• The level of reliability in the reserves has become an extraordinarily important indicator in these difficult months for the tourism industry. That’s how we understand it at Dingus. And it is the main reason why we have put our Data Intelligence knowledge platform to work in new reports that complement the Data Hotel tool. In April we started to share with our clients the measurements based on Big Data to know where they were booking, how many rooms, for when, with what length of stay and by what channel. Now we are going to offer them an even more valuable piece of information for their planning: the reliability context of the reservations.

“All studies, to a greater or lesser extent, indicate that people still intend to travel this year, both in Spain and in Europe. Some statistics even set that forecast at 50%… But it is clear that, due to the current situation of uncertainty, either because we do not know how the pandemic will evolve, or because of changes in the employment and economic situation of potential tourists, customers are demanding greater flexibility in the cancellation policy, especially when the reservation is made earlier”. This is the first consideration of our Business Development Manager when presenting the new Dingus initiative and the commitment to share strategic information with our clients.

According to Paula Servera, “in order to reactivate the demand, hoteliers have attended to this request and are making the cancellations more flexible. Although, in this way, the risk is transferred from the client to the hotelier and it is very important that the latter takes it into account in order to make a real forecast of the occupation. Considering the forecast of cancellations – says Servera – must be part of the risk management of hotels, which right now is essential to ensure survival in this environment”. In Dingus we believe that being able to estimate the expected cancellations is, right now, as important or even more important than knowing the reservations, since the cancellation percentage is very high and completely alters the real occupation.

How does having a clear idea of the actual occupancy rate influence the hotel?

Depending on it, the purchasing and staffing needs (e.g. to recover from an ERTE), etc. of the hotels will change substantially and “that is why, explains Paula Servera, it is essential to make predictions about the actual occupancy and, logically, to take into account the cancellation rate”.

In the new Reports of Context of Reliability in Reservations, that will be sent to our clients every Wednesday with the rest of the indicators DataHotel DINGUS® “we are going to publish the data of context shown by different parameters, like channels, booking window or type of occupation, so that the hotels will be able with them to do a better prediction of the expected cancellations, and depending on the greater or smaller weight that you have the reservations of this type in the establishments”.

Two weeks ahead, and two weeks behind the test date

The new proposal of information shared by Dingus is summarized in that “we show the report of a specific date (to be made every Monday) with the vision of two weeks before and two after. The previous weeks allow us to see the real data, since there are cancellations until the last day, and the two following weeks help to predict a trend in case there are variations in customer behavior”.

This new capacity of our Big Data project has been incorporated following the evolution of the needs of the hotels that trust in our technology, not only to organize the commercialization and tourist distribution, but to contribute with a plus of knowledge. We believe that knowing possible scenarios in advance, such as those that undoubtedly draw real forecasts when contemplating cancellations on reservations, is to better face the challenges of hotel occupancy.