Amid all these uncertainties, computerized revenue management systems often begin making bad decisions, the Duke researchers found. Hotel managers must thus constantly monitor the program's decision making. And they must be prepared to override it, drawing on their years of personal knowledge, experience and intuition. But even hotel managers go on vacation. And when they do, usually the manager's assistant is not as careful.
New managers can also become overwhelmed with the system's complexity.
It is very complicated to understand, because it is not written to respond to human experience and thinking. Fuzzy logic is able to model such uncertainty much better than binary logic. We had informal interviews to learn the way they operate on a daily basis. We also attended 'user group' meetings for the East Coast, where all the hotel managers bring their questions and complaints about the current system. Many questions dealt with how, when and why managers chose to override the computerized revenue management system, he added.