How does a hotel rate shopper help power your revenue management system?

Key takeaways

• RMS blind spot: RMS rely on internal and external data, but their basic, built-in rate feeds provide only limited market intelligence.

• Symbiotic relationship: A rate shopper and an RMS are complementary (not incompatible like you may have been led to believe). The rate shopper provides comprehensive real-time data to supercharge the RMS's rate feed.

• Integration benefit: Connecting Lighthouse Rate Insight directly to an RMS eliminates market blind spots, resulting in superior pricing recommendations.

• Data quality is key: Superior data is non-negotiable; connecting an RMS to a high-quality rate shopper which is powered by the best data is essential to achieve accurate results and avoid strategy based on flawed information.

You’ve likely invested heavily in your Revenue Management System (RMS). It’s a central tool for strategy and automation. When someone pitches room price intelligence, you ask, 'Why do I need another tool to set rates?' That’s a natural response, but is your RMS really operating with the best data?

It typically relies on a basic rate feed, providing only a limited view of the market - not the comprehensive data needed for truly dynamic pricing.

If your RMS is working alone, it's like a conductor leading an orchestra but missing the essential violin section. Your pricing strategy will be functional, but it won't have the harmony or profitability needed to create a real masterpiece.

So, let's break down what these two systems actually do, because they’re not opposing systems; they’re actually symbiotic, with the potential to elevate performance together.

Clarifying the roles of a Rate Shopper vs. RMS

To understand the synergy, you must first be clear on the distinct roles of these two systems:

Rate shopping tool: This system is your dedicated market data engine. Its function is to constantly monitor, analyze, and report on the external pricing strategies of competitors across all online channels in real-time.

RMS: This is the more commercially strategic side of the tech stack. It uses both internal data, like your current occupancy and pace, and external market rates to analyze, forecast demand, and recommend or set your pricing strategies.

The hidden risk of relying on basic RMS rate feeds

If your RMS already gives you room rates, where does a rate shopper fit in?

The problem isn't necessarily that your rates are driven by an RMS; the danger lies in the quality and scope of the default data feed itself.

Your RMS is designed to analyze internal data like your pace and occupancy like a pro and while it does integrate external market data as well, many of those integrated rate feeds are basic and with limited rate shopping capability.

They pull just enough data to keep the algorithm running, but that limited depth is often insufficient to fulfil your revenue potential.

When your RMS is fed limited data, it has to rely too heavily on internal assumptions which can lead to inaccurate forecasts and you can end up reacting to competitor moves.

The solution isn't purely more data, but better data flowing directly through your hotel's commercial engine. So, how does the integration of more accurate data from a rate shopping tool translate into better room pricing performance?

How does Lighthouse Pricing ensure optimized room pricing for an RMS?

Connecting Lighthouse Pricing directly to your RMS removes its reliance on limited data. This eliminates the RMS market blind spot, ensuring a significant boost to pricing performance.

No more generic pricing feeds that only meet the bare minimum.

By installing a market intelligence pipeline, you gain access to your hotel and short-term rental competitors’ past, current, and future prices. This ensures your rates are constantly optimized in real-time against actual market dynamics.

The result is near-perfect market alignment. You meet true demand at the right price point, strike the optimal balance against competitors, and capture every available dollar of revenue.

Here’s the simple four-step data flow that makes the difference:

Data collection: Lighthouse Pricing is constantly working for you, automatically collecting verified, granular market pricing data for every channel and every room type. This one step, by the way, helps reduce the countless hours revenue managers often spend pulling data manually.

Data feed integration: Lighthouse Pricing then pushes this complete, high-quality data feed direct to your RMS.

RMS strategizes: Now your RMS integrates its internal data, like your pace and your occupancy, with these external market insights.

Result: Your RMS generates superior, data-driven room price recommendations. These are pricing adjustments you can be confident in because they are based on the true market conditions.

This integrated approach is the gold standard, but what if you don't have a direct integration? Is the tool still worth the investment?

Let's look at what Lighthouse Pricing gives you even when it's not directly plugged into your RMS.

What Lighthouse Pricing delivers that your RMS can’t

It's true that not every RMS will have a direct technical integration with Lighthouse Pricing and in those cases, the core value of Lighthouse shifts away from powering the RMS algorithm and toward providing you with essential oversight that your RMS simply can't assist with.

This external visibility is the difference between blindly accepting an RMS recommendation and confirming its validity yourself.

What do you get with Lighthouse Pricing?

Market Demand: Understand granular demand up to 365 days out, so you can accurately forecast, optimize pricing , and align marketing spend with true market intent.

Strategic visibility: Your RMS gives you a recommended number. Lighthouse gives you the context and the 'why' behind that number through tools like the Compare feature and Strategy tab. You can quickly analyze competitor behavior, for example, how they're pricing long-term stays or specific room types, without having to leave the platform.

Parity and integrity: Dedicated tabs help you quickly tackle costly parity issues across channels, which is a common and high-priority issue when it comes to distribution.

Custom granularity: You get the ability to tailor reports and compsets to handle unique room configurations or specific market dynamics.

Events: See a full overview of upcoming events and holidays so you can adjust your prices according to market demand.

These specialized insights are the difference-makers that allow you to achieve an elevated level of accuracy when it comes to room pricing, even when the system isn't fully integrated.

But whether you can integrate or not, the entire process hinges on one element, data quality.

Data quality is Lighthouse’s competitive advantage

The success of any integrated system is entirely conditional on the quality and scale of the data flowing into it.

The premise is that you only get improved rate feeds and accurate forecasts if the data from the rate shopper is reliable and market-proven. The old adage of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ still rings true here.

Lighthouse is recognized as the global leader in cloud-based rate and market intelligence, with Lighthouse Pricing being the top-rated Rate Shopping & Market Intelligence solution by HotelTechAwards for four consecutive years.

This leadership is built on the tenets of data depth and quality. Lighthouse is the only solution that provides real-time hotel and short-term rental data in a single platform. Since nearly half of travelers compare hotels to short-term rental, this comprehensive view is crucial for understanding true market demand.

We’re talking about a superior data foundation built on metrics such as these:

• 1.8 billion hotel rates monitored daily.

• 200 million+ sites crawled daily.

• 17.7 million hotels and short-term rentals profiled daily.

• 1.3 billion daily flight and hotel searches

• 300,000 competitor hotels and short-term rentals profiled.

• 7.6 million local events profiled to capture hidden demand shifts.

The breadth and depth of this data eliminates guesswork and provides you with a validated and reliable source to understand your market position and confidently set your room pricing.

The new standard for setting hotel room rates

Your RMS is an indispensable strategic asset but it's incomplete without the integration of real-time market intelligence.

You don’t have to settle for middle-of-the-road room price performance. By integrating Lighthouse Pricing with your RMS, you gain access to your competitor’s past, current, and future rates, powered by the most accurate data in the industry.

It's the new standard for optimized, profitable revenue management. You make accurate and confident room price decisions that capture market share.

Speak to our team to discover the revenue opportunities your RMS is missing without Lighthouse Pricing by its side.