Gaming company adopts solution to support forecasting, optimization efforts
Rockville, MD — August 3, 2004 — Caesars Entertainment Inc., one of the world's leading gaming companies, said today it has selected The Rainmaker Group, a specialist in revenue management implementations, and demand and supply chain solutions provider Manugistics Group Inc. to provide an Advanced Hotel Gaming Revenue Management solution for Caesars' domestic casino resorts.
The solution is intended to maximize resort profits by increasing overall revenue yield per available room.
The implementation will cover Caesars' entire domestic portfolio, which includes such names as Bally's, Caesars, Flamingo, Grand Casinos, Hilton casinos and Paris Las Vegas.
The Rainmaker/Manugistics Advanced Hotel Gaming Revenue Management solution is designed to forecast future room demand and allocate rooms to ensure that they are available for the most valuable business, measured broadly in terms of overall profit contribution.
In some cases, according to Caesars, that means allocating rooms to customers who are willing to pay the highest room rates or who are likely to stay the longest. However, it also can mean allocating rooms to customers who might pay a lower room rate, but spend more on gaming or resort amenities.
"We are pleased to be moving forward with The Rainmaker Group and Manugistics," said Caesars Entertainment Senior Vice President and Special Assistant for Strategic Initiatives Bob Conover. "Their experience in gaming has resulted in product innovations tailored to a casino's special needs, and their track record in the industry persuaded us of their ability to deliver."
Besides making inventory available to Caesars' most valuable individual customers, the solution includes tools to help salespeople determine the value of proposed convention business relative to other demand streams.
The Rainmaker/Manugistics solution is intended to enable salespeople to quickly and easily determine the "fit" of a group. If requested dates or location are unworkable, the system automatically suggests alternative dates and locations better suited to the meeting planner's needs. Similarly, the solution's precision forecasting is designed to help Caesars' marketing team determine when they should undertake or avoid special promotional activity.
Rainmaker's consultants have many years of experience with revenue management applications in general and with the specialized nuances of gaming in particular. Tammy Farley, a Rainmaker principal, maintained that "revenue management is not a computer system; it's a way of doing business." Consonant with the company's philosophy, the Rainmaker team is working to develop revenue management best practices (RMBP), which are business processes designed to ensure that Caesars obtains the most value in the least time from its investment.
"Manugistics is proud to add Caesars to the list of Travel and Hospitality clients adopting our demand and revenue management solutions," said Jeff Anderson, director, Demand and Revenue Management, Manugistics. "We look forward to Caesars taking advantage of our revenue management solution to better serve and manage their customers."
