RoomPriceGenie bills itself as a revenue management tool for smaller hotels that value dynamic pricing but cannot afford large, complicated systems. Still, revenue management tools don’t work if they’re not connected to the Property Management System. So RoomPriceGenie connected with Hapi to access the necessary data from leading PMSs at a low cost.
We recently caught up with Ari Andricopoulos, CEO of RoomPriceGenie, to get his outlook on the state of the hotel industry and how RoomPriceGenie is set up to assist.
“There has, sadly, been a lot of disruption across hospitality and many city hotels are struggling greatly,” Andricopoulos says. “Those that are looking for new technology are really seeing the benefit of cloud-based open-API technology that can link them to the latest apps and automations. And another way of achieving this, even if you are finding it difficult to change from your legacy PMS, is through great solutions like Hapi.”
Andricopoulos tells us that hotels cannot survive the current environment without a pricing tool. He says RoomPriceGenie is there for smaller hotels that need to react to the ever-changing market without breaking the bank.
“Revenue management software? For smaller hotels? That will never work!
This is something I heard a lot when setting up RoomPriceGenie,” he says.” And there are a lot of good reasons why people would think this. Small hotels can’t afford to pay much. More than that, they traditionally have not seen the value in good pricing; something that larger hotels take for granted. Revenue management systems are too complicated. They would never trust them.”
But Andricopoulos looked at the problem in another light. In a world where Online Travel Agencies pitch everyone against each other on price, small hotels cannot survive without dynamic pricing. “ We have to make it work,” he says.
So, RoomPriceGenie is committed to delivering:
– The highest quality price suggestions,
– That can be used by anyone who can operate a computer,
– That are transparent so the hotel has full understanding and control,
– At a monthly cost they are willing to pay.
“So far, it has been a great success,” Andricopoulos says. “Our users range from my 80-year old father to top revenue management consultants. And 90% of our hotels are on Auto-Pilot, meaning that they just trust our price suggestions to go straight into their system, without needing any confirmation.
“The best part of the job is the response from hotels,” he continues. “When they email us to say they sleep better at night, or have more time with their family, or are opening another hotel. That they feel in control and confident with their pricing and are delighted with the results they get.
“All of this makes our job feel very worthwhile.”
Andricopoulos says he chose to partner with Hapi because it helps hotels that want the functionality of their old systems, want no disruption from changing systems, but also want access to the new world of open APIs without extortionate costs.
“The one-time investment in opening up your solution is certainly worth it, in our opinion,” he says.
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