Most hotels can tell you how they performed last year. Fewer can explain how they performed compared to the market. And even fewer can say whether recent revenue growth came from better decisions or simply from a rising tide.
In this case, Katarina Svensson from Taktikon shares how independent benchmarking data has become the go-to starting point for their revenue management work, and why understanding market context is essential before changing prices or strategy.
Katarina is a partner at Taktikon, a consultancy specialized in revenue management and commercial optimization for hotels. In many assignments, Taktikon acts as the hotel’s external revenue manager. That role comes with responsibility for everything from pricing decisions and target setting to making sense of performance.
And one thing has become clear over time:
— Most hotels think they know how they’re performing. But they’re often basing that on simply looking back in time, Katarina says.
That’s why, before any strategy is discussed, Katarina wants to understand something else: How is the market actually moving, and where does this hotel sit within it?
For Taktikon, benchmarking is a core discipline. But for it to be useful in practice, it has to be built on data that is consistent, broad, accurate, and independent. That’s why Benchmarking Alliance is a natural partner.
— Through Benchmarking Alliance, we get access to a validated market view across destinations and peer groups. They have data that no other actor on the market has.
The platform allows revenue managers to compare a hotel not only to its closest competitors, but also to stronger, aspirational properties that represent where a hotel could realistically aim over time.
— We need one reference point we can trust. Something that gives us a clear picture of the market before we start making decisions, Katarina says.
With that reference in place, benchmarking becomes the natural starting point rather than a follow-up.
Benchmarking data is not a reporting layer added at the end. It’s the foundation that makes everything else possible. Katarina explains:
— Without benchmarking, we don’t see the full potential of the market. And then you can’t really know if your pricing or your strategy is right. That’s why it has to come first.
Relying on internal targets can feel controlled. On paper, it feels reasonable, but the market doesn’t care about that. She continues:
— If the market is up fifteen or twenty percent and you aim for five, you’re not improving. You’re losing ground. That’s when the gap becomes visible. Not just how one hotel performs, but how comparable hotels perform in the same destination, and how the market develops over time.
Hotels that don’t work with benchmarking data tend to share similar patterns. Pricing decisions are often driven by cost increases rather than demand. Campaigns are launched because certain weeks “feel weak”. And performance discussions revolve around occupancy while RevPAR and total revenue remain secondary.
— We see hotels raising prices because everything has become more expensive. But without understanding demand, that can easily lead to lost volume or the wrong mix of guests, Katarina says.
Public competitor prices are monitored, but they rarely tell the full story. What matters is the actual outcome.
— What hotels show externally and what they end up selling at are often two different things. Without a reliable market reference, it becomes difficult to understand whether underperformance is caused by internal decisions or external conditions. And even harder to explain why something worked when it did.
Once the baseline is clear, Taktikon uses Benchmarking Alliance’s platform to define where the hotel should aim. That includes working with different competitor groups: One local set for realistic comparison and one aspirational set that represents where the hotel wants to be in a few years.
— I always think you need a competitor group you strive towards. Hotels that are genuinely strong show what’s actually possible, Katarina says.
The main focus is RevPAR, because it allows fair comparison between hotels of different sizes. Targets are then set relative to how the market and competitor groups develop.
She elaborates:
— If the competitor group grows by five percent, our minimum ambition is also five percent. Otherwise, we are not taking market share.
One of the biggest challenges for revenue managers and general managers is proving that their work creates value. Benchmarking Alliance makes that possible over time.
— Instead of looking at isolated results, we follow how a hotel’s index develops against its market and competitor groups. Small movements matter. A few points up or down can signal real change long before it shows in absolute numbers, Katarina says.
This makes revenue management work visible, and changes how teams talk about performance. Decisions become easier to explain, and conversations move away from opinion and towards evidence.
But once performance becomes clear and measurable, another question often follows: are we really optimising the whole business, or just the rooms?
— Optimising rooms alone is rarely enough. In many hotels, a significant part of the guest spend sits outside the room. Restaurant, conference, spa. Without a total revenue perspective, opportunities are missed, Katarina elaborates.
By using Benchmarking Alliance’s broader data, including services like Hotel Trends, Taktikon helps hotels understand how different revenue streams perform in relation to the market. That context makes it possible to prioritise the right areas and avoid optimising one part of the business at the expense of another.
Katarina is clear that not all data is equal. Hotels have access to plenty of numbers from booking platforms and internal systems. Those sources can be useful, but they come with limitations. She explains:
— Channel data is not independent. It will always tell a story that benefits the channel. That’s why independence matters. Otherwise, every number comes with an agenda, Katarina says.
For Taktikon, Benchmarking Alliance becomes the reference point. Other data sources are used as input, but never as truth. The way Benchmarking Alliance works with data quality is a key part of that trust.
— Sometimes they feel almost too thorough. But that’s exactly why we rely on it. If the data is wrong, everything built on it will be wrong.
If there’s one takeaway from this, it’s that revenue decisions are easier to make when you know how your hotel actually performs in the market. Want to see what that looks like in practice?
Book a free demo of our platform and get a walkthrough of how market data is structured, how competitor groups are defined, and what kinds of insights hotels use to understand their position and potential.