Dinaz Zaq is a Revenue Management and Pricing Strategy Consultant within travel and hospitality. She has worked within pricing for many years, and garnered a wealth of talents and knowledge. Dinaz's other passion is music, in particular she has a love for Blues, Rock and Country.
Pull to Pricing
"My first real contact with Pricing in the workplace was with British Airways Revenue Management. The complexity of the airline fare structure, differentiation by point of sale and demand led pricing was intriguing.
My qualifications were more aligned with Hotels, Financial management and Marketing but once I joined airline RM, I was hooked on its system sophistication and the intricacies of global competitor markets.
The main job satisfaction comes from taking actions and seeing measurable tangible results. It's all about getting the balance right between volume and yield.There are so many facets to the science such as demand, capacity or supply, customer and competitor behaviour, fixed or movable assets, value driven propositions, cost of sale, etc that it can keep you engaged and learning new things all the time!"
Progress of Pricing
"I have worked within Revenue Management and Pricing in multiple industries, Airlines, Cruise, Hotels, Trains and even Holiday leisure parks. The basics remain the same, that of maximising every opportunity to improve on revenue, but the nuances are different by industry.
Within airlines, the low cost carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet changed the landscape forever. Legacy carriers are now forced to unbundle their tariffs and charge for simple benefits separately to play within the competitor ballpark.
Other Industries, such as cruises, have become heavily reliant on value add benefits or discount offers to be able to “talk to their customer base”, commission and distribution structures have varied over time.
Hotels have evolved to be franchised, owned or managed, and their pricing has been heavily influenced by the OTAs ability to distribute widely. Comparison websites have delivered more visibility and choice to the customer.
More advanced pricing now brings tailored options to the customer and certainly the speed of internet distribution and transparency has meant an even greater need for competitor monitoring."
Future of Pricing
"The other huge influencer that keeps me “engaged” is the fact that pricing is a part of the core fabric of every industry, whether its Google or Amazon, mobile phone networks, car insurers, supermarkets, theatres, car hire, fuel, holidays, travel, advertising space, the list is endless.
Customers are more discerning and pricing professionals have had to sharpen their techniques to differentiate themselves and stay in business."