Customer Spotlight: The Capital Hotels
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How The Capital Hotels uses Lighthouse’s Rate Insight to drive revenue growth, address parity problems, and save time
Key Results:
Yielded higher rates and grew revenue for The Capital Hotels
Spotted market changes and trends quicker
Saved time while increasing their bottom line
“Rate Insight is very straightforward and user friendly, and the Lighthouse support team has always been tremendously helpful. They are always quick to check in. Over and above the system being so good, I would absolutely recommend Lighthouse because they have been an absolute pleasure to deal with.”
About The Capital Hotels
As a leading supplier at the forefront of the South African corporate travel industry, The Capital Hotel Group has achieved outstanding success since its inception in 2008. The Capital Hotels and Apartments consists of 12 Apartment Hotels located all around South Africa, offering standard hotel rooms, fully furnished serviced apartments and modern conference facilities across the 3, 4 and 5-star segments. The Capital offers accommodation solutions for short, medium and long-term accommodation.
We caught up with Tanya Mare, Group Revenue Manager at The Capital Hotels, to understand how she has been using Rate Insight to help her identify opportunities and optimize her pricing strategy in a rapidly changing market, across her portfolio.
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Rate shopping is a breeze
Challenge
Before implementing Lighthouse's Rate Insight, manually rate shopping for all 12 properties could be a time-consuming and tedious task. It would take up a significant portion of the day, leaving little time for more strategic tasks.
Solution
With Rate Insight, Tanya is able to quickly and easily check rates for all properties in one place, freeing up valuable time for more important tasks. The tool's user-friendly interface and comprehensive features have made rate shopping a breeze, allowing her to focus on more strategic revenue management tasks.
Results
By saving time and providing valuable market insights, Rate Insight has helped The Capital Hotels to be more nimble with their pricing strategy while giving back time in their day to focus on more strategic tasks.
"Every morning when I come into work, the first thing that I do is I'll check my rates a week, two weeks to a month out to see how we are pricing ourselves. If I have to do a rate shop or 12 rate shops every morning, I would only be finished yielding rates by mid-day. Rate Insight saves a ton of time and it's just very, very convenient."
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Better visibility across markets and competitors
Challenge
Without the right tools, it can be difficult to keep track of competitor rates and market trends, making it challenging to make informed pricing decisions. As a revenue manager for a hotel group with 12 properties, it is especially important that we are selling the right rate to the right people across a multitude of markets and segments. Having the right data is key.
Solution
Lighthouse's Rate Insight tool has been instrumental in addressing these challenges. The tool allows Tanya to see all competitors on one line, making it easy to compare rates and adjust their pricing strategy accordingly. Additionally, the event calendar feature helps to anticipate demand so that they can adjust their rates accordingly, ensuring that they are always selling the right rate to the right people.
The general managers and their teams on property can also keep an eye on the rates and can communicate with the head office if there's something wrong, ensuring that the whole team is always on the same page. Rate Insight has also helped to pick up any discrepancies in online rates, where there may be a discounted offer that had not been approved. With Rate Insight, Tanya can immediately spot and fix any inconsistencies.
Results
By using Lighthouse's Rate Insight tool three to four times a week, The Capital Hotels have been able to make data-driven pricing decisions that have ultimately resulted in growing revenue for our properties.
“I can see at a glance exactly where we're going wrong in terms of pricing and I can look at one line and see all of my competitors, that's probably the best thing."
Real-time data helps you react quickly to market changes
Challenge
Tanya has her budget and rate strategy mapped out for the year. And while she and her team have a good idea of the specific rates in each of their markets, it can be challenging to pick up sudden changes in the market. For example, a summit, major conference or upcoming elections can have an impact on the market where they might need to tweak their strategy to ensure they are not leaving any money on the table.
Solution
Rate Insight provides real-time updates on competitor rates and market trends, allowing us to quickly and easily adjust our pricing strategy to stay competitive. The event calendar feature also allows us to anticipate changes in demand and adjust our rates accordingly, ensuring that we are always selling the right rate to the right people. It eliminates the need to go out and actively search for what’s going on in the market, as the information is picked up in Rate Insight.
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Results
Tanya is more agile than her competitors when responding to a sudden change in the market as she can immediately tweak her strategy to ensure her properties are always priced right.
“I try and plan as much as I can for the whole year ahead of time, but things do happen, and then everything changes, and it happens so instantly. Rate Insight is a tremendous help as it helps to know what is going on in the market. It makes it a lot quicker to pick up any price sensitivities in the markets and it helps us to get on that bandwagon quick enough, if we need to”
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