IDeaS V5i Gives Wilshire Grand Los Angeles an Edge on the Competition
Following renovation, hotel enjoys 4 percent revenue increase with help of IDeaS V5i
The Wilshire Grand Los Angeles, a 900-room property in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, recently evaluated its long-time operations practices – specifically, its revenue management culture. Surrounded by major corporations, shopping plazas, theater and restaurants, the hotel underwent an extensive renovation and expansion to meet the increasing demand. In parallel, hotel executives sought revenue management technology solutions to address the growth and respond to changing business patterns and increased competitor rates.
“We are in the best location possible for a downtown hotel and following the renovation, we saw an opportunity,” said Greg Moon, Area Director of Revenue Management. “It was critical for us to make sure we were accurately pricing and accurately anticipating future behaviors.”
The hotel evaluated a number of revenue optimization providers and chose the IDeaS V5i system.
“The investment was a must. We recognized that as an independent property who wanted to be on the same level of revenue management standards as the large chains, we needed to partner with IDeaS,” said Moon. “We felt confident that we would get a return on the investment, and we’ve received widespread support from our owners and upper management for that reason.”
A Beneficial Partnership
As a veteran of the revenue management industry for more than 20 years, Moon was skeptical of introducing automation into his already-effective manual revenue management practices. Throughout the monitoring phase (first four months of implementation), he came to understand how partnering with the system allowed him to redefine his role and increase his value as revenue manager, resulting in more time for strategic decision making and less data entry.
“Before, I had to manually key in all of the data, including pickup, demand and everything we had on the books for weeks ahead,” said Moon. “Now I save hours once spent on data entry and am able to make thoughtful, strategic decisions because I have a deeper sense of the market.”
“It doesn’t take me out of the equation at all,” he continued. “The first few months, I continued my typical routine alongside of the system to make sure we had the appropriate information. At the end of four months, I compared both the manual and automated systems and found that it was just as accurate, if not more, than the work I’ve been doing for more than 20 years.”
Proven Success
Since deploying in 2005, the Wilshire Grand Los Angeles has enjoyed an approximately four percent revenue increase and a steady increase in accuracy.
“We’re definitely ahead of the competition,” said Moon. “Once we started using IDeaS V5i, we realized we could achieve higher rates when we didn’t think we could before and soon started noticing a significant return.”
Additionally, the accuracy achieved from the IDeaS system played a role in the success of not only the revenue management department, but the organization as a whole.
“Today, our inaccuracy percentage is close to one percent,” Moon reflected. “The best part is that if the forecasting is accurate, it saves money for the entire hotel, in terms of payroll. Since we can anticipate how many rooms we plan to sell, we can anticipate the amount of staff we need on a given week.”
Throughout deployment and use of the IDeaS V5i, the hotel revenue management department developed a strong partnership with the IDeaS team, resulting in efficient troubleshooting and effective training department wide.
“We’ve benefitted from excellent training, allowing many of our departments to use the system easily,” said Moon. “We feel prepared and ahead of the curve in our business because of the system and are now doing our jobs more accurately and efficiently. As one of our partners at IDeaS says, ‘IDeaS is just another tool to hang on your belt’.”
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