Hoteliers, sharpen your pencils or your spreadsheets because the clever folk at RoomPriceGenie have just given you a new toy that promises to make your revenue look less like roulette and much more like mathematics.

The Switzerland-based revenue management system (RMS) provider, long admired by independent hotels and groups for its straightforward approach to pricing, has unveiled its Group Displacement Calculator, a built-in feature designed to determine whether a group booking is worth the disruption.

And let’s face it, group bookings can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they fill rooms quickly and keep the banquet staff busy. On the other hand, they sometimes displace profitable transient guests willing to pay more per night than a discount-waving conference crowd. It’s a dilemma as old as hotels themselves: take the group and risk losing margin, or turn them away and risk leaving rooms empty.

RoomPriceGenie’s new tool aims to settle the matter with cold, complex data and perhaps save a few managers from pacing the lobby with a calculator.

A singular view for every department

Rather than leaving sales, marketing and revenue management to bicker over spreadsheets like rival cousins at Christmas lunch, the calculator offers a unified dashboard inside the RMS. It allows every commercial department to see the same information at the same time, stripping away silos and cutting through the endless back-and-forth emails that usually slow decisions to a crawl.

With the calculator, hoteliers can:

• Forecast displaced revenue if those rooms were sold one by one.

• Compare group profit margins under different pricing and discount structures.

• Choose whether to accept or decline a group based on precise profitability projections.

• Respond to group enquiries faster, with data-backed quotes that look impressive and persuasive.

• Track, edit, and retrieve past group quotations in seconds – notes and updates included.

That last one alone will save countless managers from scouring old email chains labelled “Group Booking – Final Final FINAL.xlsx”.

Control remains firmly in the hotel’s hands.

Crucially, RoomPriceGenie is not asking hoteliers to hand over the keys to the castle. The RMS remains entirely under the operator’s control. If a property’s strategy values long-term partnerships with tour operators, or if the sales director has a hunch that’s too good to ignore, the system’s recommendations can be overridden.

In short, the calculator advises that it doesn’t dictate. The maître d’ is still you.

Meeting long-standing demand

“Group displacement has been one of the most requested features by RoomPriceGenie’s clients, especially by those with multiple properties or groups, so we are especially excited to be launching this feature,” explained Chas Scarantino, CEO of RoomPriceGenie.

He stressed that every dollar of return on investment matters in today’s uncertain market conditions. “Hotels need to be able to earn the most ROI from each of their operational solutions, which should enable them to accomplish more with less staff, streamline their operations and maximize revenue opportunities. Our new group displacement calculator provides hotels with data-driven recommendations on the best way to create and sustain long-term profitability, both from the group and transient segments, and makes it quick and easy to do.”

In other words, fewer staff will crunch numbers, more staff will serve guests, and everyone’s bottom line will look healthier.

Why this matters

The hospitality industry, battered in recent years by labour shortages, shifting travel patterns and the enduring uncertainty of global events, needs tools that do more than collect dust in a dashboard. This one promises practical, actionable intelligence.

It doesn’t just hand hotels another data point; it gives them a competitive advantage. Faster responses to group enquiries mean higher conversion rates. Smarter calculations mean better-informed choices. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what revenue management is supposed to be about?

RoomPriceGenie’s group displacement calculator, built directly into its award-winning RMS, is available now, giving hoteliers one more reason to trade in their gut instincts for data-driven decisions.

Though, of course, a good gut feeling never hurt anyone as long as numbers back it.

By Michelle Warner

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