Competitor Settings

Use the Competitor Settings tab to tell G3 RMS how to use your competitors' data. For an overview, review all steps and the benefits of Rate Shopping setup.

What Help Do You Need with Setting up the Competitors?

• I want to change the way my competitors display throughout G3 RMS:
  • Competitor Display: On many G3 RMS pages you see only one competitor’s price, not all. Select which single competitor you see in Competitor Display.
  • Display Name: Change the name that you see for the competitor in G3 RMS.
• I need to manage how G3 RMS uses my competitor's rate shopping data:
  • Use Rate Shopping Data: G3 RMS uses the selected competitors’ price moves to produce better demand forecasts and pricing decisions. Clear the selection of competitors that sell outside of your market's normal price range or sell a lot higher or lower than your property. See Best Practices for details.
  • Use Within Days to Arrival: Ignore a competitor's rate shopping data if they regularly price at their highest or lowest price until date is closer to arrival, for example, 90 days to arrival. See Ignore Competitor Data Within Days to Arrival for details.
  • Use in Competitive Market Position Constraints: Enable one of these constraints if you need to maintain a specific pricing position in your competitive set, for example, above the lowest-priced competitors. Any constraint might prevent the price point with the highest revenue so first review the scenarios and the best practices.
• I want to temporarily ignore a competitor or exclude values from a competitor to make them comparable:
  • Ignore Competitor Data: What if a true competitor temporarily prices much higher or lower than you, for example, during a renovation? Use Ignore Competitor Data to define a period when you want  to ignore the competitor's rate shopping data.
  • Rate Adjustment: Do not exclude a competitor because its rate shopping values include costs like breakfast or taxes, like VAT or GST, while your pricing is set up as net values. Instead, include them but use Rate Adjustment to make the values comparable.

Setup Steps

Setting Up Competitor Display

G3 RMS selects Median Price for Show competitor by, either automatically or after you click Suggest in the Room Class Mapping tab. Use these steps to review and, if needed, change the setup.

1. Click , then External Data, and then Rate Shopping.
2. Click the Competitor Settings tab.
3. Select the competitor to display using one of two options:
   • Select Show competitor by and select a price level if you want the displayed competitor to meet your price level criteria. G3 RMS picks the matching one from all competitors checked for "Use Rate Shopping Data", excluding your own property.
     • Highest Price: displays the competitor with the highest price for each date.
     • Lowest Price: displays the competitor with the lowest price for each date.
     • Median Price: displays the median competitor, or the competitor with the price in the middle when you sort competitors by pricing for each date.
   • Select Select a specific competitor and choose a property name from the list, if you always want to display the same competitor, regardless of price. The same property and its daily rates display in pricing data.
4. Click Save.
5. Click Export to Excel to download your settings. The export includes sheets for each rate shopping tab.

Setting Up Competitors

G3 RMS selects Use Rate Shopping Data for all competitors, either automatically or after you click Suggest in the Room Class Mapping tab.

1. Click , then External Data, and then Rate Shopping.
2. Click the Competitor Settings tab.
3. Make the appropriate selections and changes for how to display or use rate shopping data, see Data Details for descriptions.
4. Click Save

Ignoring Competitor Data

1. Click , then External Data, and then Rate Shopping.
2. Click the Competitor Settings tab.
3. Select the Ignore Competitor Data checkbox to enable this feature.
4. Select any Competitor to be ignored during the defined period.
5. Select any Room Class for which rate shopping data is ignored. Only Room Classes that you have selected in Room Class Mapping are available.
6. Define the period when the competitor's data will be ignored by using the calendar menus to select a Start Date and End Date.
7. Select each Day of Week to be ignored, as needed.
8. Enter a Note to explain the reason why you decided to ignore the data for the period.
9. Click to save the changes.
   Note: If you use a competitive constraint, G3 RMS warns you if ignoring competitors means that it can't apply the constraint, see constraint definitions.
10. If needed, select a different competitor and repeat the previous steps.
11. The table displays present and future ignored periods. Use the Action column to: 
    • Click the note icon to see notes that have been added. A note icon indicates that no note has been added. A note icon with a check mark indicates that a note is present.
    • Click the delete icon to delete the ignored period.

