Our team is gearing up to head to New Orleans for HITEC and HSMAI’s Revenue Optimization Conference. We’ll be located at HITEC booth #1552 and ROC booth #10 if you would like to stop by and see us, or arrange a meeting in New Orleans during your stay. You can also follow coverage of the show on our Twitter feeds @LodgIQ and @LodgIQmktwatch.
In the meantime, you can get to know us a little better in this interview with our CEO, Ravneet Bhandari.
What inspired you to lead LodgIQ in creating this revolutionary revenue management platform?
We believe that the forecasting approach of many revenue technology platforms is outdated. While providing insights that lead to profitable business decisions, many data sources simply aren’t accounted for, instead being managed via spreadsheets.
Modern revenue management technology should simplify everyday tasks while also revealing intelligent, actionable insights from the analysis of big data to drive a more specific (and profitable) rate strategy.
How is LodgIQ different from other revenue management technologies on the market?
Machine Learning
LodgIQ incorporates advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to extract relevant signals from evolving demand patterns and price elasticity by segment. That enables our technology to react to market dynamics in real time to recommend optimal, personalized pricing at a unique customer level.
Forecasting
Legacy technology’s forecasting is based on linear regression models which are limiting as they cannot handle many variables. LodgIQ takes a holistic, outside-in approach to forecasting, evaluating the market first, then the neighborhood, then the hotel itself. By harnessing the power of machine learning, we can create a composition of multiple real-time demand variables to reveal high-value revenue opportunities.
Intelligent User Experience
The patented LodgIQ Board is a highly engaging and very effective user interface. Designed to adapt to different user personas, and usable on any device, it thinks, learns and morphs with each user’s unique clickstream, and introduces several industry-first features including Smart Alerts to allow revenue managers to quickly act on recommendations and Q-laborate, a team sharing function within the platform.
Mobile RM
LodgIQ Mobile RM includes all of the advanced functionality and ease of usage of the LodgIQ platform, and allows users to fully optimize their hotel’s revenue and profitability from their mobile device. The patented Voice IQ feature enables hands-free, natural speech driven access to all of the advanced functionality, analytics and decisions.
What does LodgIQ’s ideal customer look like? Is there a type of hotel that would benefit most from this technology?
LodgIQ’s system architecture is modular and can be customized to service the full spectrum of the hospitality industry, from limited and full-service properties, to large gaming properties with complex segmentation needs.
Why should hotels care about vacation rentals? Where are you seeing the most market demand impact from vacation rental data?
Hotels are naive to think that vacation rentals are not impacting occupancy rates. Reports have shown a dip in occupancy in major markets and the trend is continuing. Hotels must have visibility into vacation rental inventory and demand within their neighborhood in order to remain competitive.
Leisure business, in particular, has been most impacted. Hotels leaning heavily on this type of business should account for the rates being paid for vacation rentals in their property’s direct vicinity. Hotels can gain a better insight for future market demand by observing this alternate accommodation category, due to the longer booking window typical of vacation rentals.
LodgIQ has a strong emphasis on design and user experience. Why do you think that is important in the revenue management space?
Traditional RMS present an old data view of what B2B enterprise software “should” look like. Unfortunately, it doesn’t drive user engagement.
The way information is presented is a major component to the utility of the tool itself. By reducing the number of clicks required to complete every-day tasks there is a distinct productivity advantage. Similarly, with our audience skewing younger, we knew it was essential to incorporate similar design elements and workflows already seen in the B2C technology they use every day.
Take Q-laborate for example, a feature of LodgIQ RM centered around the concept of collaboration. The sharing of information is vital to a team’s overall success yet many RMS make it surprisingly complicated to do so. Q-laborate allows users to notate and share reporting snapshots with their team without ever leaving the platform.
Is there anything else you would like conference attendees to know?
Is there anything else you would like conference attendees to know?Firstly, our product is pronounced ‘logic’, but if you like to pronounce it ‘lodge I.Q.’ that’s ok with us too. Take a look at the product and talk to the team during the event. We are so convinced by the benefits from using LodgIQ that we will offer conference attendees a ‘Try Before You Buy’ evaluation for their hotel or portfolio of hotels. Simply fill out the form here to secure your LodgIQ trial.
