How smart allocation unlocks hidden revenue in the leisure sector

Where revenue management still leaks value 

Pricing is not the whole picture. Significant value sits in asset utilization — how capacity is actually used — which decides whether the space a park already has can truly be sold. According to Hidde Bieze, Business Consultant at ORTEC Lumina, allocation management is an undervalued part of revenue management: the bridge between strategy and execution.  

Fragmented gaps from flexible booking 

The leisure market is shifting. Where parks once sold fixed arrival blocks — week, mid-week, weekend — guests increasingly choose their own arrival and departure dates. While this is great for guest experience, it introduces inefficiencies: small, fragmented gaps appear in the schedule. You can end up with some nights available, but they are not consecutive enough to form an attractive stay. As a result, your park can’t reach full occupancy - even with strong demand. That is lost revenue on capacity that is, in theory, sellable. 

Smart allocation: closing capacity gaps 

To address this, we built ‘The Allocation Engine’ that reorganizes bookings and assigns them to capacity as efficiently as possible. Hidde compares it to Tetris: existing bookings are shifted to close the gaps between them — not randomly, but by evaluating thousands of possible combinations within commercial and operational constraints. This creates complete weeks or mid-weeks that are attractive enough to resell. It also reinforces pricing: instead of discounting isolated single nights to stimulate demand, the engine bundles them into a consecutive stay, so analysts can maintain or even raise prices. The result is higher occupancy and a stronger average price per night (AVPN).

The measurable result 

Thanks to the Allocation Engine, you can turn fragmented capacity into sellable, high-value weeks. A recent optimization run by this engine resulted in 9,600 additional sellable weeks, representing over €10 million in potential revenue. 

“That’s revenue you simply couldn’t have achieved otherwise,” says Hidde. “And importantly, the engine does not increase total capacity or occupancy, it boosts booking potential. The number of bookings stays the same, but the allocation becomes smarter, creating additional sellable weeks. That is pure value.” 

The impact can be measured in two ways: 

• Potential revenue: the value of additional booking opportunities created 

• Realized revenue: the revenue generated once those opportunities are sold 

“This distinction is important,” Hidde notes. “It lets you quantify the system’s contribution even before the extra weeks are booked. And once they are booked, you can directly attribute that revenue to allocation.”

From occupancy to sellability 

The Allocation Engine reflects a shift in how revenue performance is evaluated. Many teams focus on occupancy rates. However, occupancy alone does not show whether remaining capacity can still be sold. “You can be 90% full and still lose revenue,” Hidde explains. “Smart allocation shifts the focus from occupancy to sellability: whether your remaining capacity can still generate value.”

Why parks are adopting it now 

The timing is not accidental. The leisure sector is professionalizing quickly, and more resorts now sit within investment groups that assess return on assets with a sharp commercial mindset, asking how to maximize value from the assets they already have. At the same time, data quality has improved and integrations with reservation systems are more robust. What was pioneering five years ago now delivers substantial impact with relatively little effort. 

The figures are impressive, but for Hidde, the real value lies in the shift in perspective. “Revenue management is no longer just about charging more, it’s about using assets more intelligently. That makes it sustainable: you’re creating value from what already exists.” He gives a straightforward example: “If a quest books two nights and leaves behind a single night that’s difficult to sell, you can ‘nudge’ them to add a night at a 30% discount. That’s a win-win: the guest gets a deal, and you turn hard to sell capacity into revenue.”