By Evan Gull, Director of Products
Are you ready to do some creative pricing? Some yield management? Take care of special holiday rates without splitting your normal rates into segments every time you want a holiday rate? Looking for some better tools to verify that you have your rates exactly the way you want them?
Here's a quick preview of the new Verify Pricing tool which is just one part of what is coming your way on August 12th. Here's a screen shot of a plan I created:
Note that I have created a special holiday rate for the July 4 weekend to add $399 to the regular rate of $129.99 if the stay includes either July 4th or July 5th. I set this up as a "Term" adjustment so that the full $399 will be added if the stay includes either July 4 or July 5. If the stay includes just one of those nights, the full $399 will be added to the night that is included. If both nights are included, the $399 will be split equally between the two nights, adding $199.50 to each night. The screen shot above shows a stay arriving July 1 departing July 8 with $199.50 added to both July 4th and July 5th.
Verify Pricing Tool
Using the "Specific Booking" option, the Verify Pricing tool allows you to see the calculations as your rate rules are applied for the unit, dates, and occupancy (adults, children, pets) you want to test. The example above for July 4th has two rules that are applied.
Using the "Range" option, you can choose a range of Booking Start Dates (say July 1 through July 31) and a length of stay range (say 3-10 days) and you will get a matrix showing the total rate for 3 to 10 day stays in columns for arrivals from 7/1-7/31 in rows. This will make verification of your rate calculations much easier - especially in months where your rates very during peak holiday period.
It's also important to be able to enter and verify your rates before you put them online to the world. This becomes more difficult as your pricing becomes more sophisticated and begins to respond to the market supply and demand. So now you can create new pricing in "Test" mode while you are getting it all set up and verified. You can activate the new pricing whenever it is ready to go. You can also create pricing rules that will take effect on a date you select - so you can get it all ready and be sound asleep at home when it goes public at midnight on whatever day you choose.
These are just a few of the powerful and flexible features that will be available to you next week! I think that there are some exciting ways to put this to work for your business. I am looking forward to hearing about the creative ways that you use the new Pricing Engine. Drop me an email at egull@escapia.com and let me know what you are up to.
Comments