In association with The Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management and Professor Sherri Kimes, EyeforTravel is proud to announce the release of The Global Hospitality Report - An in-depth analysis of international hotel performance and strategic manual for Hoteliers facing challenging economic conditions.

Sherri Kimes, Ph.D., is Singapore Tourism Board Distinguished Professor of Asian Hospitality Management at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and has over 25 years experience in the Hospitality industry. She has published over 50 articles in leading journals and worked as a consultant to many hospitality enterprises around the world, including Walt Disney World Resorts, Ruby’s Diners, Starwood Asia-Pacific, and Troon Golf.

Sherri will be presenting alongside 50 other thought-leading travel industry speakers at EyeforTravel’s 6th Travel Distribution Summit Asia, held in Singapore on April 28-29th.

The 12 page Global Research Report includes:

  • The very latest international revenue performance figures, tends and expert analysis
  • A comprehensive examination of the most effective RM strategies available to hoteliers to overcome tough economic conditions
  • Detailed breakdowns of hotel performance by sector and region
  • Pragmatic strategic advice and tactics – Lessons learnt from the GFC and ho to respond to capitalize on the economic recovery.
  • Statistical analysis, graphs, expert insights and much more.

The report is free to download using the following link;

Report Synopsis:

Drops in occupancies, ADR and RevPAR in 2009 have been widespread in the hotel industry and the trade press has been filled with articles discussing the downturn and proposing possible tactics for surviving it. Not surprisingly, hotel owners and hotel operators have disagreed on how best to manage during a recession as owners try to maintain sufficient cash flow to cover their costs while operators attempt to maintain service levels and long-term brand equity.

One of the keys to success in a down market is to avoid offering across the board price cuts, but to instead focus on particular market segments and distribution channels. An ADR is just that, an average, and care should be taken to keep your ADR at near or above the average of your competitive set. Research has shown that hotels with an ADR significantly lower than that of their competitive set have an inferior RevPAR performance relative to their competitors. This rela­tionship has been shown to hold true across all hotel market levels. For example, in the luxury market, hotels that have an ADR that is higher than their competitive set have the same or slightly lower occupancies, but have a 8- to 14 % higher RevPAR than their competitive set.

Conversely, hotels that have a lower ADR than their competitive set have about the same to slightly higher occupancy levels, but report a RevPARs of 3- to 9-percent lower than their competitive set.3Given that knowledge, the challenge for hotel manag­ers is how to compete in a price war. In a previous study, I discussed ways in which hotels can ‘intelligently’’ discount. Essentially the two ways this can be done involve either non-price methods or price-related methods.

Non-price methods include competing on the basis of quality, creat­ing strategic partnerships, leveraging your loyalty program, developing additional revenue sources and developing ad­ditional market segments.

Price-based methods consist of offering packages, using opaque distribution channels and offering discounted rates to selected market segments. It’s not that hotels shouldn’t discount—it’s that they should do so in an intelligent and strategic way. The intent of this study is to determine what tactics hotels used during the economic downturn and to evaluate the performance of these tactics. In addition, the study sought to solicit advice on how to approach future economic down­turns so that I could develop specific advice for hoteliers on how to approach the next economic downturn.

Download the full report here;

Marco Saio
EyeforTravel Global Events Director
+44 207 75 7219
Reuters Events (former EyeforTravel)