Fairmas wins Ritz Paris as new financial planning software customer

BERLIN - Aug. 29, 2018 - PRLog -- The traditional luxury hotel Ritz Paris, one of the two privately owned Ritz hotels apart from The Ritz London, is now using the financial planning software FairPlanner from Fairmas GmbH based in Berlin. By integrating FairPlanner into their existing IT software environment, Ritz Paris is standardizing and automating the processing of their financial data for budget and forecast planning, with the aim of making the hotel's financial planning process more efficient.

By utilizing FairPlanner, the hotel management is digitizing processes that are hardly visible to guests, but have become increasingly important for the long-term success of the hotel: revenue and profit planning, as well as cross-departmental control through transparent presentation of hotel-specific key performance indicators.

FairPlanner directly receives existing data from the hotel's property management system (PMS) and accounting system via interfaces, then automatically transfers these data into a standardized chart of accounts as basis for ongoing budget and forecast planning.

"Apart from all the efforts to ensure the welfare of the guests, today's highly competitive hotel market is continuously challenged by globalization, market consolidation processes and a change in customer behavior. Transparent budget and forecast processes in addition to ongoing Plan-Actual comparisons are the entrepreneurial answer to ensure long-term hotel success despite rising costs, increasing competitive pressure and clear return of investment," says Niels Schroeder, Managing Director of Fairmas and former Area Director Revenue Management of the InterContinental Hotels Group, speaking from experience. "FairPlanner is the software solution created by hoteliers for hoteliers. We tailored the software to address the unique financial planning needs of the hotel industry".

Revenue management is understood to mean revenue optimization. It includes the strategic orientation of the hotel in the market, and the long-term planning of distribution and sales activities explicitly including the costs for achieving the (maximum) profit.

The need for profit for the continuity of a hotel business, or more specifically, the consequences when profit was consistently absent, was actually experienced by the Ritz Paris itself over the course of time. This almost led to the closure of the luxury hotel.

When the Egyptian business magnate Mohamed Al Fayed bought the Ritz Paris in 1979, he took over the former "homes" of celebrities such as Rudolph Valentino, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway and Coco Chanel; and the desired hideaway of many wealthy romanticists, with the aim of bringing the unprofitable luxury hotel back to its former glory and new profitability. Up to now, he has invested millions in renovation and modernization, and most recently made a name for himself once again with the auction of some 10,000 pieces of furniture no longer needed by the 18^th century hotel.

Indeed a logical step to prepare a legend from the past century for the future - modernization of air conditioning is one puzzle piece; the digitization of financial planning processes another. The look and feel are as equally important as how the whole hotel runs.

"The digitization of financial planning processes is also a form of modernization. The concept may not be as popular in the media. However, it is important to be able to evaluate financially the success of sales and marketing measures, and receive relevant information for management decisions," explains Stéphane Chevalier-Lemire, responsible for international business development at Fairmas. "As a French man, it is of course something special for me that the Ritz Paris, a legendary status symbol of wealth and luxury, is now using our FairPlanner," he adds with a small hint of pride in his smile.

For more information on Fairmas and their software product range, or to request a demonstration of FairPlanner online, please visit www.fairmas.com.