While marketing customer segmentation focuses on demographic characteristics of the guest such as age, gender, and income, this data is typically not available to the Revenue Manager.

The most basic form of segmentation looks at the reason for travel –  is it for business or leisure.

Using data from previous and future bookings, we can evaluate the likelihood of guests with a similar profile making a booking at the hotel and can set the price accordingly.

However, we first need to ask some key questions:

• What is their reason for travel?
• What are their needs?
• When do they buy and stay?
• How much do they spend?   

Revenue Academy’s Practical Guide to Revenue Management Module 3 ‘Understanding your Customer’ is perfect if you:

• Want to understand how and why your customer books, underpins all pricing decisions

• Are looking to identify key customer behaviours to shape an optimal rate strategy

• Want to increase your customer insight knowledge, and set prices accordingly

To help you get started on your Revenue Academy journey you can download the ‘Checklist for Understanding your Customer’  which is a key resource to guide the questions you need to ask, to support your market segmentation.