Customer Spotlight: Fontainebleau Miami Beach

About Fontainebleau Miami Beach

Situated on the oceanfront in the heart of Millionaire's Row, Fontainebleau Miami Beach is one of the most historically and architecturally significant hotels in the region. A revered local landmark for more than half a century, it’s also one of the largest hotels in the area. Apart from its 1,594 rooms, the 22-acre property features signature restaurants by award-winning chefs, a range of lifestyle-focused amenities and state-of-the-art conference and event facilities.

We recently chatted with Andrew Toole, Executive Director of Revenue Management at Fontainebleau Miami Beach about how he and his team use the Market Insight tool. We found out how it allows them to understand demand developments in their various source markets, refine and validate their pricing strategy and make the most of every revenue opportunity without joining the race to the bottom.

A reliable market and compset overview

After the pandemic totally upset established demand patterns and forced many hotels to close temporarily, we had to start with a clean slate when restrictions eased. Even our otherwise reliable revenue management system wasn’t able to predict demand and suggest optimal rates at that time. Despite this, our immediate goal was to capture as much demand as possible and get back some of that lost on-the-books business. The challenge was attracting bookings without falling into the trap of trying to offer the lowest rate in the market. 

Market Insight proved immensely valuable in this situation. It revealed how our market was developing overall and how our property fit into the bigger picture. We used this information to offer competitive rates that helped us maintain our positioning all while avoiding blindly reducing our prices. That way, we kept a certain degree of regularity to our rates during the initial days of recovery. This allowed us to smoothly readjust our prices during the high-compression period that followed. 

Once demand had picked up again, Market Insight kept us updated on how hotels in our neighborhood were adapting. We saw which properties changed their rates and were able to understand if this was due to group business or a nearby event, for example. That, in turn, allowed us to confirm our pricing strategy or identify dates that needed adjusting. Without Market Insight, we wouldn’t have had access to such detailed and reliable market overviews. Consequently, it would have been much more difficult to navigate such an unprecedented situation.

An in-depth understanding of future demand

I use Market Insight’s data daily because it offers real-time insights 365 days into the future. This covers demand in our immediate area and how competitors are responding to it. Seeing this allows me to look beyond the horizon and past the short-term demand, which I already know exists.

The platform brings together data like overall search pressure for a destination, flight and hotel search volume, among other things. I can check these insights for specific time periods, e.g. a month or season, to see which level of business we can expect. This makes it much easier to form an appropriate rate strategy well in advance. If something changes in the meantime, I can see that in Market Insight as well and make the needed adjustments immediately. Without Market Insight, I’d have to rely on manual research which would take more time and yield far less comprehensive and reliable results.

Identifying and targeting promising source markets

One thing I appreciate about Market Insight, is that it lets me get very granular with the future demand data. For example, I can zoom in on the flight, hotel or destination search data to see a country-by-country breakdown. This reveals which source markets are researching our destination or even our property most actively and for which time period. That’s incredibly valuable information because it enables us to concentrate our marketing efforts and our ad spend on the most promising source markets. As a result, our campaigns get a better return on investment.

Using accurate future demand insights to seize revenue opportunities

In the past, we could rely on historical demand patterns to shape our revenue strategy for the year ahead. Today, and especially during the early days of recovery, that was much more difficult. Market Insight’s forward-looking demand data perfectly addresses this challenge. 

I can go into the tool and examine our usual hot periods like Easter, Passover, or Spring Break. It shows me whether search pressure and flight searches indicate that demand is building for that time. Then I can adjust our room rates well in advance to avoid filling up at low prices and take advantage of the compression. This works both for events further in the future or the upcoming weekend or public holiday. 

When I see that people are shopping for certain dates, I also check their desired length of stay. Knowing that, we can put together an attractive package for that stay duration to attract even more bookings.

Saving time with quick insights and well-presented data

On busy days, Market Insight’s easy-to-use interface is especially helpful because I spend minimal time in the tool and still get all the demand data I need. If there’s a specific date I want to check, I can do that in a few clicks, make the needed adjustments and carry on with my other work.

It has also served as a reliable reference point when I need to explain pricing decisions for a particular date. I can quickly pull up the dashboard, show which levels of demand we’re expecting and back up my decision with accurate, real-time data.

Sharing critical data and insights with all commercial departments

Market Insight has become an important part of our weekly RevMax meeting. Firstly, its demand forecast helps the rooms division team plan their operation. Secondly, our sales and marketing teams find this data interesting because it allows them to better organize their activities and validate their strategies.

We also examine unexpected demand spikes and check if there’s a chance to capture extra bookings on those dates. Seeing these outliers early on has given us an edge over our competitors and lets us capitalize on every revenue opportunity that presents itself.

A word to your peers

Market Insight provides highly valuable market, competitor and demand insights that I wouldn’t want to work without. It’s a worthwhile investment because it offers excellent value for money and delivers the market intelligence you need to get ahead of your competition even in today’s challenging market. It’s a must-have tool if you want to make confident, data-driven pricing decisions to optimize your rates and stop leaving money on the table.