Hotel Revenue Management is owned and operated by the vastly skilled and experienced, Jaco Jacobs. Jaco’s introduction into hospitality was as a pizza shop cashier in 1996 and the rest is history. View full professional profile here

Aquarius Group

Please find below our company profile highlighting our services and how we assist accommodation establishments to maximize their performance. We have supported many small and independent Hotel Groups to optimize on their performance through our diverse management company

Company Profile Overview

Our company, Aquarius Group has a combined experience of 100 years.  Our members  worked  for  leading  South African hotels in positions such as General Manager, Acting General Manager, Rooms Division Manager, Food & Beverage Manager and Revenue Manager, as well as in online travel agents and consulting firms. We offer you tailored solutions that are unique to your business.

Back Ground of myself the founder & chair – Jaco Jacobs (MBA Tourism, Mancosa; Advanced Management Certificate, Business School Netherlands; Diploma in Hospitality Management, Wits)

Jaco Jacobs has many years of specialist Revenue and Management experience. He is target driven and set on achieving clients budgets and goals by deploying concise and effective strategies. With a strong background in all facets of Hotel Operations Management gleaned from a career of more than 20 years. Formerly a Hotel General Manager for 6 years with the last position as opening GM for Harbour Bridge Hotel; a Relais Hotel headed by the renowned Alan Romburgh, in Cape Town late 2008 and Market Manager Africa for Agoda.com (a Priceline Company). Jaco went on to become Joint Head of Operations for the African office of Agoda.com one of the leading OTAs. Jaco Jacobs was tasked with establishing the Asian based Company in Southern Africa and increasing market share and significance through Hotel online optimisation strategies, acquisitions and key account management.

Boasting a MBA Tourism through Mancosa; an Advanced Management Certificate from the Business School Netherlands and a Diploma in Hospitality Management at Wits Hotel School, Jaco's intimate knowledge of best practice Revenue & Total Management principles and his practical understanding of how to exploit the Online arena from his years spent at Agoda.com, are the cornerstones of value offered to the industry.

Our group offers:

• Hotel Management https://hotel-revenue-manager.com/hotel-management/ through filling the hotel at an optimal rate whilst maintaining overall guest satisfaction and healthy ROI for stakeholders. We currently operate at Leisure Bay www.leisurebay.co.za and receive 31% profit margin as a %age of revenue. We did a 3 month project at Bantry Bay Suite Hotel in CPT, caught up the YTD loss and exceeded budget in 3 short months.

• Hotel revenue management with more than 45 clients from Bon Hotels, to Cresta Hotels and prominent properties in and around South Africa https://hotel-revenue-manager.com/revenue-management/
• Conferencebooking offer the latest technology allowing anyone anywhere to search, compare and book and confirm a conference venue in real time. conferencebooking.co
• Fire detection and early warning systems as a subsidiary firesystemscapetown.co.za

Challenges and Opportunities for increased sales and improved management for hotels how they can benefit from our expertise

What do we do different?

New age hotel management through: Online guest satisfaction, online marketing, online sales, finance management, general management:

1. We promote the hotel brand, not the management company
2. We sell the hotel direct, not via a call centre and with reservation fees
3. We manage finance with our accountant without excessive fees
4. We sell via online platforms and not via an extensive and sometimes obsolete sales team

Revenue is the key:

Today, Revenue (yield) Management and Online trading optimisation has become a very specialist function. Like most expert functions it can be outsourced. Here are a few, yet very common, occupancy & Revenue generating limiting challenges that currently exist in Hotels and other Accommodation establishments. These few challenges (are opportunities for immediate positive change!) are amongst many more that Hotels generally (and unknowingly) make:

1. No inventory or stock to sell - Rooms not available to book online via OTAs & GDSs (i.e. no rooms available to sell and therefore invisible across all online channels) but yet, there are still rooms to sell!
2. Incorrect pricing – Out-priced (either lower or higher) than the Competitor
3. Budgets and Performance - Incorrectly priced across all booking channels either far above or well below ARR
4. BAR is key - Static rates throughout periods of high and low demand missing out on making more than published rates during periods of high demand and strategically lowering rates during periods of low demand (yes you must sell your inventory above the 100% mark during periods of high demand) – the concept of BAR and how we can help Dynasty to implement it after sourcing market intelligence for your competitive set that would not be ordinarily available to you on a day to day
5. Your own website sales - Hotel website rates not in line with online trading rates, therefore no incentive to book direct at the hotel level (which is the cheapest channel).
6. Own website and visibility in MSEs - Hotel website was not present/visible on the MSE’s (meta search engines), therefore only presenting the most expensive OTA’s channels to the

What we are about:

We work with your own team, offering independent accommodation providers an affordable solution to negate these issues & challenges and by doing so, grow occupancies and Revenue for the establishments it provides services to. There are many strategies that we employ to position the establishments optimally online as well as a number of operational ‘on the ground’ functions it supplies to the Reservations and Front Office Teams in order to assist them (and monitor them) to grow occupancies and Revenues.

What we do:

We implement and manage the following on behalf of the Hotel (to mention just a few and not limited to):

1. Revenue (yield) Management

• Competitor set monitoring
• Booking pace analysis
• Peak demand optimising
• Low demand stimulating
• Online Channel analysis
• ‘Wash-down factor’ monitoring
• Pick up and drop off analysis
• Definite and Tentative Status monitoring and control
• Online Channel Conversion
• Reservations cancellation monitoring

2. Online room inventory Distribution & Rates optimisation

• Positioned optimally on all the Global Distribution Systems (GDS)
• Positioned optimally on all the Online Travel Agents (OTA) websites
• Positioned optimally on all Meta-Search Engines (MSE)
• Competitor set monitoring & rate benchmarking
• Own Website distribution
• Rate parity management across all channels
• Website and Content audit
• Correct OTA mapping and content management
• Reservation conversion analysis and suggestions

3. Implementation of Best Available Rate (BAR), in conjunction with point 1 & 2:

• BAR operational understanding and agreed levels
• Implementation across the board
• Communication of this to the trade suggestions

The results:

So, what does all this turn into? Following are just two examples of what our expertise and services bring to the Hotels and small groups we assist:

Case Study A:

This is a Group we started working with towards the end of March 2015. These are their reservations stats made through their Group’s website. As you’ll note, the room nights reserved per month via their Group site averaged at 209 room nights per month in 2013. While they certainly showed good growth in Jan & Feb 2014 over the same months of 2013 (up to 300 room nights per month, anybody would’ve been satisfied with this result!), with our intervention, this has vastly improved to well over 1000 room nights per month, every month since May (an average growth of 629 room nights per month, or 301%), to 27 September 2014.

Testimonials (please feel free to contact them)

• Bon Hotels (including Namibia, Nigeria)
• Cresta Hotels (including Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia)
• Bantry Bay Suite Hotel
• Mandela Rhodes Place
• Cloud9 Hotel Spa
• Long Street Hotel
• Leisure Bay Hotel
• Alphen hotel
• Marly Hotel
• Residences as Crystal Towers
• Hollow on the Square
• Cape Town Hollow
• Reef Hotel
• Far Hills Hotel
• Glenmore Sands
• La Lucia Sands
• Student at Home
• Krystal beach
• Sandriver Resort

We look forward to partnering with you and helping you optimize your property. The ROI will be evident.