The aim of this thesis is to introduce theoretical basis and practical review of actual revenue management usage in hospitality, espacially in the Food&Beverage Department. First chapter brings out the concept of revenue management from the view of its origin, development and integration into other industries. The second and third chapter describes different tools and approaches between the Rooms and Food&Beverage Department. The purpose of the last chapter is to compare revenue management usage through survey within both mentioned departments in the Czech Republic.

As a result of the perfect storm of 2008-2009 (an intensely competitive environment and extremely harsh economic conditions), hotel properties around the world are more dependent upon revenue management strategies today. Furthermore, hotel revenue management has become a core strategic element for both domestic and international major brand name hotels within today's worldwide lodging industry. Accordingly, this study examined any potential linkage between revenue management resources, management approach, working knowledge of the external environment, and overall revenue management performance of international hotel properties. In this context, revenue management resources speak to management information systems, technology, and human capital. Furthermore, management's approach to how the external environment is taken into consideration is also addressed. Consequently, this study identifies which specific outside variables management considers relevant to the revenue management decision-making process. As such, this study contributes to the discipline of revenue management by addressing the following: (a) How are revenue management decisions for hotel properties influenced by external factors if at all? (b) How significant are internal resources, such as human capital and technology, to the success of hotel revenue management programs and systems as well as overall firm performance in a cross-border, premier international tourist destination? The results of this study help to augment and expand revenue management theory as well as provide hotel managers with a deeper understanding as to how revenue management decisions are influenced by external environmental factors as well as the importance of internal resources on hotel revenue management performance.

Magíster en Gestión y Dirección de Empresas / El presente proyecto de tesis, tiene la oportunidad de analizar y diseñar una propuesta de valor al cliente que tiene como objetivo evaluar la factibilidad estratégica, técnica y económica para la creación de una oferta de servicios derivados de la venta de pasajes, focalizada en los clientes de viaje interurbano terrestre nacional. Se pretende, enfocar en un modelo que de soporte a esta propuesta, por lo cual el Modelo de CANVAS será que se utilizará en conjunto con la metodología de revenue managment para entregar oferta servicio adecuada al cliente según sus necesidades de manera dinámica, por lo cual el canal de comunicación como el canal de venta deberá estar directamente relacionado y actualizado según los tiempos o necesidades del cliente. Es importante que mediante el análisis de los clientes utilizando encuestas o estudios de demanda como unas de las herramientas de análisis, para determinar los servicios ofrecidos como el tamaño y disposición a pagar tendrá el cliente. A su vez, la alianza estratégica con empresa que presten los servicios que demandan los clientes será un factor de éxito, y por cual esta integración dependerá del nivel de integración informática con se cuenta, como también la gama de oferta de medios de pago que se realizará para los clientes, donde las casas comerciales tienen un segmento socioeconómico similar al de transporte de pasajero terrestre. Con esto se pretende tener un club de beneficio que entrega descuento como ofertas individuales o complementarias (paquete de oferta) de servicios con valores que los clientes estén dispuesto a cancelar para la fecha deseada.

Travel booking behavior has changed substantially over the past two decades. The emergence of new technology and online intermediaries has provided travelers with the flexibility to book up until the date of stay. This has created a fast-paced, dynamic booking environment that disrupts traditional revenue management strategies focused on pricing and allocating rooms based on the time of purchase. The study explores the joint effects of technology and the economy on booking window lead times. It also evaluates a range of forecasting techniques and the importance of utilizing the booking curve for forecasting in dynamic booking environments. / PHD

Robust Airline Fleet Assignment Barry C. Smith 140 Pages Directed by Dr. Ellis L. Johnson Fleet assignment models are used by many airlines to assign aircraft to flights in a schedule to maximize profit. Major airlines report that the use of fleet assignment models increases annual profits by more than $100 million. The results of fleet assignment models affect subsequent planning, marketing and operational processes within the airline. Anticipating these processes and developing solutions favorable to them can further increase the benefits of fleet assignment models. We propose to produce fleet assignment solutions that increase planning flexibility and reduce cost by imposing station purity, limiting the number of fleet types allowed to serve each airport in the schedule. We demonstrate that imposing station purity on the fleet assignment model can limit aircraft dispersion in the network and make solutions more robust relative to crew planning, maintenance planning and operations. Because station purity can significantly degrade computational efficiency, we develop a solution approach, Station Decomposition, which takes advantage of airline network structure. Station Decomposition uses a column generation approach to solving the fleet assignment problem; we further improve the performance of Station Decomposition by developing a primal-dual method that increases the solution quality and model efficiency. Station Decomposition solutions can be highly fractional; we develop a fix and price heuristic to efficiently find integer solutions to the fleet assignment problem. Airline profitability can be increased if fleet assignment models anticipate the effects of marketing processes such as revenue management. We develop an approach, ODFAM, which incorporates airline revenue management effects into the fleet assignment model. We develop an approach to incorporate station purity and ODFAM using a combination of column and cut generation. This approach can increase airline profit up to $27 million per year.

