Hotel patrons want hotels to provide the right room at the right time and, most importantly, at the right price. At the same time, hotel managers want to offer the right room at the right time and price in terms of their own bottom line.

What if, in addition to these standard revenue management factors, hotel management could offer not only the right room, but also the right airline ticket, the right car reservation, even the right destination-specific activity at the right time and price? And what if hotel owners could bundle their product attractively with complementary products and maintain brand and price integrity at the same time?

By augmenting the basic principles of revenue management to include the increased flexibility of dynamic packaging, hotel managers can provide full travel packages for their customers-while maximizing profits through real-time availability and yielding.

While dynamic packaging has become a buzzword in the travel industry, many remain unaware of its full capabilities. Yes, dynamic packaging involves bundling several disparate items together — including airfare, hotel reservations, cruise opportunities, and car rental. But bundling isn't the whole story.

Real-time availability and pricing options are now standard in dynamic packaging, allowing management to capitalize on prime purchasing timeframes without needing cumbersome weekly/monthly reports, pre-determined block pricing or inefficient allocations.

Dynamic packaging also creates an even deeper knowledge base of customers and their regular behavior, which provides yet another way for hotel managers to efficiently manage revenue. Knowing where most hotel patrons are visiting from or what specific activities take place each time customers visit is invaluable to hotel managers interested in optimizing their brands.

Dynamic packaging also allows hoteliers to manage revenue and maintain brand loyalty at the same time. Consumers who make reservations directly on a hotel's website are interested in working directly with that hotel. If they can arrange a vacation or business trip complete with transportation as well, customers will be more likely to continue using the same brand.

Not only can dynamic packaging tools offer multiple options depending on a customer's desires, they also provide real-time availability and yielding options for managers via web-based tools securely accessible from any location. The control panel determines the business rules with which inventory will be sold to a variety of channels. It also provides hundreds of reports and tracking tools on an intuitive interface to gauge channel performance.

Dynamic packaging options available to airlines, rental car companies, transport businesses and the cruise industry constitute a giant network enabling hotels to offer a variety of packages to their customers and manage revenues at the same time.

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As president & CEO of EzRez Software since its incorporation in 2002, Tina Fitch has guided the company from a regional entity to a globall presence. Reach her at 808-735-7777 and/or tfitch@ezrez.com.