Dax Cross is CEO of Revenue Analytics, an enterprise SaaS company that helps hospitality, media, passenger rail and timeshare companies to perfect their pricing strategies.

Revenue Analytics software helps maximize revenues from rental inventory while increasing automation. “In the past, many timeshare companies looked at hotel revenue management systems and determined that they didn’t really work for them because their inventory fluctuated too much,” Cross says. “A hotel will always have a similar number of rooms to rent on any given day, but timeshare resorts don’t. You may have had 20 units available for rental last year, but this year you have 50. That makes it difficult to forecast demand.  What we have done is develop a new approach that can better adjust to the demand so that automation can be used to make those rental pricing decisions.”

Revenue Analytics software eliminates the need for managers to make thousands of rental pricing decisions and manually input any changes. Even better, due to the amount of market data in the system, the decisions are more profitable as well. 

Although Revenue Analytics entered into the timeshare arena just two years ago, Cross is already seeing an immediate impact. “We are seeing at least a 3% increase in revenues for the companies using our software,” he says. 

Although Cross began his career as an attorney, his interest in revenue management comes from his father, Robert Cross, who was one of the pioneers of the revenue management specialty. When his father started his career on the revenue management team at Delta, there was a group of 50 people setting the number of discount seats on each flight, and Delta had approximately 500,000 flights per year. They relied solely on their experience and intuition to guide their decision-making. “He knew right away that because of the scale of the task, there had to be a better way to do it using data analytics,” Cross explains. “He took over the team and with his system, they increased Delta’s profits by over $300 million a year.”

Robert Cross eventually started his own pricing revenue management firm, which he sold in 2000. Dax, who was working as an attorney in mergers and acquisitions at the time, and his brother, who had been working at a different revenue management company, convinced their father to come out of retirement in 2005, and Revenue Analytics was off and running. Since then, they’ve helped marquee hospitality brands like Marriott, IHG, and Hyatt hone their pricing strategies. 

One project that initially seemed a little off-brand was helping the Coca-Cola company optimize the flavor profile of its Simply Orange juice. “They had their food scientists develop the optimal taste profile,” he says. “You can measure things like sweetness and bitterness by their chemical content. But since they were getting oranges from different sources, the profiles would change. They had us build an optimization algorithm that would recommend the blend plan to get them to the most consistent, optimal taste profile all year.” This project ended up earning Cross two patents for the technology. Sidenote: Cross says the best time to buy fresh orange juice is in June. 

After working with Revenue Analytics’ first client in the timeshare space, Cross saw a tremendous opportunity for other brands. “We have something that can make a huge impact,” Cross says. “We can improve top-line revenues while also making life easier for your people. Then, I met Jason {Gamel, ARDA President} at an event and realized that having an ARDA membership is a great way to meet people in this space and get the word out about what we do. I’m really looking forward to meeting even more people at the upcoming conference in Las Vegas.”

When he’s not traveling to meet clients, Cross loves to travel with his family. “My favorite recent trip is when we took our kids to Europe to learn about ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance and modern history from the standpoint of various European countries,” he says. “I was a history major, so I’m always excited to refresh knowledge and learn more, and my wife and I love experiencing amazing places, art, and architecture with our kids.”