Pricing a product, be it physical or digital, is a complex task – with some industries being able to tackle this problem better than others. The airline sector, for example, has managed to navigate this by implementing dynamic pricing strategies, leveraging factors like demand forecasting and customer segmentation. In contrast, the hospitality industry lags behind in adopting a data-driven pricing methodology. This presents a significant problem, to the tune of over USD$33 billion* that the Asian hospitality sector is grappling with.

The traditional approach to pricing room rates is mostly spearheaded by hotel management without data-driven insights. This, in turn, leads to inefficient pricing strategies, hindering the industry’s ability to effectively address this lost economic opportunity.

Founder of Radiant1, Apichai Sakulsureeyadej, who comes from a family of established hoteliers in the region and has spent the last two decades in big data, set out to build a solution to address this. Radiant1 uses machine learning algorithms to analyze factors including real-time demand, types of properties, and travel behavior to list a few, which enables it to provide optimized room rate pricing on a real time basis and maximize total revenue for the customer.

Data inputs, both internal and external data, are essential to a Revenue Management System (RMS). For hotels that have not digitized their backend operations, Radiant1 offers multiple modules.

“As a pivotal sector in the Southeast Asian economy, the hotel industry has traditionally underutilized technology and data in its day-to-day operations, often leading to reduced yields and profitability challenges. Radiant1 understands the pain points of management and hotel owners, which is why we have successfully scaled up revenue for our clients through our platform. Our mission is clear – to deliver state-of-the-art technology solutions to this industry and, through our platform, empower industry professionals to gain a deeper understanding of data utilization,” said Sakulsureeyadej.
‍

The company is thriving in the post-pandemic travel recovery, having already established its footprint across three markets – Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Radiant1 plans to use the new funding to double down in the existing countries as well as further geographic expansions across Asia. This funding will also be utilized to hire additional tech resources and expand the product suite. The company has, in fact, already begun experimenting with Generative AI to hyper-personalize customer engagement with hotels.

“Radiant1 aims to synthesize different work streams in hotels and use pricing automation technology to create a tangible impact on the revenue uplift. We believe that Apichai’s visionary leadership has allowed Radiant1 to identify a crucial white space within the hospitality sector. His deep understanding  of the hotel industry coupled with his extensive experience in the software industry and his track record of taking his prior company public, solidifies the foundation for Radiant1 to become Asia’s leading revenue management platform for hospitality,” said Peng T. Ong, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Monk’s Hill Ventures.
‍

* Asia Pacific Accommodation Sector Market Estimates 2022

* The impact of dynamic price variability on revenue maximization