Best Available Rate, often shortened to BAR, refers to strategic pricing where you offer the lowest viable rate for a room. Typically, it will be a non-refundable rate that can’t be combined with other promotions, and is set based on market research and dynamic pricing.
This is a great strategy for incentivizing bookings, but did you know that you can apply BAR tactics to your food and beverage sector, too? About 32% of a hotel's revenue comes from areas other than room bookings, like food and beverage, so optimizing your bar and restaurant pricing can significantly contribute to your hotel's overall profitability.
When using a BAR strategy for restaurants, you can dynamically adjust the prices of your hotel food and beverage offerings to maximize revenue while remaining competitive. Here are some key aspects to consider if you’re curious about how this process could work at your property:
Competitiveness: BAR rates should be competitive with similar establishments in your local area. To make sure your prices are appropriate for the market, it’s a worthwhile time investment to perform thorough market research to understand how you and your competitors compare.
Profit margin: To make sure this strategy is advantageous both for you and your guests, BAR prices should ensure a healthy profit margin. When setting prices, be sure to factor in food costs, labor costs and other operational expenses that impact the profitability of your food and beverage operations.
Market demand: A big component of BAR pricing is the flexibility it offers, so doing it effectively means paying attention to overall market demand. Adjust pricing based on seasonality, days of the week, special events and lulls in business. These are good times to either raise pricing to meet demand, or offer limited-time discounts to spur more purchases.
What can a BAR strategy do for your hotel? Here are some key benefits:
Leveraging tech solutions provides valuable data to make better pricing decisions for your restaurants and bars.
By offering timely add-ons, like premium drinks or appetizers, when guests are most likely to say yes, you significantly enhance profitability. This approach drives additional F&B sales and creates a better overall guest experience with minimal effort.
Did you know? Canary Upsells can increase your upsell revenue by up to 250%.
Creating a modern guest experience with technology increases guest satisfaction, and some technology solutions help you catch their positive feelings in the form of reviews. When guests are prompted to leave a review as part of their checkout process, they’ll help improve your hotel’s ranking and drive more bookings, reservations and restaurant orders.
Guest messaging allows hotels to send personalized discounts and offers directly to guests, enhancing the overall experience while driving more spending in bars and restaurants. This kind of tailored promotion creates a sense of exclusivity, encouraging guests to take advantage of special offers quickly.
Curious about exploring the possibilities of Best Available Rate strategies? By leveraging Canary Technologies' hotel management software, you can gain helpful insights, make data-backed pricing decisions and increase revenue — ask us how by booking a demo.
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