Holiday campaigns require planning and preparation. Revintel can be leveraged to help you devise a winning strategy, but preparation is key. Avoid last minute planning and execution, as the competition will be tough.

In this checklist, we've outlined some of the best practices to follow when planning your holiday campaigns:

• Leverage Revintel reports and filters to vary your analysis.
• Discuss past successes and opportunities.
• Understand how the most recent holidays performed outside of unique market conditions (i.e., Covid-19 Pandemic).
• Consider a number of different questions your teams should be answering as you plan your strategy.

Know your target dates

What are your key holiday target dates? Identify your "watch dates" with your Commercial Strategy Team.

• Does the holiday fall on a different DOW than prior year? Has a DOW shift had an impact in past years? Or do you run similar OCC/ADR for the period regardless of the DOW pattern?

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Market > Market Segment by Day (use date filters) 

Understand your past

Conduct an historical analysis to know what worked and what didn't in the past. Can your successes be replicated with current market conditions? What did you learn that can be applied to your upcoming holiday strategy?

Market Segment Analysis

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Market > Market Segment by Day 

• Review Macro Segment and Micro Segments/Rate Code performance for target holiday periods.
• What was your Transient/Group Mix during the most recent holiday periods? Previous years? 
• Be sure to also leverage other Competitive Set benchmarking tools to see gaps in your performance against the Competitive Set. 

Rate Code Performance

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Market > Rate Code Analysis

• What are the top performing rate plans during the most recent holidays or previous year's holidays?
• What rate plans underperformed? Do you have too many active offers for the upcoming holiday season?

Channel Performance

• Your holiday strategies should include a multi-channel approach. Consider ways of optimizing your channel mix.

Leverage this report to identify your target distribution channels: Revintel Reports > Channel > Channel Report 

• What channels performed well during the most recent holiday periods or the past holiday periods? 
• Drill down to the channels that drove your target market segments or specific promotions/package rate codes (use report filters).

• If you are targeting a particular offer/promotion that you have deployed in the past, use the rate code filter to identify which channel drove the most volume.
• What profitable channels underperformed and what strategies can you deploy to make those channels a success?
• Don't neglect your internal and direct channels - your on-site/off-site Reservations Teams are great Sales Managers you can enlist to help promote your holiday strategies.

Agent Analysis

Leverage this report by drilling down to the Rate Code performance: Revintel Reports > Business Source > Agent Analysis.

• What agents performed well during the holiday period? What market segments/rate codes were booked? Can you re-target these agents for the holiday period? Review the travel agencies that also performed well in the most recent holiday periods. 
• Review this report with your Sales Team to identify target B2B strategies that could impact your holiday period.

Company Analysis

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Business Source > Company Analysis

• Don't be quick to assume that companies won't travel over the holiday periods. Drill down to the rate code performance and review which companies can be targeted once again. 
• Think outside the box to ensure you capture any and all business travel that may be lingering through the holiday period. 

Lead Times

• Have lead times recently changed for the most recent holidays?

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Booking Trends > Rooms Lead Time (the screenshot below is part of the report)

• Do you expect the same lead time for the upcoming holiday periods?
• What is the lead time for your target rate plans/market segments and distribution channels? Leverage the Revintel analysis to set your go-to-market dates for your promotions/package marketing.

Length of Stay

Leverage this report to review historical dates: Revintel Reports > Booking Trends > Length of Stay Report

• Is LOS part of your strategy? 
• Are you thinking of a LOS promotion/package? Will it work with your most recent LOS trends?
• Consider reviewing LOS patterns for different market segments and/or rate codes. Use the report filters to identify LOS patterns for particular market segments or rate codes.

Carefully monitor pickup and pace

Reviewing historical performance is important, but keeping a pulse on current pickup and pace is ever critical. Even if you are outside the booking window, consider reviewing pickup for your holiday target dates. Understanding what segments/rate plans are picking up, even outside the booking window, will ensure that you have ample time to adjust pricing and/or strategy to optimize your RevPAR performance.

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Booking Trends > Pace and Pickup Analysis

• This is a combination report that allows you to look at pace and pickup at the day level for Total Occupied/Group Sold.
• Review the 1-day and 7-day pickup for Group, Total Occupied Rooms and ADR/Revenue and RevPAR (found on page 2 of the report shown above). Are there any spikes in pickup? Are your strategies moving you towards your goals?
• Utilize the recently added Comparison Year filter to pace your current year performance against 2 years ago or 3 years ago.

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Bookings Trends > Pickup by Day Detailed report

• This report allows you to see pickup for your target holiday period, and breaks down pickup from the segment level to rate code level and day level (found on page 3 of the report shown above).
• Are your strategies paying off? Are the promotions/packages you are marketing picking up?
• Is there another rate code or market segment that is picking up that you did not anticipate?
• Leverage the channel filter to review pickup for your distribution channels. Are your brand website, in-house reservations, GDS and OTA strategies driving volume?

Take advantage of the Comparison Year filter

With recent market conditions impacted by the Covid-19, pace against previous year may not be particularly relevant. Revintel allows you to review pace, not only against the current year, but also against 2 years ago or 3 years ago with the Comparison Year filter. Review pace for your segments, rate codes and channels to identify what is performing better than previous years. Identify successes as a result of your new holiday strategies. Identify gaps in performance versus the comparison year; is the pace performance anticipated? Below are some key Revintel reports that aid in pace analysis:

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Market > Monthly Market Segment Report

• This report is a monthly snapshot, not only of your pace against a comparison year, but also the monthly performance against budget, forecast and the comparison year's month end performance. (Screenshot reflects one portion of the report.)

• As a best practice, load your Budget and Forecast into Revintel to leverage all Forecast/Budget reports.
• Although not specific to a particular range of dates, if your holiday target dates impact a week or more of a month, you may want to glance at the entire month's performance and understand segment gaps against budget/forecast and comparison year. 
• This high-level glance is often used amongst General Managers that want to see the big picture. 

Leverage this report to review your target holiday dates (one of the top used reports in Revintel!): Revintel Reports > Booking Trends > Rate Code Pace Report

• What market segments/rate codes are performing or underperforming?
• Use the Comparison Year filter to review rate code pace against previous years. 
• Are you seeing any successes that you can share with the team? Which rate codes are falling behind expectations/prior years? Is there opportunity to promote/enhance marketing tactics for the particular rate code/offer?

Leverage this report: Revintel Reports > Booking Trends > Channel Pace Analysis

• Ensure your holiday strategy has a multi-channel approach. 

• Call out your successes and opportunities against the comparison year. 
• Are there tactics you can use to lift your most profitable channel's performance. 
• Vary your filters. If you find that particular segments or rate codes are up/down versus a comparison period, you can drill down on which channels are driving the performance using the Market/Rate Code filters on this report.

Automate it!

Revintel's report scheduler allows you to schedule reports and have them delivered right to your inbox. Consider scheduling some of the above Pace & Pickup reports for your holiday target dates once a week. Keep an eye on performance. 

Market conditions add another dimension to your strategy planning questions. Be sure to evaluate how the competition is pricing and promoting the holidays. Whether the holidays are a slow period or a high-demand period, they require you to review pace and pickup frequently. Be prepared to adjust your strategies and involve each member of your Commercial Strategy Team.

The best approach is to be prepared

Find the questions you need to answer to optimize your business. Break down those questions and use Revintel to solve them. Identify what worked and seek to improve on your past opportunities. 

Happy holiday planning!

More about Revintel:

• How to have additional users created
• Report Parameters
• Comparison Year, a new report parameter, and other enhancements
• How to schedule reports