctrip.com (China)[20], Cleartrip.com (India)[21], Zuji.com (Southeast Asia), Wotif.com (in Australia)[22][23] among several other regional and international players. Each of them can be referred to as an OTA (online travel agent) or a channel. Increasingly new channels of distribution are becoming available with interesting new strategies.[24] Given the myriad channels existing today and the rapid evolution with the introduction of new channels on a regular basis,[24] it creates the problem of channel management for hotels who have to constantly keep up with latest online channels and trends to maximize their revenue potential. Each of these OTAs provide hotels with their own Extranet,[25] requiring hotels to manage multiple extranets.[26] Additionally it causes the problem of maintaining rate parity across all their contracted channels. This creates the challenge of channel management which RateGain’s product ChannelGain solves.[27]

ChannelGain

ChannelGain is a web-based online product which integrates with several OTAs to provide a consolidated channel management platform for hoteliers.[27]

Features

ChannelGain lists the following features on its official website[27]:

  • Single login for updating multiple extranets
  • Linked Rooms - Use of one single Master room to link with several extranet rooms whereby updating the Master room automatically generates updates for all the 'linked' OTAs.[27]
  • Auto-remapping
  • Booking Fetch[28] - Ability to retrieve reservations received from customers from extranets automatically to ChannelGain.[29]
  • AIM (Automated Inventory Management) - Use of a common pool of inventory to manage sold/unsold inventory on several channels from a single location and single pool.[27]
  • Maintain Rate Parity - ChannelGain assists its customers to maintain ChannelGain#Rate Parity across all their distribution channels.[30]

Integration

ChannelGain in integrated with hotel revenue management products to automate online inventory management.[27]

  • ChannelGain is integrated to 300+ online and offline channels for hotels to optimize and distribute their inventory.[31]
  • ChannelGain is integrated to IDeaS Revenue Management System.[32]
  • ChannelGain is integrated to several next generation OTAs offering private sales and loyalty programs like Jetsetter, Mr & Mrs Smith (Travel Guide)[33] and Stash Hotel Rewards.[34]

Multi-Lingual Support

ChannelGain is available in both English and Spanish.[30]

