What is it
The ZaK Yield Manager is a basic tool, but very powerful: it provides you with several options to optimize your sales strategies as you wish!
You can set rules to increase or decrease your prices automatically, depending on how the availability of your rooms changes and how many reservations you receive.
This feature gives you total freedom in configuration, as rules can be set for all your rooms and rates, or you can define different rules for each product and each rate plan. This allows you to act wherever you like: only in the Online Reception, only in the Channel Manager, only in specific channels, and so on.
Cost
The Yield Manager package costs €12 per month. It can be subscribed from the following section:
↳ Useful Link: ZaK > Home > ZaK Subscription
Configuration
The configuration page can be reached from the following link:
↳ Useful Link: ZaK > Products > Mini Yield
Here you can view all the rules you have already created and easily identify those active and those paused.
At the top you can also filter by a specific rate or product.
You can also use the SUPERVISE button to check the changes made by the Zym on a specific date, room and rate.
Click instead on ADD RULE on the top right to add a new automatism. You'll find several fields to fill in.
1. BASIC SETUP
Here you have to define:
- a name to identify this rule
- the rate on which the rule will act. You can choose to apply the rule to all rates or just specific ones.
- the product on which the rule will act. Also in this case you can choose all of them or a just specific ones.
- the activation, so if the rule must be immediately active or if you prefer to create it and enable it later.
- the price variation that ZaK will have to apply. It can be fixed/percentage and positive/negative. So here you set if, when the configured conditions occur, your prices must increase or decrease and how much.
2. RANGE OF DATES
Here you have to define:
- the date range in which you want this rule to be valid. The days "From" and "To" will also be included.
- the days of the week for which, within this range, the rule must be valid (e.g. only on weekends).
! ATTENTION: The rule will only work for the days included in the period you define here. If a reservation includes days OUT of this period, the price will only change for the days in which the rule is valid. For the other days, the price will not be changed.
3. AVAILABILITY RANGE
Here you have to define the availability range for which the rule must be applied. For example, if you want the rule to be applied by ZaK only when you have 1 availability left, then you will set 1 to 1. If you want it to be applied to the last 5 available rooms, you will set 1 to 5. And so on.
You can choose between 3 options:
- Rate Product Availability: the rule will also take into account the availability modifier you set for the rate and room chosen in step 1.
In the following example, the Rate Product Availability is 6 (4+2):
-
Room Type Availability: the rule will only take into account the real availability. The availability modifier (if set) will be ignored.
In the following example, the Room Product Availability is4 (the modifier 2 is not considered):
- Property Availability: the rule will take into account the availability of the full property, NOT of each room type.
In the following example, the Property Availability is 3 (2+1):
! ATTENTION: In the selected availability range, the price will only be changed once.
Example:
You set a Room Type Availability rule that acts when the availability of room X is between 1 and 5. If the availability of room X changes from 6 to 5, then the rule takes effect and the room price is changed for the next reservation. If later the availability of room X changes from 5 to 4, the rule will NOT act again, because it has already acted in that availability range.
If you want it to act every time the availability of room X decreases, then you should create a rule for each availability value (1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, etc).
4. TIME WINDOW (optional)
This is an advanced and optional setting that should only be used if you have fully understood how it works.
You can choose between 3 options:
- No Limit: time window disabled. The rule will always be applied in the period set above, without further limits.
- Proximal: the rule will only act in the next X days. You can choose the number of days. This can be useful, for example, to define a last-minute pricing policy.
Example in picture:
The rule will start to act today and will only act for the next 10 days.
- Custom: you can choose in how many days the rule should start to act ("Offset") and, once it starts, for how many days it should act ("Range").
Example in photo:
The rule will NOT start working today, but in 5 days. And, when it starts, it will only work for the next 10 days.
5. SALES SPEED (optional)
This is an advanced and optional setting that should only be used if you have fully understood how it works.
You can choose between 2 options:
- No Limit: sales speed disabled. The rule will always be applied in the period set above, without further limits.
-
Define a speed: here you can define a rule that acts according to your sales speed. The sales speed is the number of reservations received in a specific time range. You can set the rule to act only if you receive X reservations in X time. You can choose the number of reservations and the time (in days, weeks or months). Of course, the rule only applies if you receive X reservations for the same day, not for different days. Prices will be increased for that day on which you received X reservations. Such increase will only be valid for the time you choose.
