Sweet Inn builds own dynamic pricing tool combining big-data analytics and distribution intelligence from Fornova to optimize its 400+ European apartments.
LONDON, UK – Premier short-term vacation provider, Sweet Inn, and leading intelligence provider for the hospitality industry, Fornova, have announced that they are joining forces to bring future travel technology to the present. Sweet Inn is already underway with building its own data-driven Revenue Management System (RMS), which will enable the company to automatically optimize the pricing of its properties.
Phocuswright research(1) reported that more than 51% of of non-renters in vacation market said better pricing would make them consider a vacation rental over that of a hotel. Sweet Inn has invested heavily in the past year, hiring over 15 data analysts, data scientists and Machine Learning experts to work on this new dynamic pricing platform.
“This pointed investment has enabled us to improve demand forecasting by 50% and underpinned data-driven pricing decisions”, reports Eitan Reisel, Sweet Inn’s Chief Revenue Officer. “As our RMS continuously ‘learns’ it will price apartments more efficiently, continuing to boost revenues and profitability.”
The vacation rental market has been growing rapidly over the last few years, and it is forecast to reach $169.7 billion(2) by 2019. Fornova, leading provider for hotel Distribution Intelligence, is seizing the opportunity of extending their platform to scan the vacation rental market with Sweet Inn.
CEO of Fornova, Dori Stein, said, “We are really excited to enter the vacation rental market, and to become the first company to provide Distribution Intelligence for hospitality across both the traditional hotels and the vacation rental market. The gap between the traditional hotels and the booming vacation rental market is collapsing quickly, fuelled by technology, shifts in consumer behaviour as well as commercial moves among hospitality giants such as Booking.com and Airbnb. In future, these two markets will increasingly influence each other, and we’ll be ready to enable our customers and partners to understand how.”
Dynamic pricing has long been the holy grail of revenue management systems operated by the airline and car rental industries, as well as hospitality. Thanks to advances in high-performance computing and analytics, pricing and availability now adjusts by the minute. If you've shopped online and noticed changes of rates or availability, you've witnessed dynamic pricing in action. Sweet Inn's system adjusts and displays rates based on duration of booking, destination, dates, events, and will now adapt to market shifts and distribution factors leveraging intelligence provided by Fornova.
"What we’re trying to do within our industry space is to ask: How do we exploit access to data to create a more robust capability, and leverage each apartment as an individual inventory unit?" said Avi Shenshakir, Head of Sweet Inn’s Data team.
The answer to this questions lays within Fornova’s patented visual web-analysis technology. This strategic partnership allows both companies to leverage the strength of data and Machine Learning to build the most advanced dynamic pricing system for the vacation rental sector, and deliver dynamic pricing.
“We have partnered with Fornova for their ability to meet our requirements for data accuracy and scale that is unmatched in the industry. Their experience of working with some of the leading and forward-thinking brands in hospitality, combined with their deep knowledge of technology and their flexibility in working with us will be pivotal to our success in delivering the best-in-class RMS for our apartments” said Eitan.
“We are delighted to be working with one of the most innovative and dynamic company in the vacation rental space” said Guy Gaash, VP of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Fornova. “We have a long history of working with some of the most forward-thinking brands in hospitality, and we look forward to continuing this tradition with Sweet Inn.”
(1) https://www.phocuswright.com/Travel-Research/Market-Overview-Sizing/A-Market-Transformed-Private-Accommodation-in-the-U-S-
(2) https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-vacation-rental-market-2015-2019—leading-vendors-are-9flats-airbnb-homeaway-tripadvisor-wimdu-world-travel-holdings–wyndham-worldwide-564824051.html
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
