Inside Asian Gaming

November 2011 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 39 of their FIT business. Here are several ways to evaluate and optimise your package strategy: • Accurately forecast demand in order to enable the resort to know when to close and open more attractive packages. This helps to ensure packages are only available when needed, to generate incremental demand. • Experiment with different types of packages. Try various component combinations to determine what is attractive. • Test more modest deals with savings at 5-10%, instead of offering savings as high as 20%. • Check that packages designed to attract families or to extend the length of stay are not available for one-night-only stays. • Check that packages designed to keep guests within the property or complex require mid-day or evening activities. • Adjust the types of packages available to wholesale and third party partners to ensure they execute your strategy. The most attractive packages should be reserved for your own website or call centre to encourage direct bookings. • Ensure it is as simple and straightforward for FIT guests to book room-only reservations as it is for them to book packages. Your booking engine should be easy to find on your website. In addition to package promotion, banner ads could also advertise clear room- only messages such as “Rates starting from….” Call centre agents should also be trained to lead with a room-only rate and offer packages based on a further guest inquiry or rate resistance. • Maintain attractive, deeply-discounted packages; but instead of making them available at all times, apply them strategically, when you know they will accomplish one of the objectives listed above. A resort’s revenue management team must strategically lead the charge to build and apply effective packages. It is also important for Macau revenue managers to think like the consumer and review, in addition to the retail rates, the package offerings of competitors. Finally, balance FIT demand with gaming demand. An accurate forecast will enable resorts to determine the most profitable mix of customers and promotions. By understanding the total profitability of each guest segment, you can optimise hotel rooms and strategically make them available to the market for growth in profits. The author, Bonnie Spalding , is Vice President of Asia Pacific Operations for The Rainmaker Group, the market leader in profit optimisation for the gaming industry, optimising total profitability at over 100 gaming clients in the US and Macau. Feature Discretionary spending—independent travellers should be more profitable for casino resorts than package guests