It’s a really exciting time for the hospitality industry in Latin America.

With the number of international arrivals growing consistently, the region is currently has a large number of new rooms in the pipeline. According to the February 2015 STR Global Construction Pipeline Report, there are 451 hotels constituting a total of 71,876 rooms Under Contract in the Central/South America region. That’s a 17.8% increase over last February.

Leading this boom is Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with 3,990 rooms under construction, while Panama City is second with 1,431 rooms.

The South American market has lately seen more encouraging numbers.

According to a September 2014 SAHIC presentation based on STR Global data, RevPAR in July 2014 YTD was $91, a 4.8% growth in , in USD terms.

This was driven by ADR rising to $149, a 6.5% growth, even though occupancy fell by 1.6% to 61.1%

Chile had the highest occupancy at more than 66% while Ecuador had the lowest at around 57%. Interestingly, Ecuador also had the highest ADR at around $170 in USD terms.

The city with the highest occupancy and ADR was Rio de Janeiro (around 74% and $250)

Everything indicates that the hospitality industry in the region has a very promising time ahead. With WTM Latin America just a few weeks away, we should expect the event to be full of vibrant discussions.

WTM Latin America is here again

From the 22nd to the 24th of April, the RateGain team will be at WTM Latin America 2015 in Sao Paulo at Expo Centre Norte (Booth No N55) , to talk to revenue managers about how they can capitalize on a world of opportunities make far more revenues – everyday.

WTM Latin America, is a major event for the travel industry visited by more than 15,000 influential executives. In 2014, around $341 million of business was closed at the event between 1,300 exhibitors and 900 buyers.

The variety of exhibitors present an excellent opportunity to stay in touch with the current trends in the travel business.

If you are a hotel revenue manager, a general manager or a hotel owner, we would love to host you at our booth to have a conversation with you about how you can make more revenue everyday.

Here are 3 things we will discuss at the event…

1. How do you maximize your revenues in a world of information?

Customers now have access to prices and other details of nearly any hotel in the world literally in their palms. With a few clicks people can browse, shortlist, find out all they want about a hotel and make a booking within a matter of minutes.

Changing guest preferences and easy availability of choices and information is leading to increased competition. Reviews and ratings are growing in importance as a determinant of price.

That ‘edge’ you thought you had over your competitor might just have disappeared.

How can you adapt your pricing to maximize your revenues in this dynamic environment?

2. How do you manage pricing and distribution more easily and quickly?

An increasing number of bookings are being done very close to the check-in date , also driven by the rapid growth in mobile usage. (During H1 2014, 21% of all hotel bookings were made through mobile devices.)

Last minute bookings throw up quite a few challenges. Not only does this lead to more frequent price changes, it also makes it difficult to manage your inventory at the last minute.

How do you adjust your prices quickly as well as distribute them to your channels with speed and precision?

3. How can you manage all your revenue management activities in a unified way?

How can you respond quickly in this era of multiple drivers and fact changing prices?

You can try doing it manually by working a lot harder – round the clock.

Or you could deploy an automated system, which does it all for you – automatically, with a minimal amount of manual intervention.

Imagine how simple that could be!

At RateGain, we are working on a unified platform which does it all for you. A single suite which integrates price shopping, price determination, channel management and your PMS. We are calling this suite ‘Unity’.

Visit us at WTM Latin America to join the exciting conversation about Unity!

To join us at the event, click here.