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WHEN IT COMES to growing hotel revenue, size does not matter. Economy hotels and micro-inventory properties are experiencing one of the biggest booms in recent years, thanks partly to a massive resurgence in small group travel, changing economic trends, and the staying power of global "return to travel". CBRE noted economy and midscale hotels recovered to 2019 performance levels by 2021, and properties with fewer rooms may benefit from lower operating costs when compared to their big-box brethren-though they also tend to have fewer resources with which to hire revenue professionals. Revenue managers are driving the charge for better operating returns. Many are taking the lessons they learned from their success at larger hotels and applying these truths to the industry's smaller properties. These revenue managers leverage new technology and strategies, options that small hotels with smaller, cross-functional staff haven't fully embraced. However, competition among economy hotels and properties tends to be fierce, requiring new action, especially with recent economic pressures and a downward 2023 RevPAR forecast of 0.2 percent in recent data shared by Tourism Economics . Modern revenue management practices and technology can provide these hotels with many benefits and significant competitive advantages. Small hotels need to avoid the erratic rate shifts of the past and capitalize on new trends as they emerge. By embracing strong revenue management systems and discipline in these properties, operators can realize greater control over a typically inconsistent space. Room Enough for Revenue The most common misconception about revenue management's place in hospitality is that it is the domain of large or full-service hotels. This is simply not the case today. No two hotels are the same, in practice, with key differences always existing between the layout of a property, its location, third-party partnerships, and so on. Every hotel has different revenue pot

MAGNUSON HOTELS HAS added a new hotel to its Magnuson Independent Collection portfolio, the Studios & Suites 4 Less Charlotte, in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is the sixth hotel added to the Independent Collection by owner Ray Patel of Charlotte. The 126-room hotel is near Charlotte Douglas International Airport, The Billy Graham Library, the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Levine Museum of the New South, according to Magnuson. The new hotel looks to draw a 52-week nonseasonal business base from the regional banking, finance, software, and biotech sectors. Charlotte is also home to the Research Triangle Park, a globally prominent research center with over 170 companies and federal agencies in the U.S. "When Ray Patel called us in 2005, he wanted to build his own brand called Studios & Suites 4 Less, and that is exactly what Ray did," said Thomas Magnuson, CEO of Magnuson Hotels. As Patel's team manages the Studios & Suites 4 Less brand and operations, Magnuson Hotels provides the technology, distribution, and marketing for the brand. "We appreciate our partnership with Magnuson Hotels, which is now entering its 17th year of consecutive increases," said Patel of Charlotte. "It is a pleasure and privilege to continually add new properties in our home market of Charlotte, North Carolina," he added.

Bill Fanning is now the chief revenue officer at Stayntouch, a cloud-based hotel property management software developer. Previously, he was senior vice president of sales at Compeat, part of Restaurant365's enterprise suite, covering accounting, inventory, scheduling, payroll, and HR solutions. In his new role at Stayntouch, Fanning will oversee revenue strategy and expansion efforts, focusing on customer value, strategic partnerships and global commercial growth across North America, Europe and global markets. "We are pleased to welcome Bill Fanning to our team," said Jacob Messina, Stayntouch's CEO. "His exceptional track record and experience in the hospitality industry and enterprise sales make him the perfect fit to lead our commercial strategy. Bill shares our unwavering commitment to customer success and innovation. His expertise will be instrumental in strengthening our relationships with hotel partners and enterprise customers, ensuring we continue to deliver solutions that address the most pressing challenges faced by hotel owners and operators today."

CLOUD-BASED HOSPITALITY software provider HotelKey has added its central reservation system to an already existing portfolio of its products for Extended Stay America. ESA already uses a portfolio of HotelKey products across its properties, including HotelKey's property-management system since 2018 and call center module since 2020, HotelKey said in a statement. According to the statement, HotelKey's CRS product includes direct connectivity to leading OTAs and GDS systems, a call center module, integration with channel managers and seamless integration with the HotelKey PMS. "We are excited to further expand our relationship with Extend Stay America," said Aditya Thyagarajan, co-founder and president of HotelKey. "ESA has an unwavering commitment to innovation and adoption of next-gen solutions. The new agreement is not only further validation of that commitment, but also brings HotelKey one step closer to our vision - helping enterprises across the hotel industry implement full-stack solutions that support owners and franchisees and hotel managers to effectively manage their properties from anywhere." "We are pleased to continue working with HotelKey, with the addition of its CRS product," said John Laplante, ESA's chief information officer. "They have helped enable innovation of our tech platforms and further provides strategic value to our business."

"UNSTOPPABLE" WAS THE theme for Choice Hotels International's 67th Owner & Franchisee Convention in Las Vegas last week. In keeping with that, the company announced new software tools, a new prototype and more news on the incorporation of more than 600 newly acquired Radisson Hotels Americas properties. Nearly 6,000 hotel owners, general managers and Choice associates attended the three-day event at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, according to the company. It included more than 85 educational and brand sessions as well as 275 vendor exhibits. "At our 67th Annual Convention, we celebrated our shared success with thousands of Choice franchisees, examined key travel industry trends, and revealed our plans to capitalize on them and keep the momentum going," said Pat Pacious, Choice's president and CEO. "We're inspired by the ways these entrepreneurs bet on themselves, and we are committed to being by their side as we continue to disrupt the industry together."

IDEAS, A SAS company specializing in hospitality revenue management software, recently integrated nearly 2,000 properties with the Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform. This connects their RMS solutions, including IDeaS G3 RMS, with Oracle's OPERA Cloud platform, accessible via OHIP and the Oracle Cloud Marketplace, the companies said in a joint statement. "The hospitality industry has long craved faster data exchanges and more capabilities to handle ever-increasing data volumes, and OHIP delivers precisely that," said Klaus Kohlmayr, IDeaS' chief evangelist and development officer. "By accelerating data exchange and efficiently transmitting the staggering 12 billion pricing decisions IDeaS processes daily, OHIP empowers us to innovate faster as partners with Oracle. This goes beyond pricing and forecasting. It unlocks the true potential of data-driven revenue management, allowing hoteliers to make smarter decisions and achieve optimal results." The two companies share nearly 10,000 clients, the statement said. IDeaS is connecting 50 to 100 hotels per week, allowing for faster implementation of future capabilities and additional solutions.

STR IS LAUNCHING a new phase, STR Benchmarking, a market share product for the global hotel industry, according to STR's parent company, real estate marketplaces, information and analytics provider CoStar Group. The new software platform will offer property-level data and analytics for hotel owners and operators with functionality built on the STAR Report. Acquired by CoStar in 2019, STR draws its benchmarking data from a sample of 77,000 participating properties with 10 million rooms around the world. STR Benchmarking provides new functions, including user and competitive set self-management as well as high-frequency updates to data. Future product enhancements, which are expected to begin rolling out later this year, include portfolio-level benchmarking, monthly P&L, average-length-of-stay data, and forward-looking occupancy.

Hotels are a business and business is about are making money.That's why a major focus for the industry now is on the technology that improves revenue generation. One company aiming to meet that need in Bloomington-Minnesota based ideas founded by life-long friends and colleagues Ravi Mehrotra and Sanjay Nagalia.Using their background in artificial intelligence ,they have created a revenue management system, that has been deployed by 19000 hotel properties, including recently added Choice Hotels International with that company's launch of its ChoiceMax program. Ideas software offers clients the ability to make rate decisions based on multiple factors that are most human brains can fully calculate.The program puts all the relevant data together in a comprehensive manner.