There’s no secret that most hoteliers are changing and modifying the price strategy that they use as time passes. They either choose a price for the minimum length of stay when things are busy during the season, or they opt for restrictions during a particular day when they prevent new arrivals. Either way, such restrictions are a common business practice. But then question is, these restrictions can be used on a daily basis? Let’s find out about the most widely used restrictions and see if they can bring competition in the hotelier market.
The minimum length of stay
This type of restriction was widely used before and it rose even more in popularity as the booking channels grew, however with more and more bookings being made online, the MinLOS isn’t that popular any more. The first reason behind this is the fact that it lowers the ability to book in accordance with what they need, and not based on the corporate policies. This is one of the inconvenience that comes as a major restriction for any hotelier, and which brings in inconveniences that make the user base head to the competitors. Another decrease here is the online visibility, because this type of restriction will filter out all the searchers. As a result, this will cost you direct bookings and at the same time it also decreases the overall billboard effect as a whole.
Closed to departure/arrival
There are hoteliers that decide to make a single day closed either on arrival or departure, and this immediately brings in restrictions for the users, which is inconvenient for those that want to perform such action, because the others which are already in the hotel can stay there without a problem. While such restrictions are suitable for controlling the amount of departures and arrivals during a specific set of events, there are many hoteliers which are overusing them in order to cope with issues such as short staffing or to further optimize the checking in process. But the problem here is that it can be very hard for the customers to book, so try to figure out alternatives, get a complex PMS for reservation or bring in check-out via iPads, there are many solutions to be used here.
Maximum amount of stay
This particular type of restriction limits the guests to perform bookings which are used to extend more than a few days. It can be encountered mostly in situations where you can find promotional discounts and at the same time there are many situations in which the hoteliers are bringing in a maximum stay restriction, as this will allow them to protect themselves, because giving away free nights will limit the revenue.
Hotels need to increase their bookings, so this type of restriction is counter intuitive. You need promotional discounts in order to make more bookings, but if you penalize them then only bad results can come out of it. Sure, there are many restrictions, but the one that could be used is price, because this allows them to acquire better results. Basic supply and demand rules are demanding hoteliers to increase the price in those situations where bookings are high, but when these are lower increasing might be a good idea.
What type of restrictions do you use for your hotel? If you don’t use any, try to implement the ones in this article for the best set of results!
