Fair enough, though it does make the entry-level price higher now, I think (previously a 20 room hotel could have got at least some of the functionality for a lot less than $499 a month. Now they probably couldn’t, unless their revenue is very low). It was that thought which prompted me to comment.

Bruce

The GuestCentric solution is a top-notch e-commerce management solution: we deliver one of the best hotel booking engines in the industry, but also integrated revenue management, in-depth analytics, contacts and guests CRM and social-media-monitoring and monetizing tools.

To have access to all these tools in the previous pricing plan a customer would need to pay $499 per month (“Gold package”) fixed rate. Now, it only gets to $499 if you reach the cap.

This makes a big difference for most customers because demand is not constant over the year and percentage of bookings generated online varies significantly. E.g. customers that have seasonal properties will pay the $499 cap the months they are full, but $0 or close to it the months they are vacant. And can still take advantage of the Facebook booking engine, social promotions, Twitter Center and other unique features to promote their properties.

So, this new pricing enables customers that are not very well positioned online to get into the “game” with a top-notch tool without risk. This can be game-changing.

I think you must agree that it is indeed a great pricing plan for smaller, less sophisticated properties, especially in times of uncertainty.

My recollection is that under their fixed monthly fee model they charged $145 for up to 20 rooms.

At, say, $100 revenue per room and 50% occupancy, 6% of revenue = $1,800 per month ($100 x 50% x 20 rooms x 30 days x 6%).

So a 20 room hotel would hit the cap and pay $499 (compared to $145 before, if my memory is correct).

Maybe my numbers are wrong. But if not, someone’s done a great job of spinning a major price hike into a “good news” story.

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