Forecasting is Important For Rooms & FnB
BW HOTELIER Smart Hotels Conclave and Expo 2018 organised a discussion on the ‘New Age Revenue & Sales. Does technology help?’ with Kanika Hasrat, General Manager, Taj Vivanta Dwarka; Sanjay Gupta, General Manager, Le Meridien, Gurugram; Prashant Mehrotra, Chief Revenue Officer, Lemon Tree Hotels, India; Anirban Sarkar, General Manager, Country Inns & Suites; Dhananjay Kumar, GM, The Suryaa, New Delhi, moderated by Rahul Pandit, Former MD & CEO, Ginger Hotels.
Hasrat initiated the session by stating that accurate forecasting is the key. According to her, forecasting is not only for rooms, but it is also for F&B. She believes that understanding what drives the customers at what time of the year and understanding the trends of the hotel is very important.
Sarkar, however, said, “We often ignore that F&B revenue management is important.” He also added that as the world is getting connected, a lot of data is being generated. According to him, there is a need to start trapping this data.
Elaborating on what LemonTree did in technology, Mehrotra said, “We went to cloud in 2008 and this has helped us dramatically in operations. Data is the key.” He added that the hotel has a robust database and the company is completely driven by technology.
Talking about the importance of technology in hotels, Gupta said, “Every part of technology is important for every sector of this business.” He believes that the more technology the hotel uses, the more advantageous it’ll be for them.
Kumar mentioned that everything in The Suryaa will be digital within the next two years. He added that their focus is on the digitisation of FnB. While explaining that the hotel has employed technology in several areas, he talked about Table Management System (TMS) and also about the Robo machines which helped in cleaning the swimming pools. The hotel, he added, is also looking at using robots for cleaning the banquets. The hotel focusses on retaining customers through automation and said that guest interactions at the hotel are also going to be digitalised.
