What is the Occupancy Based Pricing (OBP) Inventory feature?
The Occupancy Based Pricing (OBP) Inventory feature allows a property to set a price in their PMS/RMS for every combination of room rate, date, occupants 1-5, extra adult, and extra child. Those rates are sent to your platform which updates channels that support receiving OBP. Having an OBP Inventory is different from simply using OBP options in the channel rate settings. You can use the OBP functionality on the channels that offer them instead of using the Inventory's feature. However, those channel-based options are less flexible.
Please note: The OBP Inventory feature is only available for customers using OBP supported PMS/RMS.
What are the benefits of OBP Inventory?
The primary benefit is it assists properties in maximising yields for rooms by offering the ability to specify an absolute price for the number of occupants and extra adult and extra child by date.
It allows a property to be far more granular with their pricing strategy compared to the Single Guest Discount functionality.
Enabling OBP Inventory for your property
Before enabling OBP Inventory functionality the following conditions must be met:
Your property must be connected to an OBP supported PMS/RMS and receiving OBP rate data
Your property must be using rate plans
Please Note: OBP Inventory can currently only be enabled by our support team. Please contact our support to enable OBP Inventory for your property.
Enabling OBP Inventory on the Room Rate
Before enabling OBP Inventory on a room rate the following conditions must be met:
OBP Inventory must be enabled for the property
Included Occupancy must be set
Maximum Occupancy must be set
The room rate must be mapped to a PMS/RMS room rate
To enable OBP Inventory for a room rate:
Go to Rooms and Rates.
Click the name of the room rate you want to enable OBP Inventory for, and click Edit.
Select the checkbox to Enable Occupancy Based Pricing.
Please Note:
After enabling OBP Inventory for the room rate you must trigger a resynchronisation of the room rate data for all dates from the PMS/RMS.
After modifying the included occupancy value of an OBP Inventory enabled room rate you must trigger a resynchronisation of the room rate data for all dates from the PMS/RMS to correctly calculate the included occupant rate value.
Room rates that have OBP Inventory enabled are unable to use the Single Guest Discount functionality. Instead, they must specify the rate for 1 occupant.
All derived room rates will inherit the pricing model of their parents.
It is possible to identify all room rates that have had OBP Inventory enabled through the Rooms and rates screen by the pill-shaped OBP sign.
Viewing OBP rates on the Inventory Grid
Room rates that have OBP Inventory enabled will be indicated through an OBP pill shaped sign on the inventory grid.
Channels that support receiving OBP data are indicated with an OBP pill shaped sign.
To view OBP room rates:
Go to Distribution > Inventory.
Click on the OBP pill shaped sign next to the room rate.
The inventory grid will expand to show the OBP rates (1-5 occupants) or up to the maximum occupancy of the room if lower than 5.
Occupant levels, extra adult and/or extra child rates that have not been received from the PMS/RMS will be indicated by a red box.
Please note:
When viewed in condensed view the inventory grid will display the rate that aligns with the included occupancy value.
Room rates that are OBP Inventory enabled cannot have their rates edited via the inventory grid. The rates must be sent from the PMS/RMS.
To view OBP channel room rates:
Go to Distribution > Inventory.
Click on the channels down arrow next to the room rate.
Click on the OBP pill shaped sign next to the channel room rate.
Please note: Not all channel integrations indicated by the pill-shaped OBP sign support receiving the full payload of OBP rate data. For example some only support receiving single and included occupancy. Your platform will send as much of the OBP rate data as the current channel integration supports. The channel room rate inventory grid will show all OBP data regardless of whether the channel integration supports receiving it all.
How OBP Inventory data is sent to channels
The SiteMinder platform receives and stores OBP rates received from the PMS/RMS. There is no logic to backfill or forward fill missing OBP rate data on the inventory grid. Missing rates are indicated by a red box.
It is strongly recommended that a hotel define in their PMS/RMS rate amounts for all occupants.
Channels that support OBP need to receive a complete payload of OBP rate data up to the maximum included occupancy for the room. In the event that OBP rate data is missing the following logic will be applied when calculating the OBP data to send to OBP capable channels.
The data calculated by the SiteMinder platform above was done because those pieces of data were not received from the connected PMS/RMS.
Calculation breakdown
In the above scenario, our included occupancy = 2 and our maximum occupancy = 6.
Assumptions
1-Jan to 6-Jan, the Extra Adult price on the room rate in the SiteMinder platform is not set
*For 7-Jan, the Extra Adult price on the room rate in the SiteMinder platform is set to 40
Calculations are only performed up to maximum room occupancy
Calculation example
On 1-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 6 Occupant price - this missing price is calculated by the SiteMinder platform based on the 5 Occupant price plus the OBP Extra Adult price for that day.
On 2-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 3, 4 & 6 Occupant prices - these missing prices are calculated by the SiteMinder platform as follows: the 3 and 4 Occupant price are backfilled from the next highest known price, in this case the 5 Occupant price. The 6 Occupant is calculated by the SiteMinder platform based on the 5 Occupant price plus the OBP Extra Adult price for that day.
On 3-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 3,4,5 & 6 Occupant prices - these missing prices are calculated by the SiteMinder platform as follows: as the 2 Occupant price is now the highest known price, the remaining prices are calculated by repetitively adding on the OBP Extra Adult price.
On 4-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 3,4,5 & 6 Occupant prices, however in this case the SiteMinder platform also did not receive the OBP Extra Adult price and from our assumption above the room rate Extra Adult value is also not set. In this case the SiteMinder platform cannot derive the pricing for the higher occupant levels so the SiteMinder platform will forward fill the highest known price. In this case the 2 Occupant price.
On 5-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 3 & 6 Occupant prices, however in this case the SiteMinder platform also did not receive the OBP Extra Adult price and from our assumption above the room rate Extra Adult value is also not set. In this case the SiteMinder platform will backfill the 3 Occupant from the next highest known price, in this case the 4 Occupant price. The 6 Occupant is calculated by the SiteMinder platform based on the 5 Occupant price as this is the highest known price.
On 6-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 1 & 6 Occupant prices. In this case the SiteMinder platform will backfill the 1 Occupant from the next highest known price, in this case the 2 Occupant price. The 6 Occupant is calculated by the SiteMinder platform based on the 5 Occupant price plus the OBP Extra Adult price for that day.
On 7-Jan, the SiteMinder platform did not receive the 1,3,4,5 & 6 Occupant prices, however in this case the SiteMinder platform also did not receive the OBP Extra Adult price, but from our assumption above the room rate Extra Adult value is set to 40. In this case the SiteMinder platform will backfill the 1 Occupant from the next highest known price, in this case the 2 Occupant price. As the 2 Occupant price is now the highest known price, the remaining prices are calculated by repetitively adding on the room rate Extra Adult price ($40).