Setting Up Rate Adjustments

If your property uses tax inclusive pricing Tax-inclusive pricing applies in countries where quoted and booked prices have to include taxes like a Value-Added Tax (VAT) or Goods and Services Tax (GST). If you are not in a country with tax-inclusive pricing, taxes are added to pricing only at the point of payment. In G3 RMS, tax-inclusive pricing is enabled and configured in Property Specific Configuration., G3 RMS sets up a tax Rate Adjustment, either automatically or after you clicked Suggest in the Room Class Mapping tab. In that case, use step five to review and, if needed, change the setup.

1. Click , then External Data, and then Rate Shopping.
2.  Click the Competitor Settings tab.
3.  Select the Rate Adjustment checkbox.
4.  Set the default Tax deduction:
   1. Select Percentage or Value for the amount to deduct from rate shopping values.
   2. In the last field, type the percentage or value to deduct from rate shopping values.
5. Add Other default deductions:
   1.  Select Percentage or Value for the amount to deduct from rate shopping values.
   2.  In the last field, type the percentage or value to deduct from rate shopping values.
6. Click add .
7. Repeat steps 5. to 7. for properties where the Tax or Other deduction differs from the default.
8. If needed, add Seasons when the default values differ:
   1. Enter a Name for the season.
   2. Select Default or a specific property for which the season applies.
   3. Select the Start and End Date of the season.
   4. Follow step 5 and 6 to select the Tax and Other deductions.
   5. Click add .
9. Click Save.

If needed, click the delete icon to delete the Rate Adjustment exception.

Data Details

Competitor Configuration

Column	Description
Competitor Property Name	The list of your competitor properties. Click the open icon next to a Competitor Property Name to view your Room Classes that you mapped to the competitor in Room Class Mapping. A icon next to the competitor's name indicates that G3 RMS detected a new competitor. You will receive an Alert about new competitors. To activate new competitors and resolve the Alert, click the link in the Alert to go to Competitor Settings. Clicking the link activates the competitor. Alternatively, if you notice the New label before resolving the Alert, save any change to the competitor setup to activate it.
Display Name	If needed, change the competitor's name to a shorter or more intuitive name. The name is displayed where competitor information is available in G3 RMS, for example, in Competitor Details in Pricing Management.
Room Class	Your property's Room Class that you defined as comparable to the competitor's room type.
Use Rate Shopping Data	Select the checkbox, unless the competitor does not directly impact your rate strategy, or it prices very differently than you and your true competitors. See Rate Shopping Data Requirements for details. Click the open icon to make the selection at the Room Class level. If a selection exists at this level, you see a warning next to the competitor.
Use within days to arrival	The number of days prior to arrival that G3 RMS should ignore your competitor's rate shopping data. Enter the days to arrival as a positive number. If you want the system to use the data for all dates, leave the field blank. See Ignore Competitor Data Within Days to Arrival to learn more about this functionality.
Use in Competitive Market Position Constraints	This column only displays if you opt to use Competitive Market Position Constraints. After you set up your constraints, select the checkbox for all properties that you want G3 RMS to consider for the constraint. For example, for the "Above All Competitors" constraint, select those properties that you want the system to price above. Review Best Practices for Competitive Market Position Constraints to decide if this functionality is right for your property.
Created On	The date when the competitor was first populated in G3 RMS. This information helps differentiate old from new data and may be helpful, for example, when your property changes rate shopping vendors.
Action	Click the delete icon to delete a competitor from Rate Shopping setup. Deleting the competitor entirely removes its data from G3 RMS. The deletion process might take an hour or more to complete. While the process is running, G3 RMS cannot run a daily or business day end processing. You also cannot make other Rate Shopping setup changes, run What Ifs, run Group Pricing Evaluations, or complete Mass BAR uploads. We recommend that you use the deletion option only when you are not actively using G3 RMS and not before a scheduled processing.

 

Best Practices

Use These Configurations if You Subscribe to Rate Shopping Data

You select the competitors that G3 RMS analyzes for the impact on your demand. If you subscribe to rate shopping data, we strongly recommend that you select competitors for inclusion to ensure that the system knows what you know.

Select at Least One Competitor

You must select Use Rate Shopping Data for at least one competitor. G3 RMS also uses your property's rate shopping data for comparison with your competitors and you can't change the setup or remove your property from this setup.

Select All True Competitors

Select the Use in Rate Shopping checkbox for all true competitors, so G3 RMS can calculate how much their pricing impacts your demand.