This study investigates the revenue performance of choice-based revenue management (RM) systems in various business environments. Previous research conducted using simulated data suggests that incremental revenue gains of up to 15% are to be expected when choice-based RM techniques are employed. In addition, despite the novelty of these techniques, the implementation of choice-based RM systems is considered to be feasible at large global corporations. The revenue potential and the ease of execution associated with the choice-based methods are examined in the context of a large hotel chain. Customer-centric data which includes transaction and time of booking availability information is collected for five hotel properties located in the continental US. The customer preference for hotel products and their attributes is determined using discrete choice and other ad hoc models of demand. Optimization techniques that account for the customer purchasing behavior are employed to compute the capacity control policies the hotel operator should follow to maximize its revenues. Results indicate that collecting customer-centric data from today s RM systems is a time-consuming task. In the environment in which the study hotels operate, the choice-based RM systems report incremental revenue gains that are dependent on how the purchasing behavior models are formulated. In capacity constrained regimes that are the focus of RM, revenue gains of up to 2% are typically noted. In controlled environments in which the customer purchasing behavior can be better asserted, the incremental revenue gains range between 1% and 14%. These findings suggest that the execution of the choice-based RM, while feasible, needs to be preceded by the implementation of efficient and, most likely, expensive data collection procedures. The incremental revenue gains, consistent with those reported in the literature, indicate that RM users can substantially benefit from the use of the choice-based RM.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

This diploma thesis discusses Revenue management as an operational approach to revenue maximization in the hotel industry. The main objective of this thesis is to assess Revenue management approaches of two Prague hotels based on the comparison with academic theory in the hotel industry. The opening part is focused on prerequisites and tools used in Revenue management. Further, new approaches are introduced as well as current trends that have emerged in the recent time. The closing chapter analyses Revenue management of the selected hotels, including technologies, segmentation, pricing and rate management, demand forecasting, distribution, ancillary revenue streams and more. Finally, each Revenue management approach is subjectively confronted and assessed.

The aim of the thesis is to introduce revenue management as complex managerial approach to hotel's revenue optimization with the case of Accor company. And, based on results of company's Prague's hotels analysis, suggest more effective revenue optimization solutions. To achieve this, the first chapter brings out theoretical knowledge of revenue management, its development, different approaches and tools of revenue optimization. Second chapter brings an insight to Accor company profile. The importance of revenue management for the company and practical cases of revenue optimization tools usage is content of third chapter. The purpose of the last chapter is to identify weaknesses of current revenue management tools application in five hotels of the company in Prague and to suggest steps leading to improved contribution of revenue management tools to revenue optimization. Most of them could bring higher revenue and profit contribution in a short term. Suggested steps are limited by knowledge and experience of the author. They are solely addressed to company's Prague's hotels. Deeper analysis could reveal other weaknesses. To eliminate them, coordinated action of Accor's headquarters is needed. Elimination of these imperfections would lead to improved performance of Accor's Prague's hotels as well.

Magíster en Gestión de Operaciones / Ingeniero Civil Industrial / En el presente trabajo se considera el problema de asignación de asientos para diversas clases de clientes en una red de Aerolíneas, más conocido en inglés como Network Revenue Management. Usando la metodología de programación dinámica, se busca maximizar el beneficio esperado sujeto a restricciones de tiempo y capacidad de los aviones en la red. Uno de los problemas que enfrentan las aerolíneas al momento de vender vuelos interconectados en una red es qué precio fijar para cada clase de cliente de tal forma de no dejar potenciales compradores fuera al fijar precios altos, ni perder potenciales ingresos con precios bajos. Para gestionar la demanda a través del tiempo, las aerolíneas utilizan políticas de control de asientos como Booking Limits, Protection Levels o Bid Prices, cuya solución se obtiene de resolver problemas de optimización dinámicos o estáticos. Esta tesis aborda este problema cuando la demanda está sujeta a incertidumbre. Bajo este escenario el problema es altamente riesgoso, pues los costos de operación son elevados y el producto que se ofrece es perecible, es decir, los asientos libres no se pueden inventariar lo que genera pérdidas. Para enfrentar esto se propone resolver usando optimización aversa al riesgo más conocida como optimización robusta. El enfoque de optimización robusta es optimizar contra el peor de los casos que pudiera surgir debido a la incertidumbre en la demanda, encontrando políticas de control en la capacidad de los aviones relativamente insensibles a variaciones en la estimación de demanda. La formulación robusta intenta mitigar el impacto de los errores en la estimación de probabilidades de transición mediante la elección de una política óptima maximin, donde la minimización es sobre un conjunto de probabilidades de transición y el objetivo es escoger una política que maximice los beneficios esperados sobre este conjunto. Los experimentos que se realizaron muestran que cuando el riesgo supera cierto umbral, el modelo robusto captura de forma más eficiente el riesgo y obtiene resultados esperados mejores que los modelos tradicionales.