See Also

References

  1. ^ Sharkey, Gemma. "Hotel industry returns to owner-operator model". Caterersearch.com. http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2008/07/28/321501/hotel-industry-returns-to-owner-operator-model.htm. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  2. ^ a b "Smith Travel Research, Glossary". http://www.strglobal.com/Resources/Glossary.aspx#R. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  3. ^ Kumar, Dr. Prem. "Revenue Management for the Hospitality Industry". http://www.bpoindia.org/research/revenue-management-hospitality-industry.shtml. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  4. ^ Withiam, Glenn. "Yield Management". Cornell Hospitality Reports. http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/abstract-13622.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  5. ^ David K. Hayes; Allisha Miller (9 November 2010). Revenue Management for the Hospitality Industry. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 3–. ISBN 9780470393086. http://books.google.com/books?id=coWkoyJeHIEC&pg=PA286. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  6. ^ Kimes, Sheryl E.. "Best-available-rate Pricing at Hotels: A Study of Customer Perceptions and Reactions". Cornell University, The Centre for Hospitality Research. http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/abstract-13592.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  7. ^ David K. Hayes; Allisha Miller (9 November 2010). Revenue Management for the Hospitality Industry. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 5–. ISBN 9780470393086. http://books.google.com/books?id=coWkoyJeHIEC&pg=PA286. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  8. ^ "STR Global Glossary". http://www.strglobal.com/Resources/Glossary.aspx#C. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  9. ^ "Group Revenue Management". http://hotelrevenuetools.com/?page=groups. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  10. ^ "STR Global Glossary". http://www.strglobal.com/Resources/Glossary.aspx#T. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  11. ^ "Commercial Room Block - Definition and Strategies". http://hotelrevenuetools.com/?page=roomblock. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i David K. Hayes; Allisha Miller (9 November 2010). Revenue Management for the Hospitality Industry. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 163–. ISBN 9780470393086. http://books.google.com/books?id=coWkoyJeHIEC&pg=PA286. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  13. ^ Yeoh, Siew Hoon. "Rate Parity - The Elusive Dream Which Just Got More Elusive.". http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=4167. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  14. ^ Admin. "The Price of Rate Parity". http://www.hotelinternethelp.com/lang/en/revenue-management/the-price-of-rate-parity. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  15. ^ "Rate Parity - Definition and Strategies". http://hotelrevenuetools.com/?page=parity. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  16. ^ "Rate Parity - Definition and Strategies". http://hotelrevenuetools.com/?page=parity. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  17. ^ http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/competition-act-and-cartels/ca98-current/online-booking/
  18. ^ Tnooz. "Yahoo Travel back in leading trio – Top US travel sites, 30 July 2011". http://www.tnooz.com/2011/08/01/data/yahoo-travel-back-in-leading-trio-top-us-travel-sites-30-july-2011/. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  19. ^ Schaal, Dennis. "For Priceline, Booking.com, Agoda — it’s a sharing and marketshare thing". Tnooz. http://www.tnooz.com/2010/02/18/news/for-priceline-booking-com-agoda-its-a-sharing-and-marketshare-thing/. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  20. ^ Jiayu, Tian. "Who will challenge Ctrip?". http://www.chinavestor.com/internet/71954-who-will-challenge-ctrip.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  21. ^ Tnooz. "TripAdvisor nears summit of leading ten – Top India travel websites, July 23 2011". http://www.tnooz.com/2011/07/31/data/tripadvisor-nears-summit-of-leading-ten-top-india-travel-websites-july-23-2011/. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  22. ^ "About us". Wotif.com. http://info.wotif.com/about_us. Retrieved 2007-11-15. 
  23. ^ Tnooz. "Flight Centre closing on Expedia, Travelzoo back – Top Australia travel websites, July 23 2011". http://www.tnooz.com/2011/07/28/data/flight-centre-closing-on-expedia-travelzoo-back-top-australia-travel-websites-july-23-2011/. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  24. ^ a b Carroll, Bill; Judy Siguaw. "Evolution in Electronic Distribution: Effects on Hotels and Intermediaries". Cornell Hospitality Report 3. http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/abstract-13606.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  25. ^ Rosen, E.. "Request for Comments: 4364, BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)". Cisco Systems. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4364. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  26. ^ Mourier, Jean Francois. "Shifting From Manual to Automatic in Revenue Management". http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=6167. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  27. ^ a b c d e f "ChannelGain: Online Channel & Inventory Management". http://www.rategain.com/channelgain.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  28. ^ "ChannelGain Product Brochure". http://www.rategain.com/downloads/CGFlyer.pdf. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  29. ^ "Rategain upgrades its Channel Management Solution with Automated Distribution and Reservation Delivery features for Top OTA Channels". http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/travel/2010111167940.htm. Retrieved 4 August 2011. 
  30. ^ a b "RateGain Launches The Spanish Version Of Its Channel Management Solution". http://www.free-press-release.com/news-rategain-launches-the-spanish-version-of-its-channel-management-solution-1306388631.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  31. ^ "Ramee Group of Hotels chooses RateGain’s Channel Management Solution". http://www.hospitalityupgrade.com/_news/showNewsDetail-docID-4775.asp. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  32. ^ "IDeaS Expands Market Reach with RateGain Product Integration". http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news//4050643.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  33. ^ "ChannelGain integrates with leading private sales sites to redefine hotels' online distribution beyond OTAs’". http://www.free-press-release.com/news-channelgain-integrates-with-leading-private-sales-sites-to-redefine-hotels-online-distribution-beyond-otas-1311585062.html. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 
  34. ^ "RateGain Partners with Stash Hotel Rewards". http://www.i-newswire.com/rategain-partners-with-stash-hotel/122603. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 

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