THE ABC OF ELECTRONIC DISTRIBUTION

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Rate Parity

Common hospitality industry term used to describe a rate strategy which offers the same rate with the same conditions for a particular room type in all distribution channels.  As the Internet provides a high level of price transparency, rate parity strengthens the customer’s faith in receiving a competitive offer and may even encourage brand loyalty.

Representation Company (Distribution Partners)

Distribution and marketing companies such as The Leading Hotels of the World, Top International Hotels, Utell or Worldhotels which support the hotels with their international distribution. A uniform market representation under a common GDS chain code is typical for this marketing strategy.

Revenue Management (Yield Management)

This term describes an instrument for a simultaneous and dynamic price and capacity controlling method (based on real time forecast of current demand). With the help of a permanent calculation on a micro level (single rate groups) demand patterns can be determined and pricing models calculated. Consequently, Revenue Management is a particular kind of price discrimination which varies by different levels, e.g. by certain weekdays/holidays or by released room allocations (once an allocation is utilized, the according rate or rate group will become unavailable). The goal is to optimize revenue with the support of an intelligent and dynamic pricing strategy. Airlines were the pioneers in the field of revenue management.

RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room)

RevPAR is an important metric for the hotel industry in order to compare hotels of different sizes. It is measured by total room revenue divided by total rooms available, e.g. EUR 20,000 divided by 400 rooms available = EUR 50 RevPAR.

RFP (Request for Proposal)

RFPs are tenders for certain services. In the hospitality industry, this term describes the annual consortia and negotiated corporate rates negotiation process between hotels (suppliers) and travel management companies or corporations (demanders). h2c supports hotel chains that search for new distribution solutions. For more information please see Strategy Development.

RMS (Revenue Management System)

Software or system solutions for Revenue Management, supporting real time analysis of supply and demand patterns, and administrating particular pricing strategies by providing automated price calculations and recommendations.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

Technology used to send content or parts of messages to subscribers via “Feeds“. RSS is either a software application, which is able to read feeds or a small plug-in, required to read the feed. New information is automatically sent to the subscriber.