Customer Spotlight: Hyatt Regency Boston Hotels

About Hyatt Hotels Corporation

Founded in 1957, Hyatt Hotels Corporation is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 13 premier brands. As of 2018, the company's portfolio includes 843 properties in 56 countries.  

We spoke to Lakota Forosisky, Area Director of Revenue Management at Hyatt Regency Boston, Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor and Hyatt Regency Cambridge to find out about how and why she uses Lighthouse Business Intelligence. We learn about how Hyatt has been able to unlock their revenue potential and deliver actionable insights. 

Lightning-fast decision-making

When managing revenue our goal was to increase RevPAR through faster and better decision-making. We also wanted to be able to share data with our hotel leadership team so they would have confidence that we were using the most reliable data to make decisions that would lead to increased revenue.

Prior to using Business Intelligence, we were able to pull data, but it was cumbersome and time-consuming to the point where it wasn’t worth it to spend the time on drilling down to specific analytics. Now we’re able to use Business Intelligence to pull all our data into an easy-to-navigate tool. This now means I can run numbers or define potential results of a pricing or strategy decision faster than ever.

Confident strategy

One of the recent ways we found value in the tool was to look at all holiday periods in the year and set up strategies during these slow periods in the Boston market. We were able to:

• Quickly identify when the booking window historically starts for the holiday period and when it starts to ramp up faster.

• See the average LOS and what percentage of bookings occur inside booking window periods, like 7-14 days prior to arrival and 0-3 days prior to arrival. Look at what we were priced at in the beginning of the booking window and at the end.

• In response, set our pricing strategy just over LY actual rate and set up AP (American Plan) discounts to impact the base layer. 

These actions resulted in our improving RGI (Revenue Generating Index) over the July 4th period by 9% by targeting the holiday and using the data to make better decisions further out.

We’ve also been able to find opportunities to change our LOS patterns around peak events. We know that an event will have a peak night, but Business Intelligence helps us identify what the LOS potential is for shoulder night stay, and target price points to drive retail business for these dates.

A tool for all teams

Business Intelligence hasn’t just helped the revenue management team here at Hyatt; it’s also been beneficial for our range of teams. The rates tab is utilized by revenue, sales, front office, even the restaurant, to see what market demand is like. When our sales team presents a piece of business and tries to sell me on why it is a good fit for our hotel, they are able to use the tool to pull data on transient LOS or business mix. 

Hoteliers should use Business Intelligence because the product is fantastic. This tool is such a quick and efficient way to pull data to help make decisions on lead time, forecast potential, product recommendations and booking sources. Not only is the product high quality, their customer support is also top-notch.

When I had to change report settings or set up new reporting details for direct connection to our RMS, the team really helped me - someone who is not a techie - understand how to work with them to get the information needed. Business Intelligence has been a real game-changer for us. I have nothing but good things to say about it.