Example in photo:
The rule will only take effect if you have received at least 5 reservations in the 24h before the price reading is carried out. The increase, once made, will only be valid for the chosen time, so for 1 day only.
! NOTE: Remember these three important aspects for sales speed:
- Also option reservations are considered, but not offer reservations.
- If a reservation already received is cancelled in the defined time range, the counter resets to zero.
- If you change the room to a reservation or extend it by e.g. 1 day, it will not be counted as a new reservation, as you need to consider the creation date. Changes are only taken into account if the creation date is still within the chosen range.
When is the price reading carried out?
The price reading:
- in ZaK is done every time ZaK has to send prices to OTAs or Online Reception. Or when you check your prices on Tabla, Sytar or open zView. At that moment ZaK checks if there are dates, in the rule's validity period, for which you received at least 5 reservations in the last 24h. If yes, then the rule will act and the Yield Manager will modify the prices for those dates, until the next reading. So we can say that in ZaK prices are updated in real time.
- For OTAs, on the other hand, prices are read out about every hour. So it can happen that ZaK has just sent prices to OTAs. Then, a few minutes later, the prices change because of the Yield Manager and the Sales Speed. In this case it is necessary to wait for ZaK to send prices to OTAs again, after about 1 hour.
Order in case of multiple rules
Once saved a rule, you will find it below, in the list of all rules. By holding down the icon you can sort your rules.
If you created more than one rule for the same period, ZaK will execute them all, one by one, following your order.
Where to check Zym changes
You can check prices changed by Zym in 4 ways:
- from the page where you create the rules, by clicking on the SUPERVISE button in the top right-hand corner
- from Tabla
- from Sytar
- from the zView
In Tabla, Sytar and zView you will find the "Zym" button at the top:
By enabling this button, you will display the prices edited by the Yield Manager. You will not be able to modify them, but only to check them.
NOTE: this button is only used to choose whether to display the prices modified by ZYM or the original prices (which are always stored in ZaK). It does not enable or disable the Yield Manager: the rules must be enabled or disabled from the Yield Manager page.
In addition, when you enter a reservation manually (from YouBook or Planner or zView), you can choose whether to use the price modified by the Yield Manager or your own rates. By enabling the Yield rules, you will enter the reservation with the prices modified by the Yield Manager:
Example
Let's see how it works with a practical example!
In my Tabla, I still have 2 SUIT rooms available for the day 21/02, at 200€ per night in the "Standard" rate. I also have the SUITE SINGLE USE, which has an automatic derivation of -15€ from the SUIT, so it costs 185€:
Among the Yield Manager rules, I set that in February, when I have only 1 availability left, the price must increase by 50€. I activate this for the SUI room and the Standard rate:
Then I enter a test reservation for 21/02, so that now only 1 SUIT is available in the Planner:
↳ Useful Link: Zak > Products > Planner
Now let's check the price in Tabla again, making sure that the "Zym" button at the top is enabled.
We will see that the price of the SUIT has increased by 50€ as set in the rule, so it is now 250€:
On the contrary, the price of the Single Use Suite is unchanged. This is because the rule has been set to act only on the SUIT. So even though the price of the Single Use Suite is derived from the SUIT price, it is not changed by the Yield Manager.
Yield Manager and derived products/rates
As we saw in the example above, the Yield Manager rules only act on the products you have selected. If you have selected only one product, the rule will only act on that product and NOT on products derived from it. Their price will not be changed.
Same with rates: if you have selected only one rate in the rule, then the rule will only affect that rate and NOT the rates derived from it. Their price will not be changed.
How to delete a rule?
Removing a rule is very easy, just go back to the configuration page and delete it by clicking the bin icon:
↳ Useful Link: ZaK > Products > Zym
! NOTE: Once a rule is removed, all changes made by that rule will be cancelled and the original price will be immediately restored.
In our example, by deleting the February rule, the SUIT price will go back to 200€ as it was originally, no longer 250€:
Manual editing of Zym prices
1. From Tabla
2. From Sytar
↳ Useful Link: ZaK > Products > Sytar