Marriott took the airlines' playbook and priced every room by the night it would die

the problem

Rooms earned nothing past midnight

the move

Imported airline revenue management wholesale — forecast demand per hotel per night, fence discounts with advance-purchase rules.

the payoff

Marriott has publicly credited revenue management with around $100M of additional annual revenue.

filed under

Perishable capacity

was it genius?

same kind of clever

• 1985 · American AirlinesAmerican Airlines, bled by no-frills discounters, learned to sell the same seat at five prices
• 1997 · Blockbuster (with Rentrak's revenue-share model)Blockbuster stopped buying tapes outright and started splitting rental money with studios instead
• 1972 · Southwest AirlinesSouthwest Airlines had $143 left and one plane too few, so it studied NASCAR pit crews and got a fourth plane's flying out of three