The first decision when using Yield is to decide if your will occupancy events as a way to trigger a rule,? If you do, will occupancy be based on the entire Site occupancy (ie all Rooms added together and then occupancy/vacancy analyzed by the entire inventory of the Site); else by Room Type occupancy which would apply the occupancy only to the Room Types allocated as detailed below. In a Room type Occupancy setting, for example, if you had 5 KING rooms and had an Occupancy rule based on 20% occupancy, then the system will only enforce that Yield Rule when 2 Kings were booked and would ignore any other Room Types when invoking the Yield Rule. This is a key difference and a property can be setup as one or the other, not a mix of both.
The other question to answer before processing to setup of your Yield strategy is whether you want to use a simple system common to many hotels - what we call 'Yield Sheets' - which alters rates based on a combination of 'Occupancy' and 'Days to Arrival'. 'Yield Sheets' are recommended for properties to alter rates to fit their occupancy patterns easily.
If you wish to discuss the pros / cons of using Yield Sheets vs manual Yield Rules, contact Sales and we can assist your evaluation of the two approaches.
BookingCenter staff will setup your property to use Sheets and then you will use the Wizard to enter the 'Occupancy' and 'Days to Arrival' needed to begin your Yield Management.
Step 1: Create a Yield Profile
The first step is to create a Yield Profile where you set either occupancy and/or time rules to alter rates. See Setup Yield Profile. There are four combinations of occupancy and date range settings to choose from:
For example, An Occupancy Yield Profile could be used to:
Step 2: Add Rates to Yield Profile
Then, add the Rate(s) that you want to apply the Yield Profile. A Yield Profile can be applied to one or more Rate Plans and a Rate Plan can have multiple Yield Profiles applied. See Yield Profile - Add Rate. Note that if you use Child Rates in your Yield Rules to an Agent, the child discount is applied first and the yield rule after.
Step 3: Allocate the "Yielded" Rate Plans to Agent Channels
Allocating a Room Type and Rate Plan involves the same function for all channels in Agent Relationships.To see which Room Types and Rate Plans are allocated to an Agent Channel or to ADD or DELETE a Room Type/Rate Plan allocation. See Add or Delete Allocation. If you are creating new Rate Plans for your Yield Profiles then you will need to allocate them to the Agent Channel needed. If the Rate Plans (such as a RACK Rate) are already allocated to a channel and you simply want to enable Yield Management for that Rate Plan, then simply Activate Yield Management for the Rate Plans in a specific channel. See Step 4 for Activation Steps.
Step 4: Activate Yield Management in Agent Channels
After the 'Yield Profiles' have been built and the selected Rate Plans have been added, there is one more step needed to activate Yield Management for each Room Type in an Agent Channel. Since Yield Management can be activated by Room Type in each Channel, you can offer yielded rates for one or all of the Rate Plans, on one or all Agent Channels. See Activate Yield Management
For Example, Yield Management could be activated for the TWIN Rate Plan on Booking.com and Expedia, but not not for the TWIN Rate Plan allocated to MyPMS Front Desk and Website.
Because OTAs only allow a maximum amount of updates via a certified APIs per hour, optimizing Yield updates to OTAs is imperative. The following guide will help you understand the update methodology:
Channel | Update Frequency | Notes |
---|---|---|
MYPMS (front desk) | Immediate | PMS rates always use Yielded rates in real-time. |
Website/Booking Engine | Immediate | Booking Engine rates always use Yielded rates in real-time. |
Owners and Agents Areas | Immediate | Book Now in Owners and Agents areas always use the Yield grid in real-time |
Expedia | Immediate for 30 days of rate/availability | For days beyond 30 days, this OTA is updated when a rate has been altered, a booking has been made/edited/cancelled, or each day we refresh a year's worth of rates. |
Booking.com | Immediate for 30 days of rate/availability | For days beyond 30 days, this OTA is updated when a rate has been altered, a booking has been made/edited/cancelled, or each day we refresh a year's worth of rates. |
Airbnb | Nightly for 60 days of rate/availability | For days beyond 60 days, this OTA is updated when a rate has been altered, a booking has been made/edited/cancelled, or each month we refresh a year's worth of rate/availability. |
GDS/Channel Connects | Immediate for 30 days of rate/availability | For days beyond 30 days, GDS systems are updated when a rate has been altered, a booking has been made/edited/cancelled, or each day we refresh a year's worth of rates. |
VRBO | Immediate | VRBO queries rates directly, so the Yielded Rate is always provided. |
Google Hotels | Immediate for 90 days of rate/availability | For days beyond 90 days, this OTA is updated when a rate has been altered, a booking has been made/edited/cancelled, or each day we refresh a year's worth of rates. |
GuestCentric | Immediate for 30 days of rate/availability | For days beyond 30 days, this OTA is updated when a rate has been altered, a booking has been made/edited/cancelled, or each day we refresh a year's worth of rates. |
Yield Grid
Finally, in order to easily view how Yielded rates are affecting your Agent Channels, we have a 'Yield Grid' that allows you to see how rates are being set, per Agent Channel, based on a calendar view. This tool, when set next to the 'normal' Rate Grid', visually shows how rates are being affected to each Agent Channel. Note that if the Agent Channel has a 'Rate Loading' set in addition to the Yield, making the Rate first 'loaded' by a % and then 'yielded' by the amount set in the Yield Profile, analysis gets very difficult - we recommend against implementing Yield on a 'Rate Loaded' channel because there are two modifying calculations being applied to the rate via the Agent Channel. See Yield Grid
Tips and Best Practices