Eight steps to maximize the ROI of a hotel guestroom management system

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Everybody wants to save money and improve the bottom line, right? This is the way of business. This is a given.

However, saving energy as a way to achieve this is also a given – yet the benefits are often overlooked. Check out the compelling statistics I give below. One of the fastest and easiest ways to save energy is to deploy a guestroom management system in your hotel. Not only do these systems have a speedy ROI, they also just happen to optimize a hotel’s building performance and enhance the experience of the guests. By executing the steps to fully impact a guestroom management system’s performance, you’ll get the most from your investment.

The return can be large.

Consider this…cutting energy consumption by a tenth has the same effect as increasing the average daily room rate by as much as $1.35 according to a report published by the Department of Energy.  Run that through an ROI calculation tailored to your specific circumstance, and you’ll see the return-on-investment is well worth it.

What’s more, saving energy can also improve guest comfort and that can pay off in higher room rates. How much higher? Up to 11 percent for moving up a point on a 5-point scale. The right approach to pulling this off connects systems for in-room guestroom management to a building management system (BMS). When you get everything talking, you get everything working together, as shown in my last post. And your guests don’t have to resort to using balloons to fool motion detectors in their search for comfort. Yes, really, balloons – read about it!

Now, let’s summarize the eight steps that will lead hoteliers to optimized benefits and maximized ROI of their guestroom management system. While this blog offers a brief synopsis, we dive deeper into each of these in our informative white paper, A Framework for Converting Hotel Guestroom Energy Management into ROI. Be sure to download this paper and keep it handy!

Step 1: Minimize installation costs.

After all, less money in means less needs to come out before break-even. One way to accomplish this is by choosing a wireless system. A wireless system makes retrofitting a solution as simple as replacing a thermostat with a smarter and more capable wireless version. Upgrades of this type can easily be phased in by floor, building or campus.

Step 2: Develop a solid management strategy.

In particular, make use of the data collected by the guestroom management system to develop or revise plans based on actual data. Track the data to track the performance of your new guestroom management system. Utilize the data to make adjustments and improvements. Turn that data into actions – and results.

Step 3: Put your data to use.

For instance, some rooms will be more efficient than others. Once identified, the most efficient rooms can be rented first. That simple step improves profits. But to take advantage of these differences, you have to know the efficiency of individual rooms.

Step 4: Consider property size.

Number four on the maximizing ROI parade, is property size. Bigger properties have more rooms, but one-time start-up expenses, like servers and software, tend to be somewhat fixed. Doubling the size of a hotel, in other words, doesn’t mean the server has to be twice as big or the software twice as costly.

Step 5: Consider property location.

While the physical location of your hotel plays a role in energy management, it’s not easily controllable. By location, I mean more than just climate. Energy costs vary. In the U.S. in 2008, for instance, 18 states saw energy costs rise by double-digits while at the same the other 32 saw it drop by 5%.

Realizing that not much can be done about steps four and five, you can do something with guest demographics which brings us to step six.

Driver 6: Know guest demographics.

Typically, vacationers spend more time in their rooms during mornings and afternoons. Business travelers, on the other hand, tend to be gone during the working day … and possibly much of the evening as well. Knowing what demographic categories a guest belongs to and the current demographic mix can help the guestroom management system deliver peak efficiency.

Drivers 7 & 8: Take advantage of tax incentives & funding.

The final two steps are centered around tax incentives, which often scale with property size. So, too, do programs aimed at reducing a hotel’s carbon footprint. There also can be funds in the form of rebates on a per-unit basis or preferential low-interest loans. Tapping these sources can cut investment without impacting return.

Get Connected!

So, connect your guestroom to your building management system for a full-blown guestroom management system, and then execute on these steps. Then, sit back and watch your ROI grow. For even more help and information, here’s a comprehensive white paper of how to make a guestroom management system benefit the bottom line.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to share them in the comments below.