Whereas this is perhaps your first thought, ALOS is extra than simply one other fancy hospitality acronym. It’s a key lodge metric to trace if you wish to optimise your distribution, scale back prices and enhance income.
On this article, you’ll discover all the things you’ll want to learn about ALOS, and easy methods to use it to additional enhance your property’s outcomes.
What’s ALOS?
ALOS abbreviates ‘common size of keep.’ It refers back to the common variety of nights friends keep at your property over a given time. For instance, in case your ALOS was 4.5 in Q3, 2022, every reserving throughout that quarter was for 4.5 days on common.
ALOS normally shifts all year long, relying on the season and its respective journey patterns. It additionally differs relying on the property sort, location and goal market. Resorts that welcome largely leisure friends usually have an extended ALOS. However, metropolis properties with a concentrate on enterprise travellers normally see friends keep fewer days.
Within the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, ALOS trended upwards for a lot of trip leases and resorts in scenic areas as folks embraced the concept of staycations and distant working preparations.
How do you calculate the typical size of keep?
Calculating ALOS is simple. Decide the typical size of keep for friends at your lodge by following these steps:
- Add up the variety of room nights booked for a given time (e.g. one month, quarter or a customized interval).
- Add up the variety of reservations for a similar time.
- Divide the variety of room nights by whole reservations to get your ALOS.
Why is it necessary to trace ALOS at your lodge?
Understanding your lodge’s common size of keep may also help you on a number of fronts. First, it reveals reserving patterns throughout seasons and through occasions. This lets you create pricing and distribution methods that maximise high-demand intervals and proceed to drive enterprise even when issues decelerate.
Second, figuring out how your ALOS shifts throughout the 12 months helps you to run your operations extra effectively. For instance, it’ll be simpler so that you can schedule cleansing, upkeep and front-of-house groups, as a result of you may gauge the extent of visitor turnover.
5 ideas to enhance ALOS and maximise enterprise income
As a rule of thumb, lengthy stays are higher on your operation’s profitability. They imply fewer check-ins and check-outs, much less time spent cleansing rooms and fewer assets dedicated to producing new bookings. So, let’s have a look at how one can enhance the size of keep at your property.
- Set a minimal size of keep reserving restriction
Minimal keep restrictions are essentially the most easy technique to enhance ALOS since they merely don’t enable shorter bookings. They work greatest throughout high-demand instances, e.g. over holidays or necessary commerce exhibits, when nearly all of travellers are prepared to remain longer. Keep away from utilizing these guidelines as a year-round blanket resolution although as this might trigger you to lose bookings throughout off-season. - Make longer stays extra engaging with LOS pricing and packages
LOS pricing is a extra versatile different to inflexible minimal keep necessities. It means implementing pricing guidelines that calculate charges primarily based on the check-in date and the size of keep. This fashion you supply friends a extra engaging deal in the event that they guide additional nights. Alternatively, you can promote packages equivalent to “4 for 3” or “7 for six.” Particularly throughout the off-season this will encourage longer stays as a result of the low cost makes extra folks suppose “why not?” - Entice friends to spend extra time
In order for you friends to remain longer, make the concept irresistible by highlighting all of the actions and companies at your lodge and within the close by space. For instance, promote your spa or showcase the various day journeys which can be potential out of your property. By offering quite a lot of choices, you cater to a spread of pursuits and provides friends cause to stay round. - Make it straightforward to increase the keep
As soon as friends are in-house you’ve acquired one other likelihood to encourage them to tack on an additional day or two. Attain out to them the day earlier than they try and supply a beautiful deal equivalent to a free dinner or 10% off in the event that they prolong for an evening. You are able to do this by calling their room or, higher but, by way of an automatic e mail, SMS or different types of direct messaging. This lets friends select on their very own time as a substitute of placing them on the spot. Digital communication additionally lets you embody a hyperlink the place travellers can simply see the situations and prolong in only a few clicks. The less complicated you make this step, the extra friends will take you up on the supply. - Goal distant employees with engaging offers
The distant work development is right here to remain, so why not cater to versatile staff? Provide packages together with all the things they want equivalent to high-speed Wi-Fi, desk house, F&B credit, a laundry allowance and different perks. That may make your property their high choose subsequent time they need to work from a brand new location.
Implementing only a few of the ideas above is fast and may also help you drive up your property’s common size of keep. Given the various benefits of a better ALOS, it’s greater than price it to place on this effort and time. So, brainstorm how you can use these concepts at your lodge and get to work. It gained’t be lengthy till you begin seeing the advantages of welcoming friends for longer stays.
