Increase cash, decrease hassle
The problem
Properties lose thousands of dollars per year to OTAs, stemming from discrepancies between revenue OTAs expect properties to collect versus the actuals of what properties collect. These discrepancies are triggered by a variety of activities including cancelations, no shows, early check-outs, discounted stays, adjusted stays, missed fees, waived fees, misconfigured systems, and clerk errors. And they persist because of a lack of data synchronization across systems in the industry. The result for properties is overpaid commissions in “hotel collect” scenarios and undercharged amounts in “virtual collect” ones.
Many properties are unaware of the extent of the problem and those who are, have limited capability to address effectively. Staff must review each OTA-sourced reservation, triangulate the corresponding PMS record, identify potential issues, understand possible causes based on several permutations of factors, and finally take reconciliation steps in each OTA portal. These actions must be completed within a tight window of time, as mandated by the OTAs, where speed is already hindered by staff availability and other responsibilities. Compounding the challenge is a lack of relevant aptitude, which is difficult to teach and even harder to maintain through employee turnover and system changes. The complexities surrounding if and how reconciliations are completed are unfavorable to properties.
The problem solvers
rOTA is built by seasoned hotel owner-operators who own, operate, and invest in hospitality technologies. Years of experience with a proven track record of margin expansion have led to an intimate understanding of the property-OTA relationship, related systems, and painful gaps. This technical knowledge enabled the development of automated algorithms which could be applied to reservation data to flag discrepancies.
Concurrently, the operational knowledge from managing properties highlighted the need for hands-off, full-service solutions without up-front costs, lengthy on-boarding, additional reporting, cumbersome training, and hard to measure benefits. This led to the establishment of a growing team of full-time reconciliation specialists who can apply niche expertise to accurately execute all the necessary steps on behalf of properties, eliminating execution risk as well as costs associated with skipped, missed, unnecessary, or even incorrect reconciliations.