A hotel that raised revenue year on year through aggressive pricing and extra OTA commissions discovered, once costs were broken out, that its net margin had actually fallen. The case, cited in a new opinion piece on hotel revenue management, is the sharpest illustration of the article's central claim: higher gross revenue can mean lower profit when no segment-based strategy is in place.

The piece argues that most hotels operate without a strategy at all. Asked about next season's revenue plan, hoteliers typically give some version of the same reply: "We'll watch the market and adjust as we go." The author's verdict is blunt: "That isn't a strategy. It's giving up on having one."

In revenue management, the author defines a strategy as a coherent set of decisions setting direction for pricing, distribution, segmentation and marketing — anchored to a clear, measurable goal that fits the property's positioning. Without one, every move is a reaction to something that has already happened: competitors drop rates, the hotel follows; occupancy dips, it pushes harder on the OTAs; rooms stay empty, it rolls out last-minute deals.

"Without a strategy, you spend your time chasing others," the author writes. "With one, you stay ahead, because you know where you're heading and you notice the moment you start drifting off course."

Why segment-level forecasting changes the economics

Most Italian hotels have no structured forecast, according to the piece. Some work from a rough occupancy projection for the month ahead. Very few forecast by segment — which the author calls the only kind that delivers real value.

The economics argument is straightforward. A million euros in revenue from OTAs and a million euros from direct bookings are two different things once commissions come out; the margins do not compare. A generic forecast hides that gap. A segment-level forecast exposes it.

A dependable forecast starts with the property's own historical data combined with an analysis of future demand for the destination. It is not a one-off prediction: it gets revised continuously as pick-up, events and market conditions change. Strategy drives the forecast, the author stresses, never the reverse.

Which segments are operators missing?

Segmentation rests on three inputs: the property's historical data, destination demand analysis and competitor research. Done well, it lets a hotel see which guest profiles comparable properties attract and shape its own segments by nationality, purpose of travel, spending power and services requested.

The piece names two recurring blind spots:

• City-centre hotels in art destinations often overlook groups, even though groups can bring substantial volume.
• Business hotels almost always neglect weekend leisure guests, even when the demand is clearly there.

When discounting actually pays

The pricing rules the author sets out follow classic yield management. Rates should rise as inventory sells and the stay date approaches, because scarcity has value that grows over time.

Cutting rates makes sense in one situation only: the date is close, rooms are still unsold, and the hotel is already inside the cancellation window. At that point there is virtually no risk of guests cancelling to rebook cheaper, and a discount can recover occupancy that would otherwise be lost.

Dropping prices to match competitors, or to create demand that does not exist, is described as nearly always a mistake — it erodes margins without guaranteeing a single extra booking.

What does this change for mid-sized properties?

Reading demand before it turns into bookings used to require scale. The piece argues that is no longer the case: mid-sized properties can now track pick-up week by week, spot rising nationalities and identify gaining segments using OTA data, rate intelligence tools and solutions such as Zucchetti's Travel Data Lake, which reveal aggregate future demand at a level of detail that was not possible before.

With those tools, the author writes, a hotel can see who is searching for the months ahead, target the right segments at the right moment, and set pricing and distribution weeks before the market reacts.

There is no formula that fixes everything, the author concedes. Every decision has to be weighed, tested and grounded in data, then applied with the judgment experience brings. The closing frame: a strategy is not a document drafted in January and filed away — it is the thread that ties every decision back to the goal, and losing it means working hard without arriving where you meant to go.