It's no secret by now that a number of hotels are seeing a 10-30% drop in their occupancy rates this year between Christmas and New Year's Eve; but, it's baffling that hoteliers hardly have a clue as to the reason behind it.
This apparent ignorance spreads across most owners and managers of 3-star or lesser properties. It's baffling because these hotels have been in the tourism business for decades now. Despite that, their investment in market intelligence has to be so meagre that they are left wondering about the cause of decline in the occupancy rates in the last week of December.
Most of them are attributing this decline to the absence of Sunburn and Supersonic from Goa. Until around a few years ago, these two electronic-dance-music (EDM) festivals weren't happening in the state; but still, hotels used to be packed between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Therefore, the fact that Sunburn and Supersonic aren't happening in Goa since last year can't be the cause behind hoteliers finding it difficult to sell all their room inventory.
If as a hotelier you don't invest in market research, you are left with no option but to rely on the agents and they will leave no stone unturned to exploit your ignorance of the emerging market trends. Earlier, hoteliers in Goa would give a tariff rate to agents and tell them to get tourists at that rate or higher. But now, due to slowdown, it is the agents, who are giving a rate to hoteliers.
It is high time that the hoteliers in Goa realise that they are not just competing with each other but with hotels in possibly all destinations in South-East-Asia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and many other parts of the world.
When it comes to 5-star properties, they still have a grip of market trends thanks to their aggressive sales team spread across many parts of India. Moreover, they also get bookings done through referrals at their other properties.
The problem of not knowing the cause of decline in occupancy is more relevant in the case of 3-star or lesser properties. Often, owners of such properties don't have hotels in other parts of India and they are not aware about what is really happening in the market. This makes them really vulnerable to shifts in market trends.
With the advent of the internet, market trends can be gauged by following air-fare, checking tariffs of other properties in Goa and outside and by getting feedback from charter operators, who bring foreign tourists from Russia, UK and other countries.
The smaller hotels will have to learn to get a grip of market reality or otherwise they may perish.
