Front Office, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9

Yield management

Introduction

Hotels have always charged different rates for different types of rooms, just as they have always varied those rates according to the season or time of the week. However, guests in similar rooms on the same night paid the same rate.

Things began to change during the 1960s, when the airlines (who face the same kind of problem as hotels in that a seat unsold for a particular flight can never be sold again) began to offer significant discounts to passengers who were willing to book in advance. Other large transport organizations, such as the railways, quickly copied them, and their fare structures quickly became very complicated. Not surprisingly, they rapidly became interested in identifying the best ‘sales ...