Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

MANAGING FORECAST DATA
Year
Blocked
Picked-up
Percentage
2003
Wed.
100
82
82.0%
Thurs.
125
101
80.1%
Fri.
150
138
92.0%
Sat.
200
175
87.5%
Total
575
496
86.3%
2004
Wed.
100
75
75.0%
Thurs.
125
115
92.0%
Fri.
150
129
86.0%
Sat.
200
165
82.5%
Total
575
484
84.2%
2005
Wed.
75
71
94.6%
Thurs.
100
89
89.0%
Fri.
125
121
96.8%
Sat.
175
155
88.6%
Total
475
436
91.8%
FIGURE 13
Group history for an organization staying at the Altoona Hotel.
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MANAGING FORECAST DATA
Current run date: 
June 1, 200X
Total hotel rooms: 300
Reservations
Availability
Transient
Group
Remaining
Rooms
Sales date
sold
sold
in block
Total
available
August 1
100
50
100
250
50
August 2
150
125
25
300
0
August 3
150
75
75
300
0
FIGURE 14
Rooms availability summary for the Altoona Hotel.
FOMs respond to this tendency by carefully monitoring the speed (pace) at which
group members actually reserve rooms in the block and by extending or enforcing
contractual cutoff dates.
FRONT OFFICE SEMANTICS
Cutoff date:
Date on which unreserved rooms held in a group block are returned to the hotel’s general
rooms inventory.
To understand how pace and cutoff affect the FOM’s forecasting, consider the
decision facing Allisha Miller, the FOM at the Altoona Hotel. She has 300 rooms
available to sell. One year ago, the hotel agreed to hold 150 rooms in a group block
for the Southwestern Soccer Association Tournament for an event that will now (one
year later) occur in two months. Individual association members were to contact the
hotel to make their own reservations from the group’s block. Allisha’s PMS rooms
availability summary for June 1 appears in Figure 14.