Put collabs in the hours that were not selling

What yield management means on a restaurant floor

Airlines and hotels have priced by demand for decades: the same seat costs different amounts depending on how full the plane is. Restaurants rarely do it with price, but every operator does it instinctively with staffing.

A collab is the same decision. The question is never whether a creator is worth a table. It is which table, on which night.

A room with people in it sells the next service

There is a second effect that is easy to miss. A midweek service with four occupied tables reads as somewhere worth being. The same room with one table reads as somewhere to avoid, and the guests who did book notice.

Filling the quiet slots is not only about the content. It is about what the people who paid see when they walk in.

How to set it up

This is the part worth being strict about, and it takes one decision rather than an ongoing negotiation.

• Choose the slots you are happy to give away. Usually the early sitting, the middle of the week, and the shoulder of the season.
• Cap how many you take in a week, so a good month does not turn into a floor full of collabs.
• Decide which formats are automatic and which you want to approve yourself. The bigger the ask, the more it is worth reading the profile first.

Weighing the cost against the content

Work out the food cost of what you are offering, not the menu price. That is what the collab costs you. Then ask what you would have paid for a video of your own room, shot by somebody whose audience lives nearby.

For most venues that comparison is not close. It becomes close when the collab lands on a night you could have sold, which is the whole reason to choose the night.