2017 came to pass and I think one of the most unpredictable trading annum experienced yet. For one, nothing was the way it ‘used to be’, i.e. good trading Jan to Mar, shoulder in April, winter May to July, shoulder trading Aug to Sep and full steam high season Oct to Dec. But: no, none of the above materialised. We can certainly conclude 2016 was extraordinary in many ways, from record revenues, occupancies and demand. Most owners and operators smilingly set 2017 targets based on what? 2016 trends of course. But 2017 had a mind of its own. January enjoyed the usual Dec overflow, corporate travel kicked in as usual just after school reconvened and for all it looked ok as usual. Even March was rosy despite the Argus non-event, but the STO’s was still around, and Easter was the next anticipated high yielding period.   As we entered April with a slight deficit vs LY OTB, hoping to recover before winter, 2017 let itself loose upon us. As with the little rain, so was the demand. It simply diminished. Licking our wounds by end April, writing it off to ‘it will be ok’, May hit us on the nose. Winter (May to July), extended deep into September. Domestic travel was down , international down, water restrictions on the cards and STR reported 10% drop in 5 stars YoY. The high end hotels of course cut rate, which in turn rendered the 3 stars to sell BAR at R650 to R850, and even at this rate level business wasn’t enough to help us out of the hole. By this time most hotels were up to 30% down on 2016, and even more on their budgets. For us at Hotel Revenue Manager it was indeed a period spending a lot of time in our cars and at airports making to various meetings to help remedy the losses. The period was very challenging but it forced us all to go back and relook at the way we do business. We started tracking website traffic, measured conversion, offer compelling deals with interesting value adds and treating every single call coming through the switchboard ‘as gold’ and manage by market segment. In many ways it was a forced training session to make us realise that relying on historic trends is not a way to budget for one, and secondly to leave nothing to chance, but lastly to ensure margins are (always) in line. But wait, 2017 had more surprises. Oct and Nov showed improvement and things were looking up. By now we accepted we will end below 2016 and below target, but we sharpened our blades for Dec/Jan to try and recover our losses. Needless to say rates were ramped sky high, and everybody did it, almost like agreeing prior. Dec landed, we declined bookings based on rate and demand deposits, we held out to ensure we sell the targeted rate. The first weekend had good demand and that was it, nothing after that. In fact only the public holidays were moving, nothing else. The bookings we held was released as guests simply didn’t pay their deposits. Ten days prior to Christmas the market was flooded with discounted rates, promotional offers, vast amounts of availability from low to top end properties. I searched NYE on 18 Dec, and there was 54 hotels with availability, and all the big brands included.  Near to never in the history of the mother city have this ever happened. With stock to move we tried various approaches on the online space: Discount BAR standard CXD (14+ days), nothing Cheap limited offer (30% off BAR) at NRF policy, nothing Stay pay, nothing standard CXD And then we loaded a market related rate (lower than the ‘usual rack/super rack’), based on shoulder period rate + 10% with 24 hour CXD and whoop: there it was: albeit Super last minute and within 1-3 days. It almost seems like the guest have spoken, they are there and ready to book, but they will do so at their terms: we want a promo to see we have saved we don’t want to pay in advance we don’t want to be tied in by a booking policy we want to be able to change our mind when we want to we want a good experience, at a fair rate, on our terms Well, at properties where we had carte blanche without restrictions we managed to recover much of the loss and in some cases like our own little hotel managed a record month. Of course water was a major reason, many we believe, chose KZN which had a bumper season. (and aside from the usual macro factors such a politics and recession – but these aren’t new) While most finished Dec very sadly, it can be said that the market and customers spoke, (if we listened) and we could have seen it through, but most didn’t, why? because its Dec, and its always busy? (well not this time..) If you need some saving, have a look around our site and get in touch. Happy to help you! All the best for 2018 🙂