OPTIMIZING YOUR WORLD REVENUE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Revenue Management for Cruise Ferries
Revenue Management in Cruise Ferry Industry Revenue Management in the cruise ferry industry is beginning to get recognition as a critical component of overall business strategy in order to enhance revenue. It is estimated that the revenue potential to be gained using Revenue Management can be up to 12%. Cruise ferry operators need to optimally allocate inventory among competing resources like passengers, vehicles and cabins in order to maximize revenue. There is also a strong need to determine the optimal deck configurations based on demand for passenger and vehicle space in order to maximize revenue and vessel utilization rate of each sailing. In these times of shrinking margins on base fares, cruise ferries are looking at every single opportunity to supplement revenues through sale of ancillary services. The challenge with automated revenue management systems is to ensure they cater to the business policies of cruise ferry operations and not just focus on theoretical optimal revenues. Cruise Ferry operators are also beginning to understand the negative impact of traditional Revenue Management principles on sailings with simplified fares with no restrictions and are looking to leverage cutting edge price sensitive revenue management practices. While experienced cruise ferry companies have recognized the revenue generating potential of an automated revenue management system, other operators have relied on manual processes owing to the cost associated with an automated system. However it is imperative that these operators adopt automated Revenue Management systems in order to enhance revenue, maximize profitability and remain competitive.
How Can RTS Help? At RTS, we understand cruise ferry revenue management intimately and are the industry s only proven leader in providing revenue management systems specifically catering to the cruise ferry industry. We have been providing cost-effective customizable decision support systems for the last 15 years that have helped improve productivity, service levels and revenue for a number of cruise ferry operators around the globe. With expertise, in-depth knowledge and an executive team with over 20 years average experience in revenue management, RTS has developed a broad solution portfolio that provides key business insight through a powerful business intelligence solution that is part of the revenue management system. RTS s solutions will enable your company to enhance revenues significantly while meeting key planning and operational requirements. RTS solutions cover a wide range of business functions such as revenue management for both traditional and price sensitive markets, capacity management, generation of physical authorizations and financial bid price controls and support for ancillary services. RTS offers the following solutions and services: w Revenue management software RTS ProfitOpt & RTS CargoProfitOpt. w End to end consulting services. w Commercial strategy Products, revenue management, inventory control and pricing. w IT strategy automation, business intelligence, and migration plan. w Training and education revenue management, pricing, and marketing. w Consulting business process mapping, gap analysis, change management and best practices. w Operations research statistical and operations research modeling and support. w IT Services integration services and customized solution development.
RTS RTS Cargo ProfitOpt RTS ProfitOpt is an advanced comprehensive revenue management and business intelligence solution that enables cruise ferry operators to maximize their profitability Why RTS ProfitOpt? RTS ProfitOpt will enable cruise ferry operators to significantly increase revenue. In addition to the financial benefits, they will realize benefits such as increase in productivity, up-todate availability of data, consistency in decision making, and improved response time. RTS ProfitOpt software will assist with the following: w Forecast demand using multiple advanced techniques using flexible seasonality definitions and considering factors such as point of sale, time of departure, vessel capacity. w Recommend optimal capacity configurations for different resources including passengers and vehicles. w Optimize every single sailing using unconstrained demand forecasts, overbooked space and fares (including ancillaries) while ensuring operational constraints and business policies are satisfied. Management Reports w Optimization of the primary resource (typically passengers) with respect to a secondary linked resource (vehicles). w Determine optimal overbooking level or capacities available for sale considering cancellation, no show, and passengers upgrading and downgrading among cabins. w Business insight through inventory analysis capabilities provided by the business intelligence solution. Optimization Reports
