Most independent hotels do not have a revenue problem in the abstract. They have a rate calendar that was built last January, a price that does not move when demand does, and a channel mix nobody has looked at since the OTA contracts were signed. Revenue management is the discipline of fixing that: deciding what to charge, who to sell to and through which channel — and then doing it again next week.

Where independent hotels lose revenue

• One rate across a period where demand is nothing like the same from night to night. Christmas and Hogmanay in the same quote is the classic version.
• Rates carried over from last year rather than set against this year’s booking pace.
• Group and event business priced by feel, with no view of what those rooms would have sold for anyway.
• Commission and channel mix left unexamined, so what growth there is arrives at the lowest margin.
• Minimum-stay and length-of-stay rules that quietly block the bookings you actually want.
• Nobody comparing pace to the same point last year, so the correction arrives after the dates have gone.

What I do

Practical work on the decisions that set the top line, sized to a hotel that does not have a revenue department:

• Pricing strategy and dynamic rate management — a rate that moves with demand, inside rules you are comfortable with.
• Rate structure and segmentation — what each rate plan is for, and which ones are quietly cannibalising the others.
• Channel and distribution review — OTA mix, commission cost, content and ranking per channel, and a realistic route to more direct business.
• Group, event and long-stay pricing — what a block is actually worth against the nights it displaces.
• Forecasting and pace reporting — a weekly view an owner can read in five minutes.
• Budgets and rate targets that still hold up when you get to the month.

A worked example

A 47-room Edinburgh hotel was about to quote a single group rate across Christmas and Hogmanay. The booking data showed 32% occupancy on the Christmas dates and 91% on Hogmanay — two completely different markets sitting inside one enquiry. Pricing them separately won an £11,886 block without giving away the nights that were going to sell regardless.

Read the full case study →

Why an operator rather than a revenue consultancy

Most of the firms that come up when you search for a hotel revenue management consultant do revenue management and nothing else, from the outside. I run hotels. That matters here, because a rate decision is never only a rate decision — it lands on the housekeeping rota, on breakfast covers, on who is on shift that night. Pricing advice that ignores what it costs to deliver the room is half an answer.

It also means the numbers on this site come from properties I have actually worked on, not from a model. See the case studies →

How to start

Start with a free consultation. Bring what you have — booking pace, last year’s actuals, your current rate calendar — and we will go through where the revenue is leaking and what can be fixed quickly. If it turns into work, the first step is a review of pricing, channel mix and the periods where you are most exposed.

Revenue is one of eight areas I work on. See all hotel advisory services →