new Magicband wristband , which serves as a guest ’ s room key , theme park ticket and optional payment account all rolled into one . Sea Island Resort in Sea Island , Georgia also offers a charge card given to guests upon checking in .

Hotels are commoditizing ancillary services by offering them as loyalty program perks as well .

“ There is a strong trend to increase customer loyalty for selected guests and target groups with free ancillary services and rate inclusions such as limited breakfast services , minibar , Wi-Fi and newspapers ,” says Michaela Papenhoff , managing director of hotel consultancy H2C , Dusseldorf , Germany .

Analyzing distribution costs Cindy Estis Green made headlines with Mark Lomanno last year for coauthoring the AH & LA and HSMAI study “ Distribution Channel Analysis : a Guide for Hotels .”

Now as CEO of Kalibri Labs , Potomac , Maryland , which she co-founded with Bob Bennett , she is developing an online application that examines distribution costs to help hotels make decisions on contribution to profit rather than just gross revenue .

“ This is not a revenue

Studies show that depending on a property ’ s size , retrocommissioning a hotel can save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year .

management system , but more of a planning tool to tie together the decisions sales and marketing make about which segments to go after and which to prioritize spending on ,” Green says . “ It is an area that hasn ’ t been developed . Most people , when they look at channel data and cost data , make decisions that are very much day-to-day and tactical , but they are not focused on channel choice , even though channels have a very high cost . In testing we have found channels have much higher costs than I expected , as much as 5 % to 15 % of total room revenue .”

Quantifying the revenue impact of guest experiences Josiah Mackenzie made a name for himself in the hospitality world with his popular Hotel Marketing Strategies blog . Now as director of business development at ReviewPro , Barcelona , Spain , he is working to facilitate partnerships with tech companies to develop software to analyze guest feedback ’ s impact on revenue .

“ I ’ m obsessed with making hotels obsessed over customer service ,” Mackenzie says . “ It ’ s one thing to say you can be doing this and doing that , but it is another

to quantify the revenue effect guest experience has .”

The company is currently working on a software tool that focuses on increasing ADR based on guest satisfaction , which Mackenzie says will be less tactical and more of a rate strategy tool .

“ It ’ s one thing to look at a social media campaign , but it ’ s another to look at guest satisfaction data in terms of making an investment decision on whether to buy a hotel or portfolio ,” Mackenzie says .

Metasearch proliferates in apps , websites Metasearch technology is