Kimpton Hotels Increases Market Share with IDeaS Revenue Optimization Solution
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, the first and leading boutique hotel group in the United States and Canada, is rapidly growing with more than 40 existing hotels and plans to build an additional 20 over the next two years in Los Angeles, New York, Florida, Philadelphia and Virginia. In light of the expansion, Kimpton sought to align its properties from a technological and financial standpoint, in hopes to establish a stronger revenue management culture. In order to do so, Kimpton determined it needed to simplify its management of data and distribution channels by deploying the IDeaS V5i revenue management system. Kimpton uses the system to help organize market data and ultimately stay ahead of the competition.
“We needed a stronger revenue management culture, as we were experiencing dramatic growth nationwide,” said Megan Wille, Director of Revenue Management for Kimpton’s Salt Lake City Hotel Monaco and IDeaS V5i systems expert. “We felt that restructuring the revenue management department, in terms of adding an automated system, would help guide us at both corporate and local levels. The IDeaS V5i system was something we considered ‘mission critical’ to our continued success.”
Information Overload
Kimpton’s decision to automate its revenue management across properties was largely due to the daunting task of managing data among multiple market segments and distribution channels. The heightened level of data entry significantly subtracted from revenue managers’ ability to spend time analyzing and reflecting on the market. The increased functionality of the IDeaS V5i system provided a higher level of detail, in terms of length-of-stay pricing and managing multiple tiers of numbers manually.
“Having a tool like IDeaS V5i has made a world of a difference,” said Kathleen Sanford-Reidenbach, Vice President of Revenue Management & Distribution, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants. “Yielding 365 days ahead and having a sense of the booking pace and consumer behavior is something no human can accomplish for our hotels multiple times a day.”
“We hire employees not to perform data entry tasks, but to use their brains in combination with the technology and the reporting tools we have available to them to stay ahead of the competition,” she continued.
Forecasting Success
Two years since the first property was deployed, Kimpton today believes it has separated itself from the competition. From an efficiency perspective, revenue managers save significant hours once spent on data entry and are able to take a more thoughtful approach to pricing strategy.
“There are only so many hours in a day to manage market data,” said Sanford-Reidenbach. “Now we have a system sitting on our shoulder, waving the flag and alerting us in advance to warn us of future opportunities. We’re able to anticipate upcoming need and spend the time developing the pricing and promotion to drive more incremental revenue during a softer demand period.”
An additional noticeable benefit is the company’s ability to acquire market share and increase RevPAR by opening up distribution channels not considered before due to time constraints. Kimpton now captures more business over peak demand periods.
“We had a strong team and did a great job with our existing technology, managing the yield strategy and pricing the hotels manually,” said Sanford-Reidenbach. “However, we had a desire to take things to the next level and continue to compete well against major brands. It was critical for us to have the IDeaS V5i tool in our back pocket to achieve that.”
The combined efforts of Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and IDeaS Revenue Optimization to effectively educate and excite employees about the technology continue to set Kimpton apart from its competition.
“We understood that implementing the system would be a major cultural change, and we felt it was important that sales and operations teams were involved in the training with IDeaS,” said Sanford-Reiderbach. “As an organization, we’re looking at business differently because we’re more informed in all departments.”
Since deployment, Kimpton conducts annual system evaluation meetings with IDeaS to ensure the system is effectively meeting its needs.
“The system has really helped us fine tune our yield strategy and improve our performance and gain market share during our shoulder periods and our need periods,” said Sanford-Reidenbach. “Our hotels are performing well, and we’ve exceeded the expectations of our home office from a financial and performance perspective, which is helped by the partnership with IDeaS.”
» Download a PDF Copy of this Client Success Story
For more information on the benefits of revenue optimization in your industry, contact IDeaS