Core Functionality w DEMAND FORECASTING determine unconstrained remaining demand by market/departure time/vessel capacity/ Point Of Sale. w OPTIMIZATION determine the optimal allocations for classes (including point of sale) by considering demand, overbooking, bookings, base and ancillary fares. w CAPACITY MANAGEMENT sets optimal capacity and/or staffing levels for a range of departures to improve overall profitability after considering current bookings, forecasted demand, fares as well as any operational constraints and costs associated with various capacity levels. w BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE generates management and analyst level reports on sailings, customers, markets, etc in terms of usage, load factor, revenue, etc.. Technology: Graphical User Interface The software is a web based application, where it exposes a lightweight thin layer that can be launched within a web browser without any software installation on their client machine. The solution is robust, secure and scalable and runs on popular browsers such as IE and Firefox. The software can be locally installed within the carrier s IT environment or hosted by RTS. The application enables easy integration with third party systems using webservices. Business Intelligence
RTS Cargo ProfitOpt RTS ProfitOpt Key Features w Cost Effective: Customizable hosted solution with minimal upfront IT costs and no ongoing hardware maintenance costs to provide a solution with unparalleled value. w Demand Forecasts: Detailed unconstrained forecasts by departure/class/day Of Week/Time Of Day/Vessel capacity/ Point Of Sale level using flexible seasonality definitions including special event and exception handling. w Optimization: Maximizes revenue by considering various factors including optimal deck configuration, nesting, ancillary services etc. to generate RES specific physical authorizations and financial bid price controls. Support for round trip optimization by linking return sailing to outbound by product. w Price Sensitive Revenue Management: Support for simplified fares using price elasticity curves for those sailings with simplified fares with no restrictions. w Point Of Sale Control: Forecasting and optimization can be done at sale location/distribution channel level to provide preferential availability by point of sale. w Ancillary Services: Considers the total value of passengers including ancillary revenue as well as forecasts demand for ancillaries. w Capacity Management: Determines the staffing levels for each sailing as they are linked to the number of onboard passengers. w Multiple Integrated Resource Controls: Links primary to secondary resources (e.g.: passengers to vehicles) in various ways thus enabling simultaneous optimization of multiple resources. w Competitive Insight: Visibility into competitor sailings to enable informed decisions. w Round Trip Support: Provide a holistic perspective to analysts through round trip support that links outbound and return sailings. w Business Intelligence: Extensive reporting capabilities including executive dashboards with drill down functionality, monitoring forecast accuracy, revenue opportunities and KPIs along with ad-hoc reporting. Highly accurate demand forecasts ( A 10% increase in forecast accuracy can lead to 2-4% increase in revenue ) coupled with sophisticated optimization capabilities can significantly boost the bottom line. w Graphical User Interface: Customizable and configurable work flow including user adjustments at micro and macro levels along with what-if simulation modeling capability.
RTS CargoProfitOpt-Cargo Revenue Management Solution Why RTS CargoProfitOpt? RTS CargoProfitOpt will enable cruise ferries to realize incremental revenue benefits of up to 10% from cargo business and can assist cruise ferries to accurately plan the cargo capacities to be offered for sale and control access to capacities. RTS CargoProfitOpt Functionality and Features: RTS CargoProfitOpt software will assist cruise ferries with the following: w Forecast capacity available for cargo in terms of lane meters and berths/cabins (for accompanying drivers) considering expected passengers and their vehicles. w Determine overbooking level or capacities available for sale considering cancellation, no show, and over/under-tendering of cargo by customers. w Forecast cargo demand by vehicle types and optimally allocate capacity among various customers for medium or longer term. w Support dynamic pricing considering demand, capacities, routes, and costs to maximize network profitability. The key features of the solution include: w Automatically process key revenue management modules at night for up-to-date capacities, overbooking levels, demand forecasts, and allocations. w Interactively run revenue management modules and options to review and modify model outputs as well as change model inputs. w Ability to create weekly, monthly and yearly management reports on service failures, load factors, and revenues. w Pro-actively manage sailings/departures by alerting users when certain conditions are met or not met in terms of potential service failures or revenue opportunities. w Manage departures in a simple and more efficient way with user-friendly interactive screens.
Revenue Technology Services is a worldwide provider of profit enhancing- revenue management and pricing software solutions and consulting services for travel and transportation industry for both passenger and cargo sectors. RTS is headquartered in Dallas, Texas with offices in UK and South Africa and a development center in Mohali, India. HQ America India UK South Africa 6404 International Pkwy, Suite 2000 Plano, Texas 75093 USA Tel: +1.972.573.1600 81 Oxford Street,Ste 404 London W1D 2EU UK Tel - +44(0) 20.7993.8110 IT C-2, Sector 67 Mohali, Punjab, 160062 INDIA Tel: +(91) 172.500.4155 P.O. Box 1158, Sun Valley 7985, South Africa Tel - +27 (0) 21.785.7116 Profit Enhancing Solutions www.rtscorp.com rts.information@rtscorp.com