Hotel G in Singapore started using MAXX alongside their existing, more traditional Revenue Management System. The unique on-the-go and on-demand features of MAXX which can be accessed from anywhere, with any laptop, phone, or tablet device were initially the reasons for the hotel to sign up. This allowed the revenue manager to constantly keep an eye on market movements regardless of where she was working from - home or the hotel - and to respond accordingly.

The storytelling format, which continuously updates the interpretation of market movements and pricing on MAXX, allowed the hotel to take action on their pricing more frequently and in real time.
MAXX also gives feedback on previous decisions and comments if rate changes contributed positively or negatively to the hotel’s performance, allowing the hotel to reflect on and continuously improve on their pricing decisions.

Revenue Management Solution can assist in building trust and team collaboration

MAXX is designed with the user in mind, which made it easy to give system access to other, non-revenue management experts within the hotel team. With some instructions, each team member, including the GM, started to engage with theinsights and updates on MAXX.

“MAXX is a great tool and not as expensive as usual Revenue Management tools.”

Utilizing MAXX in this way built greater trust between the general manager and the revenue manager and allowed them to work more collaboratively together to achieve their shared objective of yielding rates and inventories throughout the day.

When the pandemic hit Singapore, the hotel decided to cancel the more traditional RMS system and to continue working with MAXX instead as the traditional forecasting models of the traditional system were no longer relevant to the hotel.

Understanding and forecasting demand during the pandemic

MAXX supported the hotel during massive cancellations and major shifts in demandwith insights and relevant, timely market movements, allowing the hotel to make better decisions and optimize their performance in the midst an ever-changing and volatile market.

Soon after the start of Covid in Singapore, demand was reduced to the local staycation market. MAXX made those changes visible to the hotel team – the team could review and understand the continuous changes of booking lead times, the day of week pattern, even the time of booking. As the data is updated every hour, the hotel was able to adjust their strategies in real time.
In a period of great uncertainty, the hotel found they could use the pace analysis in MAXX for forecasting their demand and plan their internal resources accordingly.

“The snapshot in MAXX really helped me a lot, especially in terms of doing forecasts.”

‍

MAXX includes great competitor intelligence insights. They were already very useful pre-covid, but the hotel appreciated this feature even more during the pandemic. The hotel could create a secondary competitor set as most of the primary competitor was contracted out the government. The team started not only monitoring their rate competitiveness but gained better understanding of demand by day of week and even by hour of day. It helped the hotel the hotel to adjust their pricing and offering in real time.

“I refresh MAXX every hour to make sure we are on track to pick up whatever our target is.”

MAXX enabled the hotel to drill down to what time of day the bookings arrived at the hotel. The revenue manager began to test price elasticity, finding out by how much rates can be increased every hour until the bookings start to slow, thus determining the optimum rate on any given day.

Proactive optimization of incoming demand

MAXX monitors the demand by market segment, but also by room type. This made it possible for the hotel to maximize room type occupancy, contributing to a growth in the overall average room rate.

These strategies of the team and the insights of MAXX became real when the hotel closed 2020 with an STR RGI index of over 100. As the hotel could not compete with their comp set in occupancy, as competitors were at 100% due to Covid quarantine contracts, they were able to compete and succeed in rate thanks to the insights gleaned from MAXX.

“MAXX makes you pro-active rather than reactive.”

MAXX is not just a tool which does the optimization on behalf of the revenue manager, MAXX rather works with the hotel team, providing the insights and updates that allow the team to develop strategies and mindsets that will maximize the incoming demand and optimize its pricing.

MAXX is designed for revenue teams that would like to proactively optimize the incoming demand, rather than be re-active to market changes. It empowers hoteliers to identify and engage with trends much earlier than they previously were able to.

“I closed my STR last year with an RGI of greater than 100 through yielding my rates…I never expected to have an RGI of over 100 – I’m going to print out that STR record and frame it!”

‍