Customer spotlight: La Casa Hotel Seoul
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How La Casa Hotel Seoul uses Rate Insight and Market Insight to increase revenue and efficiency
Key Results:
Revenue and ADR increased by over 15% on average; peak +22% in low-demand months
91.7% improvement in data collection efficiency; daily task time cut from 2 hours to under 15 minutes
Direct channel sales share up 20% (revenue) and 25% (room nights)
About the hotel
La Casa Hotel operates two branches in Seoul and Gwangmyeong, South Korea, with the Seoul property offering 86 rooms in a competitive urban market. The boutique hotel serves a mix of business and leisure guests, with a focus on maximizing performance from its limited inventory.
We caught up with Louie Shin, Cluster Sales Manager for both properties, who oversees all segments, OKRs, and revenue management for the Seoul branch. His role demands fast, informed decisions to protect ADR, drive occupancy, and maintain competitiveness, a challenge he faced head-on by introducing Lighthouse’s Rate Insight and Market Insight.
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Replacing manual research with real-time data
Challenge:
Before Lighthouse, Louie’s team manually collected competitor rates from multiple OTAs and metasearch sites, recording them in Excel or by hand.
This took about two hours daily, risked human error, and produced outdated information by the time it was analyzed.
Competitors using automated tools acted faster, leaving La Casa reactive.
Solution:
Lighthouse’s Rate Insight and Market Insight centralized real-time competitor pricing, demand trends, and event data into one platform. Louie could track market changes instantly without manual work.
Result:
Daily competitor and demand analysis reduced from ~2 hours to 10–15 minutes (91.7% efficiency gain)
Enabled immediate pricing and campaign decisions
Freed time for strategic interdepartmental projects and customer acquisition
“When we adopted Lighthouse, it felt as revolutionary as mankind discovering fire. We stopped relying on manual, historical data and could finally make real-time decisions.”
Driving measurable revenue growth
Challenge:
In early 2025, La Casa Hotel Seoul faced a difficult combination of external and internal pressures. Political tensions in the region led to a sharp drop in inbound travel during January and February, cutting into a guest base that relies heavily on international visitors.
At the same time, the property was undergoing partial renovations, which temporarily removed inventory from sale and risked negative guest perceptions. With just 86 rooms in total, the margin for error was razor-thin - even a small drop in occupancy or ADR could quickly translate into a substantial loss in monthly revenue.
Louie needed a way to anticipate these fluctuations, respond in real time, and protect revenue without eroding rate integrity.
Solution:
Lighthouse’s Rate Insight and Market Insight became Louie’s control center for navigating a volatile market. Real-time competitor rate tracking allowed him to identify exactly when and how rivals were adjusting their prices, while Market Insight’s demand heatmap and search traffic data revealed early signs of market recovery or decline.
This combination meant he could act proactively, raising rates when higher-tier competitors sold out, deploying targeted promotions when demand softened, and reallocating inventory to the most profitable channels.
By making these adjustments daily, and sometimes multiple times a day, Louie was able to both defend revenue during low-demand months and push ADR higher when the market allowed.
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Result:
Revenue & ADR up 15%+ on average; some months up to 22% despite market challenges
Minimized renovation-related revenue loss
Maintained competitiveness during external disruptions
“Even amidst unavoidable political and economic situations, we were able to defend our revenue as much as possible.”
Boosting direct channel performance
Challenge:
La Casa relied heavily on OTA channels, with limited insights into opportunities to grow direct sales. Slow rate changes and limited demand visibility made it harder to compete with OTAs for direct bookings.
Solution:
With Lighthouse, the team adjusted rates faster, ran targeted offers, and acted on forward-looking demand trends. By managing OTA and competitor data through Lighthouse, the team identified when to reinvest discounts into direct bookings, optimize promotions, and adjust inventory strategies.
Result:
Direct channel revenue share increased by 20%
Direct channel room night share increased by 25%
Greater control over yield management and cost optimization
“By managing this data, we significantly increased our D2C sales… Lighthouse contributed greatly to reducing operating costs while boosting profitability.”
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Unlocking strategic forecasting with demand heatmaps
Challenge:
Forecasting was limited to internal historical data and informal networks, making it difficult to react quickly to shifts in source markets or travel patterns.
Solution:
Market Insight’s demand heatmap and search traffic data revealed real-time changes in demand by market, stay length, and even flight origin, all in a single view.
Result:
Proactively targeted new high-yield source markets
Adjusted staffing, marketing, and pricing with confidence
Improved revenue defense during low-demand periods
“Market Insight acts as a perfect strategic satellite. It shows us our past, present, and future demand in one intuitive, color-coded view.”
Final thoughts
Louie stresses that Lighthouse is essential for hotels that want to maintain competitiveness in an era of instant bookings and shifting demand. He successfully persuaded his management to adopt it after showing how it cut data collection from 30 minutes to 3 minutes in a live demo.
“Some might say, ‘Why spend on Lighthouse when you can check competitor rates manually?’ For a small hotel with limited rooms, it’s even more necessary. Lighthouse isn’t just a tool - it’s our strategic satellite.”
“I don’t know exactly how much Lighthouse will help a hotel that hasn’t adopted it yet. But if you don’t adopt it, it’s a decision you will seriously regret.”
