Revinate’s annual hospitality convention, which centered on trade updates, progress plans, and new product launches, has concluded for the 12 months — and we’re nonetheless buzzing with pleasure!
This 12 months’s convention introduced in 250+ prospects (50% first-timers and 50% repeat NAVIGATE attendees) and 15 sponsoring firms. The rooms had been filled with CMOs, GMs, Reservation Gross sales Managers, Income Managers, house owners, industrial leaders, and extra.
With over 300 individuals on website, greater than ten informative and thought-provoking periods and panels, and a vigorous keynote led by Jim Lawless, there may be a lot to unpack, however we’ll give attention to the highest 4 takeaways from the whole occasion.
What you will note right here
Gas income progress with data-driven methods
Revinate CEO, Bryson Koehler, kicked off NAVIGATE Miami 2024 with the thrilling information of our newest innovation, Revinate CDP. Bryson then took us by way of the concepts, ache factors, and breakthroughs that led us to the place we’re right this moment. The launch of Revinate CDP is actually just the start.
“Once we discuss launching CDP, understand that there’s nearly a thousand different enhancements rolled up into this launch, rolled up into this improve…What we’ve launched is a data-driven, outcome-focused suite of capabilities that drive extra worthwhile bookings to your property.” – Bryson Koehler, Revinate CEO
He launched key group members, Jason, our CTO, and Leura, our VP of Product. Collectively, these two shared the why behind the CDP and the significance of capturing visitor information.
In her session, “Unlocking your resort’s full income potential: Methods for fulfillment,” Caryl Helsel, Founder & CEO of Dragonfly Strategists, shared success tales and underscored the significance of leveraging expertise to drive income and improve operational effectivity.
She mentioned profitable collaborations with shoppers and showcased tangible outcomes achieved by these shoppers, emphasizing the function of expertise in driving enterprise progress and efficiency.
Collectively, these periods explored the concept of leveraging information and expertise to energy direct income channels and maximize NOI.
Embrace the shift in journey traits and their impact on projections
You’ll have observed that demand was a bit of decrease in Q1. Resort efficiency has been softening, notably within the first quarter of the 12 months, and demand has been down for 4 consecutive quarters. Challenges similar to damaging inflation-adjusted RevPAR and declining profitability on account of rising bills have been named as some causes by Emmy Hise, Sr. Dir. of Hospitality Analytics, from CoStar Group in her session, “CoStar Group market outlook and traits.”
However, CoStar is projecting a 4.1% RevPar enhance for the 12 months. On the inbound facet, they’re projecting worldwide journey to surpass pre-pandemic ranges by three p.c this 12 months. Potential progress drivers embody the restoration of company journey, inbound worldwide journey, and continued home leisure journey.
Maggie Rauch, Analysis Chief from Deloitte, highlighted a few of these progress drivers in her session “Tendencies shaping the way forward for the journey trade offered by Deloitte.” Maggie mentioned a big shift in shopper habits concerning journey. Regardless of financial uncertainties and excessive inflation, journey spending stays resilient and continues to outperform different discretionary spending classes.
Based mostly on Deloitte Client Indicators, journey is behaving extra like a necessity than a need. Maggie additionally introduced up the rise of distant work as a forerunner in reshaping journey patterns. This new group, termed “laptop computer luggers,” are taking shorter, extra frequent journeys and lengthening their stays to mix work and leisure.
Deloitte additionally touched on the significance of utilizing AI to boost the journey expertise for each the visitor and the hotelier. Revinate CDP, as mentioned above, is a perfect device to begin implementing right this moment and brighten that outlook for tomorrow.
The digital panorama is reworking; so do you have to
Talking of AI, Revinate’s Dominic Donatoni had a hearth chat with Benchmark Hospitality’s Evan Crawford and Jesse Thompson, throughout which they explored “the strategic function of expertise companions in profitable mergers, acquisitions, and new openings.”
The group emphasised the significance of conducting an intensive audit of your property’s tech stack (and each property acquired). They warned in opposition to tech waste, i.e., redundancies and underutilized platforms. Additionally they identified the necessity for adaptability on all sides throughout any interval of change and progress. From there, Evan and Jesse shared their pleasure for the brand new Revinate CDP, stressing its capabilities to operationalize information, permitting them to combine it into numerous advertising and marketing and operations elements to create holistic buyer journeys and guarantee efficient communication.
Greg Land, World Phase Chief with AWS, additionally touched on adaptability and resilience in his session, “Empower innovation by way of resilience, tradition, and expertise.” He reciprocated the necessity for companies to evolve and adapt to outlive, notably within the face of technological developments. There’s a rising development in direction of leveraging information for personalization and innovation regardless of the hole between recognizing the potential of AI/machine studying and truly implementing these applied sciences.
As extra hoteliers acknowledge the advantages and necessity of investing in technological enhancements for each their friends and their staff, Greg warns that they need to additionally take into account the necessity for constant expertise throughout all visitor touchpoints. That want for consistency is precisely what Evan and Jesse had been selling once they mentioned the prevalence of tech waste.
It appears the hospitality trade’s digital transformation is underway, and it’s time to get on board or be left behind.
Optimize your income with industrial technique
Revinate’s CMO, Karen Stephens, took to the stage to facilitate a panel dialogue, “Unlocking the potential of economic technique.” The panel centered on the significance of complete income monitoring to supply a extra holistic understanding of monetary efficiency. This method helps establish areas of enchancment extra simply and considers issues like guest-paid income and hotel-collected income. By shifting from conventional metrics like RevPAR to a extra holistic view and together with concerns of internet working earnings (NOI) and asset worth, inns can optimize their enterprise combine and enhance profitability.
The panel additionally dove extra into the concept of economic technique, the place selections are data-driven by collaborative efforts throughout totally different departments, together with gross sales, digital, finance, and operations.
Patrick Norton, VP of Advertising & Gross sales and Managing Companion of Brittain Resorts & Resorts, additionally praised data-driven selections, emphasizing the significance of successfully accumulating and leveraging buyer information to enhance conversion charges by personalizing advertising and marketing efforts. His session, “Mastering conversions: Crafting an omnichannel reserving journey with Revinate,” instructed taking buyer information and operating it again to the fundamentals. He pressured the importance of selling fundamentals similar to analytics monitoring, e-blasts, and PPC fairly than chasing after flashy traits.
A longtime Revinate fanatic, Patrick advocates for investing in direct advertising and marketing efforts and prioritizing buyer retention methods. He mentioned the advantages of remarketing to current prospects, changing OTA prospects into direct bookers, and implementing initiatives like member pricing and OTA win-back campaigns to foster long-term visitor relationships.
These periods delivered quite a lot of dialogue on methods for optimizing industrial efficiency and maximizing income by way of efficient advertising and marketing and gross sales approaches.
Be taught from the Consultants
NAVIGATE Miami 2024 introduced a lot to think about, take house, and apply. A recap is great, however it’s nothing in comparison with being there and feeling the vitality within the room.
Hoteliers took that vitality and ran with it because the convention drew shut. With a renewed pleasure concerning the trade, new instruments to drive direct bookings and develop their companies, and invaluable networking alternatives, this 12 months’s NAVIGATE Miami was among the finest but.
We’re already wanting ahead to subsequent 12 months’s occasions!
