what we do industries

Hospitality, Travel, and Leisure

What’s going on?

This industry is currently facing an interesting dichotomy of metrics: occupancy and demand are down, but modestly. Supply and average daily rate (ADR) are up, but not overwhelmingly. Revenue per available room (revPAR)—the most-used indicator of a hotel’s health—is growing, but at the slowest rate since the darker days of 2001-2003. Yet this measure is approaching the 20-year average of 3.4%.

Adding to these not-bad-but-not-great statistics are other contrasts: fuel prices have made Americans less willing to travel, while the exchange rate has made foreigners more willing. Discretionary income discourages leisure travel, while corporate profits still support business travel.

At the same time, in an industry where the consumer experience is the product, hotels and travel destinations feel the impact of the new, empowered, and capriciously choosy customer perhaps more than any other industry does.

Regarding this modern generation of customers in a climate of economic uncertainty, indecision and inactivity are not options, and guidance is a must.

How can Clarity help?

To the world’s providers of travel, lodging, and hospitality, Clarity brings the professionals and the skills to solve industry-specific problems like the following:

Lack of an actionable strategy to meet revenue goals
Varied and multiplying options for distribution
Demographically diverse customers with falling demand, high expectations, and little loyalty
Constant technology and tool requirements from both internal and external users

Lack of an actionable strategy to meet revenue goals

Your issue: The need to quantify macroeconomic data and microeconomic specifics (tangible and intangible) like your geography, market, and unique value proposition, to determine what you should be doing to protect and improve your bottom line in both the near and long term.

Our answer:

A revenue/yield management solution, along with a master plan for implementing it, that combines your customer data with your sales, inventory, and performance data across business units to achieve revenue numeracy. Clarity can help you answer, in quantifiable terms, questions like:

What actions do we need to take to increase revenue by one percent? Five percent?
Which affects revenue more, service innovation or e-mail marketing? Package stay promotions or an ADR increase?
How should we adjust prices over time based on supply and demand data to date?
Through what distribution channels, and at what price, should we offer which products?
How can we segment customers based on price sensitivity, stay patterns, and preferences?
To what channels, and when, should we guide which customers?

Learn about Clarity’s specific strategy and master planning services.

Learn about Clarity’s specific data integration skills.

Varied and multiplying options for distribution

Your issue: The proliferation of distribution channels and its profound impact on whether your transactions, pricing strategies, brand marketing, acquisition and retention efforts, and operations activities are profitable.

Our answer:

A distribution strategy that optimizes your price, promotions, and products across channels, along with the enhanced technology to implement it.

Clarity builds and supports Internet and self-service channels that offer your consumers information and guidance, dynamic packaging, and the ability to complete the entire buying cycle from planning to purchasing (with a host of payment options) to procuring tickets—which drives consumers to your site and keeps them there. We also support distribution regulations and technologies including Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and the GDS new entrants (GNEs).

In your distribution mix, Clarity can also incorporate mobile technologies that, corresponding to your mobile channel goals, provide either a dialogue environment or a sales and billing platform.

Learn about Clarity’s planning and strategy and application development services.

Demographically diverse customers with falling demand, high expectations, and little loyalty

Your issue: The need to create demand and capture loyalty from a wide group of consumers who differ in most characteristics except one: intelligence. Today’s consumers are smart and savvy, and they feel that travel is their right rather than a privilege.

Up for grabs in particular are several segments: the luxury market, which tends to be undaunted by economic downturns; the European market, which benefits from a strong Euro; and the Asia Pacific market, which continues to become more affluent and is actively engaged online.

Our answer:

Business intelligence and data warehousing solutions that gather voluminous data from your existing systems and then cleanse, consolidate, maintain, and deliver that data to you.

Clarity provides the data mining capabilities that you can use to:

Achieve a 360º view of customers and prospects.
Discover the patterns they exhibit.
Predict their future behaviors.
Tailor services for them so that you can drive up a newer critical metric, revenue per available customer (revPAC).

Learn about Clarity’s BI/DW services.

Constant technology and tool requirements from both internal and external users

Your issue: The numerous technologies that you must choose, integrate, and support: for employees, transactions, and core business processes; to guests during their stays; and for all the devices that guests bring with them and expect to use.

Our answer:

Networking, integration, and system support services from experienced architects, engineers, and developers who can build best-of-breed solutions or provide expertise on commercial suite applications. Whatever your technology stack, project pipeline, or guest requirements, Clarity can increase your ROI, contain your IT outlay, and help contain rising operating costs.

Learn about Clarity’s specific technology and tool expertise.