Business Reporting

Automated report forecasts next quarter's revenue

 

 

Background

As the UK’s fastest growing budget hotel group with over 380 hotels in the UK, Ireland and Spain, Travelodge is committed to being number one in the sector on price. A price-checking programme that monitors the rates of other hotel groups ensures it maintains this position but there are other Travelodge management initiatives that complement this focus on price competitiveness and drive efficiencies.

 

change++ helped Travelodge’s Revenue Management department to develop an automated report to allow the group to forecast income over the next quarter and intervene quickly where a shortfall is predicted.

 

 

Solution

change++ recommended Microsoft’s Reporting Services rather than Excel to accelerate the data extraction, consolidation and reporting process.

 

By taking information on future bookings from the group’s reservations system and comparing sales for the same period last year, the new report identifies those hotels unlikely to meet their quarter target. The revenue shortfalls can be addressed immediately and spare capacity promoted. The report can also be used to support decisions on room rates for the next financial period.

 

As the process requires no manual intervention the new revenue forecast report is available and completely current at 0900 hrs for revenue managers to begin their review of the numbers. The data is also centralised within one database, vastly increasing efficiency in the process management.

 

 

Benefits

According to Travelodge’s Farabi Syed, “Automating this report makes a significant difference to how quickly we can respond to market conditions.

 

We have worked with change++ on several projects previously but it’s fair to say that we didn’t have a clearly defined brief for this project. We told change++ what we wanted to achieve and they worked hard to understand our processes and develop a solution not only to an iterative specification but also by recommending the optimal set of tools. That commitment and fluidity is valued. They built the system very quickly and it’s put us in a stronger position to deal with a challenging climate.”

 

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