How To Use Benchmarking To Evaluate Performance And Maximize Revenue

December 2011

hostelbench

Introduction & Background:

- Fergal Mc Carthy¦Luke Bourke¦Fergus Cooney

- Early career in hotels – operations - finance…

2000 Caught a bug SaaS2009 Benchmarking for hotels Ireland

2011 The call from hostels hostelbench

Benchmarking…history and evolution

• Xerox believe that they formally invented/introduced benchmarking in early ‘80’s

• Robert Camp Ph.D.• Introduced benchmarking to the logistics operation of Xerox in 1981 “..the

continuous process of measuring our products, services and practices against our competition…” *

• *The Healthcare Forum Journal, January-February 1993, Vol. 36, #1, as "The Source."

Benchmarking…history and evolution

• Cobbler’s bench• “The term benchmarking was first used by cobblers to measure people's

feet for shoes. They would place someone's foot on a "bench" and mark it out to make the pattern for the shoes” Wikipedia

• Xerox Corporation in the 80’s • “the continuous process of measuring products, services, and practices

against the toughest competitors or those recognized as industry leaders.” David Kearne CEO, Xerox Corp.

Benchmarking…history and evolution

What are the odds?*

• Image courtesy of www.irishracing.com

Benchmarking…history and evolution..

• Formally and informally• Racetrack – “bookies benchmark their odds “against recognised industry

leaders”

• Supermarkets – forever benching price of products

• Automotive industry- benchmark everything from 0-60mph stats to fuel consumption

• Informal “Ring-around” in hotels : “What are you selling at tonight ..?”

Benchmarking in Hotels� Hotels – mid 1990’s

• STR Global� 2008 Acquisition and consolidation of:� Andersen/Deloitte� Hotel Industry Benchmark Survey: 1996

� Overlook Hospitality Management of Stockholm � The Bench – early 2000’s

Small Independent Irish company

Source: http://www.strglobal.com/about/History/STR_Global.aspx

Benchmarking in Hotels�What happens?

• Occupancy, Rate and RevPAR� Used on a daily and weekly basis by over 40,000

properties worldwide

• Suite of reports

• Classified by City, Star-rating, CompSet

Benchmarking in Hotels�Why?

• Formalising the informal

• Reducing resource time allocation

• Consolidating channel search*

• Ryanair & Southwest airline

Benchmarking in Hotels�Consolidating channel search*

• Findings: over 100 hotels – � variable non-standard % of room stock

• Attributed to multiple different channels

• Compare like-with-like?

Benchmarking in Hotels�Common platform

• Weekly Submission with ultimate goal

• “AN INFORMED DECISION!”

Benchmarking –the call from hostels!

O Timeline - call came in 2010 – acted in Summer 2011

O Research - spoke with industry luminaries

O Conclusion: Potential market worth exploring

Hostels  ..the  story  so  farO Beta trial since August/Sept

O Break / fix

O Ready to launch this month – Open for Business

How does it work…

• Weekly Submission:

• You submit your data online - beds sold and rate(s) - in confidence

• Likewise your competitors confidentially submit their data

How does it work…

• This generates a suite of reports – (demo to follow)

• Region/City - Occupancy, Rate, RevPAB (Rev per available bed)

• Competitive Set (Compset) – minimum 4 others aggregated

Business Application and benefits.

Fundamental aim

¤ To help you make informed decisions

And / Or

¤ To maximise you bed revenues for any given week

Who’s interested?

� Owners / Managers

� Credit institutions

� Potential owners / investors

� Tourism boards – greater unity => Stronger lobby*

Security & Data Integrity

¨ Data integrity¡ All data is stored in a commercial ISP data center¡ Is it safe?

ú Data access is protected via a secure hash algorithmú Server itself is firewalled

¨ Can I retrieve my data in full if I leave the service?¡ Yes – for 30days.

¨ Will my data be passed on to third parties? ¡ No. Other than regional reports E.g. Hostel

Occupancy for Dublin Nov 2011 was…

Here’s one I made earlier

§Brief Demo.

§Sample Id’s available to anyone looking to try this at home.

Back to the future

“In four hours the ship blows up”...James Doohan

• Revenues are only one aspect of benchmarking

• Cost benchmarking…KPI’s

• Feature kaizen

Questions?

www.Hostelbench.com

Nollaig Shona daoibh go léir…

…agus go mbeimíd ar ais arís le chéile an bliain seo chugainn

Go raibh maith agat a GoMio don cuireadh.

Next year my profile will look less like this:

And more like this:

*Image courtesy of Crystal Henrickson, www.Yelp.ca

December 2011

hostelbench