Correspondence: Stephan Butscher, 233 High Holborn, London WC1V 7DN, UK. E-mail: stephan.butscher@simon-kucher.com

¹is the managing partner of the UK office Simon–Kucher & Partners Strategy & Marketing Consultants. His areas of specialisation are the development of national and international marketing and pricing strategies, international price harmonisation, new product development, positioning strategies, and retention marketing. He has worked extensively for leading companies in Europe and the United States, including British Airways, BT, DHL, Emap, Hilton, HSBC, Sony Ericsson, and Virgin Trains. He is the author of two books on customer retention strategies, and has published over 200 papers on international marketing and strategy, retention marketing, pricing, and so on, in various publications in Europe and the United States. Stephan is a regular speaker at national and international conferences at the Henley Management College and at the London Business School.

²is a senior consultant at Simon–Kucher & Partners Strategy & Marketing Consultants. He has been supporting leading hospitality chains as well as regional leaders and niche market players in Europe, the United States, and Asia. David specialises in the areas of marketing strategy, sales optimisation, pricing, and brand repositioning. His most recent projects involved defining a pricing strategy for the repositioning of a global hotel network, as well as testing different value offers over a sample of hotels worldwide, leading to implementation of recommendations across the entire hotel network. David joined Simon–Kucher & Partner's New York and Paris offices after graduating from ESCP–EAP European School of Management.

³is a senior consultant with Simon–Kucher & Partners Strategy& Marketing Consultants. He holds a business degree from the ESSEC School of Management in France, and joined Simon–Kucher's London office. Charles has extensive strategy and marketing consulting experience in France, the United Kingdom, and China, as well as strong expertise in the hospitality sector, from the luxury to the budget segment. His latest projects involved reviewing brand value and offering of a global player in the luxury segment, assessing price elasticity for an upscale hotel brand, as well as implementing a dynamic pricing strategy for a major player in the budget segment.

Received 6 February 2009; Revised 6 February 2009; Published online 5 June 2009.

Abstract

While the economic crisis worsens, the hotel industry is in for hard times, as occupancy and investment drop. However, there are a variety of levers at hotels' disposal to stem revenue per available room (RevPAR) decrease. Most of these are to be found through a better use of pricing, as untapped opportunities remain in rate optimisation, customer loyalty schemes and bundling. This report outlines some of the pricing strategies hotels can take to maximise their revenues and profits, focusing on simple, transparent, and customer-oriented approaches, and shifting away from some of the complex, non-manageable revenue management schemes developed in recent years.