Folio, Yield Data On The Way

<B> Folio, Yield Data On The Way</B>

By Maria P. Vallejo

For the hotel industry, 1998 will go down as the year technology took over property management. Chains across the nation are installing standardized systems designed to provide travel buyers and themselves with guest folio data and single image inventory along with enhanced compliance tracking and revenue management capabilities.

Hotel companies now on track to complete rollouts of a single property management system chainwide include Adam's Mark; Carlson Hospitality; Choice Hotels & Resorts; Inter-Continental; Marriott Hotels, Resorts and Suites; Omni Hotels; and Wyndham International.

"If you're going after the corporate market, it's very important to have a single property management system," said David Sjolander, senior director of hotel systems at Carlson, which owns the Radisson chain. "Corporate travel managers are becoming more and more sophisticated about what information can be provided by hotels, and what's available."

Standardized property management systems provide one of the most sought after pieces of information by travel managers: traveler folio data, which breaks down hotel bills into separate charges for room, food and additional services. Hotel folio information helps managers track employee usage of corporate rates, provides a key tool when approaching the negotiating table and helps companies move to automated expense reporting by prepopulating the charges into the correct columns.

Although some companies did get folio data in the past, it often was sent only annually in preparation for the next negotiating season. Now, standardized property management systems allow hoteliers to collect, compile and distribute the data at a much faster rate.

"Any information hotels can provide to travel managers--even if for no other reason than just to track policy compliance and trends--would be helpful," said Sheri Bonsall, travel and entertainment accounting administrator of Conair Corp. in East Windsor, N.J. "More and more companies are allowing their travelers to use folios as records of charges. That would be more helpful for our travelers, especially if we want to automate some processes."

Hoteliers agree that one of the best ways to get lower rates, and more amenities and services, is to present them with hard evidence of the amount of total business sent to their chain and individual properties.

Carlson, Inter-Continental and Omni all send guest folio data from their standardized property management systems to preferred customers. Each chain acknowledged that this exchange of information helps improve customer relations and expedite negotiating procedures.

Minneapolis-based Carlson has been providing folio data to key customers upon request without charge for the past year. The data collected from the property management system is sent to a data warehouse where it is compiled and sent monthly to preferred companies, including 3M and General Electric. 3M pays for its use of Carlson properties through a single centralized monthly billing, and gets all folio information along with the bill.

Carlson plans to complete installation of the Fidelio-based Harmony Property System in its three brands, Country Inns & Suites, Radisson Hotels and Regent. Radisson is ahead of the game with Harmony installed in most properties, Sjolander said. The project began five years ago, and Radisson's 450 properties are required to complete installation by year-end.

Half of Country Inns & Suites' 150 properties and Regent's 10 properties have the Harmony system installed. Country Inns & Suites will complete installation by 2000. Regent will allow some of its existing properties to remain without Harmony, but will require any new properties to become compliant.

Omni Hotels, based in Irving, Texas, also is sending folio data monthly to its preferred customers. It will complete its rollout of Lodging Touch, costing more than $100,000 per property, by late February. "Instead of waiting once a year to take the information, with one central property management systems and database we'll be able to have that information at a touch of a finger," said Dennis Hulsing, Omni's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "A lot more sophisticated companies are asking for it on a monthly basis and it can make it a better deal for both sides."

Omni next year will roll out a new frequent guest program based on the information gathered by its property management systems. From the property level, guest information is collected and exported to a centralized data warehouse where it is consolidated and made into trend and preference reports.

Inter-Continental is in the process of replacing its former standardized property management system, House Information Systems, with the Fidelio product, said vice president of hotel systems Jules Sieburgh. About 50 percent of its 117 properties have installed the new system.

While the hotels are in a transition phase, they still are offering compiled folio information to preferred accounts. Thinking into the future, the Atlanta-based company plans to make customer profile and guest history information accessible via the Internet.

"In order to combine all the information, you need to have standards," said Sieburgh, who also is co-chairman of the American Hotel and Motel Association's technology committee. "If you're not on one system, you have to deal with too many variables. All of it eventually will go transaction-based or Internet-based. "

Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites, in Washington, D.C., has completed a rollout of a standardized property management system for each of its brands, all of which interface with Marsha, Marriott's automated reservation system.

While standardized systems help travel buyers, hotel chains also benefit from the single systems. Like travel buyers, hotel companies use folio data to track customer compliance and use the information during contract negotiations.

Such systems also help create a bridge to single image inventory (see story, page 1) and yield management systems, while reducing employee training time. "This is the best way to end up with a true single image system like the airlines," said Mack Koonce, Wyndham International's executive vice president of marketing and strategic planning. "The biggest benefit is single image reservation and rate integrity regardless of where the traveler is calling."

Wyndham has installed the Fidelio system in 80 percent of its properties, and expects to complete the rollout early next year. Five or six of its largest hotels will remain on HIS, which offers better functionality for properties of that size, but interfaces built between the HIS and Fidelio systems will allow the hotels to run as though they are under a single system.

<B>Hotels' Yield Benefits</B>

Property management systems also contribute to improved yield management because the folio information pinpoints the peaks and valleys of hotel usage. Yield management interfaces can be the greatest incentive for property owners to join a standard system, hoteliers said.

Choice Hotels International, Silver Spring, Md., offers its properties the choice of a yield management product developed in-house or one from outside. Those hotels that have not installed Profit Manager, Choice's internally developed property management system, cannot utilize the yield management benefits. It is installed in more than 700 hotels, with the rollout scheduled to be complete by first quarter 2000. Profit Manager is available only to Sunburst Tier hotel brands: Comfort, Clarion, MainStay Suites and Sleep Inns.

"With revenue management we can show an increase in profit, but you need a property management system for the revenue management," said Choice vice president of information systems Gary Thomson. "There are lot of benefits that make life easier and more profitable."

Some Inter-Continental hotel property owners are refusing to switch to the Fidelio system, Sieburgh said. Since the entire chain had used HIS, interfaces to the company's data warehouse still allow those that do not to access folio data, but HIS is not be linked to the revenue management system.

Adam's Mark also is using HIS and has been working on the standardization project since the 1970s. The last property was converted in 1994.

Rather than using one standard property management system, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, based in White Plains, N.Y., gave its properties a choice of installing Fidelio or Geac/UX PMS, with chainwide completion expected by June 30, 1999. Fidelio tends to be the international system of choice, while Geac/UX works well with larger properties, Hudson said. Costing between $400 to $600 per room for installation, the two systems are linked into Starwood's central res system, Reservatron IV.