Blog by Rikki Cavanagh

        Whenever a special event takes place I get excited thinking about how I would manage it if I were sitting in the shoes of a revenue manager. FIFA is no exception. I had a lot of thoughts about it, especially when I learned that Montreal wouldn’t be included in t...

About nine years ago I was sitting in an Information Technology class learning about how an astronomical number of IT implementations fail. Why is that? Oftentimes this is due to a lack of buy-in from the humans who work at the company. (I hope they don’t mean not logging my calls in the CRM.) Some...

Hotel Cantlie Suites is a 250-room property situated in the heart of downtown Montreal, catering to both business and leisure travelers in one of Canada's most competitive urban markets. For several years, the hotel has partnered with Marc Bertrand, a seasoned revenue management consultant and found...

In a world where AI is constantly at the top of our minds and algorithms and data science are driving our business decisions, I have to pose the question: have we lost the art?

There’s no question that human interaction in sales and reception are key components of hospitality. Revenue management is...

In a world of rising costs and economic uncertainty, small hotels find themselves uniquely vulnerable. Unlike large hotels that can absorb cost increases across hundreds of rooms, independent and small properties must spread their fixed costs across a much smaller inventory. When energy prices spike...

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Online Travel Agencies. I worked for a major OTA for 6 years before moving to Rate Yield RMS. In nearly all of my demos when I mention my career path I get a laugh or a comment. When I ask people what their goals are, I almost always hear that reducing OTA...

Floor and ceiling rates are a staple of most revenue management systems but how they are used can vary greatly. At Rate Yield our pricing recommendation algorithm doesn’t look at the floor and ceiling price. Instead, they are used as last resort safety nets. In this article, I’d like to explain why...

When I worked as a market manager for a major OTA in Montreal, I knew the importance of Grand Prix weekend to hitting my goals and targets. Just four nights in summer could represent a significant portion of our revenue, if handled correctly. We all know rates are going to be sky high, but the real ...

Oftentimes I hear from smaller properties that they don’t need a revenue management system because of their size. While I understand that smaller properties try to keep costs low and they often feel that dynamic pricing isn’t as necessary, I believe that a revenue management system can have a retur...

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Quebec Hotel Association Conference in Riviere-du-Loup. At a conference where everyone in attendance is keen on staying ahead of the curve, keeping up with trends and investing in new technology and projects, it’s a wonder that our pricing is still ro...