Including only true competitors is more important when you have a large number of competitors in your rate shopping data. When you have only three competitors, G3 RMS can easily differentiate each of their impacts on your demand. When you have ten competitors, that task may be very difficult.

Do Not Include Insignificant Competitors

Do not select the Use in Rate Shopping checkbox for those competitors that do not directly impact your rate strategy and are only included in your competitive set for informational purposes. While G3 RMS can measure competitors’ impact, it still relies on you to provide it with meaningful data. If you include properties that price very differently than you and your true competitors, you may give G3 RMS a false impression of competitors’ rates, which could lead to a suboptimal forecast and pricing.

Be Careful with Including Vacation Rentals

If you can include vacation rentals in your rate shopping data, ensure they are true competitors, since there is no standard rating system:

• Is the product comparable? Are the services, facilities, and their quality the same? Does it attract the same type of traveler? 
• How near is the listing to your property? The closer it is, the more it might be a true competitor.
• Is the vacation rental priced similarly to matching room types at your property?

If you include vacation rentals, ensure that they are mapped to a matching room type, see Room Class Mapping.

Ignore Competitor Data Within Days to Arrival

You might have a competitor that prices at a very high or low rate until the typical booking window begins, for example, 90 days to arrival. This property remains a true competitor within 90 days, but you don't want their extreme pricing to impact your forecast and decisions outside of 90 days. Use this feature to ignore the competitor's rate shopping data until the defined booking window arrives.

Ignore Competitor Data for a Limited Time

A competitor might price very differently than you only during a limited period, for example, when it undergoes a renovation. Such a property remains a true competitor before and after the renovation, but you don't want their abnormal pricing during the renovation to negatively impact your forecast and decisions. Use Ignore Competitor Data to define a period when you want G3 RMS to ignore rate shopping data for that competitor.

A competitor's business practices might also differ from yours only on specific days of the week during that period. For example, the competitor offers extremely high rates on three weekends in October due to a large group that is booked on those days. Use Ignore Competitor Data to select specific days of the week within a period on which to ignore the competitor's rates.

When using this optional setup, be sure to enter a note explaining the reason why you decided to ignore the data for the period.

Do Not Delete Past Periods of Ignored Competitor Data

We recommend that you keep the past two years of periods that you set up to ignore competitors' data. G3 RMS uses up to two years of historical rate shopping data to understand demand and Fair Market Value. Keeping the Ignore Competitor Data periods ensures that G3 RMS continues to exclude historical rate shopping data that should not influence your pricing.

Use Rate Adjustments When Rates Don't Match

Use Rate Adjustment setup for deductions from rate shopping values. For example, the rate shopping data of your competitors includes breakfast and the your pricing values don't include it. In that case, rate shopping data is inflated by the breakfast value and doesn't offer a true comparison to your unqualified pricing. To avoid that, enter the breakfast value as a Rate Adjustment. G3 RMS removes the value from the rate shopping data and uses the adjusted values.

Another example is if your property is in a country where booked prices have to include taxes (like VAT or GST). During optimization, G3 RMS compares revenue data (for example ADR) from your reservation system to competitor rate shopping data. For a true comparison, both values must have the same tax status, either including or excluding tax.

For most clients, the reservation system sends revenue data exclusive of tax. And rate shopping data usually includes tax. If that’s the case at your property, add the tax value as an adjustment so that G3 RMS has comparable values, both exclusive of tax. If G3 RMS receives revenue and rate shopping data exclusive of tax, don’t add any adjustment. If you are unsure whether your system sends data with or without tax, contact your IDeaS representative.

First, set up default values for tax or other deductions. Then, if needed, define exceptions for competitors. For example, you deduct tax from all competitors. But you deduct tax and breakfast for one competitor that offers breakfast. Note that the default selection includes your property. That is because, if your property also includes other supplements, G3 RMS needs to adjust your rates as well to ensure an equal comparison.

If needed, you can add seasons when the adjustments differ, for example if a competitor includes breakfast only during part of the year.

Use Demand Overrides for New Competitors

What if a new competitor has opened in your market, and you know it has an immediate impact on your demand? G3 RMS can detect such overall one-time shifts in demand very quickly. However, unless your rate shopping data vendor can provide historical data, G3 RMS waits 30 days after receipt of the first data file before it considers the impact of price changes of a new competitor. Therefore, to react to a price change for a specific arrival date, you may need to use demand overrides until G3 RMS completes its learning.