In a cutthroat market,
to keep going - every business needs to have a competitive edge over
contenders. The scenario in the Hospitality and tourism sector is nothing
different, where lot of players can be seen battling for customers and for the bigger
market share.
Unlike before, with
too many Hotels around competing with each other, the customers have a lot on
platter to choose from and almost everyone today has the tendency to select
nothing but the best service providers in the market.
Price was, has been
and would always be a prime concern for customers. Earlier when the choices
were limited (in terms of service providers), the customers had no option than
going for whatever they used to get in the market at the FIXED price asked by
the suppliers.
However, with the change
in market scenario and entry of new players (and the trend is continuing), the
customers have the power and they are the ones that have the final say in
everything. In such a scenario (in an exclusive buyer’s market), it becomes
imperative for Hotels (companies) to be flexible in/with their approach towards
customers.
Irrespective of income
group or standard of living, every customer has concerns about pricing. Who
does not like best deals in anything? The customers would always look for
highest quality products/services that come with the best price tag. The Hotels
that befit the requirement of customers with respect to quality and pricing have
fair chance of winning them, at the first place.
In order to price
better and win customers to their business, the Hotels need to know what their
competitors are doing and what their pricing or customer strategies are. Watching
and following business rivals is very important, because if both (hotels) are
offering similar quality services and if one has a better pricing then
customers would go with that supplier where they are getting better deals.
Hence, to avoid losing
customers to business rivals, hotels need to stay ahead of competitors and try
to keep a close eye on all the business rivals (small and big) they have in the
market. Doing market research and analysis would always help in knowing the number
of competitors one has and about their strengths and weaknesses. Hotels need to
evaluate all the aspects of their competitors, as this would make them compare
their business with others and devise better strategies, accordingly.
In a business deal, at
the end – it is ‘better pricing’ that scores over everything else. Hence,
hotels need to know how their competitors are targeting customers and what
their pricing strategies are. Visiting websites of all the competitors or
comparing the price in all the portals on a routine manner, to know the offerings
or prices is not an easy job, as it incurs lot of time and labor. However,
hotels can overcome this challenge now, by adopting the WebCRS Market Watch technology, using which they would no longer require visiting hundreds or
thousands of websites of where the competitors have displayed the rates and
availability.
