With IDeaS, Maritim Instills Revenue Management Culture of Excellence
Established in 1969, Maritim is Germany’s best known hotel chain and enjoys a growing international reputation for elegant accommodation, state-of-the-art event rooms, award-winning restaurants, sought-after pubs and comprehensively-equipped facilities. With 37 hotels located in Germany, Maritim places a strong focus on providing first-class service for business meetings and conventions. The excellence and quality of service of Maritim has made the hotel chain synonymous with German hospitality excellence.
Maritim’s comprehensive portfolio includes conveniently-located city and airport hotels, coastal beach resorts, lakeside family hotels, course-adjoining golf hotels and parkland spa hotels in Germany, Egypt, Turkey, Spain, Mauritius, Latvia and Malta.
Breaking the Tradition
The chain had been practicing a decentralized program of manual yield management activities based on the analysis of spreadsheets. However, due to the lack of data, statistics and booking patterns, Maritim were not able to efficiently control rates and room availability to achieve an ongoing state of optimal revenue management.
In 2002, the hotel sought to find a solution that would concentrate on centralizing revenue management activities. Having evaluated 3 different revenue optimization providers, over a 2 year period, Maritim chose the IDeaS V5i system as the optimal provider and market leader in revenue optimization solutions.
"The crucial factor in utilizing IDeaS Revenue Optimization was their client-centric philosophy. The IDeaS team listened to us and customized a comprehensive solution that met the unique needs of our business" said Birgit Haake, Director Revenue Management, Maritim. "The IDeaS V5i system is very innovative and highly intuitive. We found that their knowledge of what’s going on in the market, customer and client demands, and the quality of the forecasts provided by the IDeaS V5i system unbeatable."
A New Culture
Throughout the implementation process, the IDeaS team helped to disseminate a new culture of revenue management within Maritim. During the initial implementation phase, when IDeaS V5i was rolled out across 12 of the hotels, IDeaS held a two-day training session with the various managers from different departments including Reservations, Sales, Front Office and the General Manager.
“The management team was quite skeptical when IDeaS V5i was first introduced, as not everyone was on board with having a ‘data culture’ in the company. For us, it wasn’t the technical implementation of the system that was the problem, but the work processes and the understanding of automating revenue management. IDeaS really helped us to cultivate a culture of electronic revenue management” Haake mentioned.
“We learned that decisions on rates and availability should not be based on emotions or on gut instinct, but to rely on exact and detailed data and analysis to offer the right product at the right time to the right guest with the right price” said Haake. “Before IDeaS V5i, this was impossible for us to achieve.”
“It is an ongoing process, but we are seeing results. Reception staff and the reservation office, for example, like the new system because they no longer have to work with spreadsheets. They can simply log on and look into the Property Management System.”
Strengthening Partnership
Five years since the first property was deployed, Maritim now has 18 hotels equipped with IDeaS V5i that fully utilizes the various modules the system has to offer. This includes, the Best Available Rate (BAR) Module, Centralized Control Module, Group Pricing Module and PMS Upload and to meet Maritim’s vast contingent of groups for meetings and conventions.
“The IDeaS philosophy has convinced us that their well-founded and innovative solution surpasses what competitors are offering” said Haake. “The findings that came from the work with IDeaS have been valuable for the business strategy and the pricing structure of Maritim.”
The group is so pleased with the results that the IDeaS V5i system has achieved, that with every new opening, IDeaS V5i will be utilized from day one.
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