When you’re juggling your day-to-day operations, keeping things running smoothly is all you have time for. Managing staff, maintaining the guest experience and maximizing revenue is a lot for hoteliers to juggle! But it’s also important to zoom out so you can understand how these elements are stacking your property up against the competition.
A competitive set (compset) is a group of hotels that directly compete with yours for the same guest pool. These are the other hotels that potential guests may consider alongside yours when making booking decisions. Understanding this competition can be a great way to get inspiration — building a compset is all about looking at what other hotels are doing and seeing how it can inform your strategy, too.
By analyzing both your hotel and your competitors, you can better strategize for how to market, operate and optimize your offerings to reach your target guests. Identifying your compset allows you to:
Develop pricing strategies: Analyze their pricing and promotional offers to set competitive room rates that attract guests and maximize revenue.
Refine marketing efforts: Target your ideal guest demographic and tailor your marketing messages to differentiate your hotel from the competition.
How to Determine Your Hotel's Competitive Set (Compset)
To make sure your compset is as useful as possible, it has to be accurate. Here are some key factors to consider when doing your competitive research:
Location: Your primary competitors are likely other hotels in close proximity to yours — however, it may be useful to pick one to two from further afield if there’s not an adequate number of competitors in your area.
Amenities & services: Hotels that offer similar amenities to yours (i.e. spa facilities, fitness centers, on-site restaurants) are usually your direct competition.
Target market: Hotels catering to the same guest demographic (i.e., business travelers, families, couples) are likely part of your compset.
Additional factors: Hotel brand affiliation, online reputation and guest reviews can also play a role in determining your competitive set.
It's important to regularly review and update your compset! Market conditions, competitor offerings and your own hotel's positioning can evolve over time and change the landscape of your business sector.
4 Ways to Gain a Competitive Edge Through Hospitality Technology
Once you’ve determined which hotels are in your compset, you can begin thinking strategically about how you can improve your own offerings to remain competitive. Here are a few ways hospitality technology can help you gain an advantage:
Generate more 4- and 5-star reviews: Research states that 88% of travelers take reviews into consideration when booking a hotel. By prompting guests to leave a review as part of a mobile checkout flow, you can increase your positive reviews and thus boost your hotel’s competitive ranking.
Offer a tech-enabled stay: Travelers are more interested in self-service, modern options than ever before. Investing in technology such as Mobile Check-In, Digital Tipping and Digital Compendium gives guests the ability to access whatever they need directly from their own devices.
Communicate in real-time: When questions or issues arise, guests want answers fast. Offering an AI-powered guest messaging tool reduces the burden on hotel staff while providing instantaneous answers to commonly asked questions.
Increase upsell revenue: By offering guests customized add-ons at opportune times, hotels can increase their overall revenue without lifting a finger.
By leveraging Canary's technology to understand your compset and deliver a superior guest experience, hotels can position themselves strategically, attract more guests and achieve sustainable growth in the competitive hospitality market. Book a demo today to learn more.
Guest Management System
Everything you need to perfect the guest journey, boost revenue, and automate processes….
