Customer Spotlight: NH Hotel Group

About NH Hotel Group

Based in Madrid, Spain, NH Hotel Group is a consolidated multinational player and a leading urban hotel operator in Europe and America, where it operates over 350 hotels. Since 2019, the Company works with Minor Hotels in the integration of their hotel brands under a single corporate umbrella with a presence in over 50 countries worldwide.

Together, both groups have a portfolio of over 500 hotels centered on eight brands: NH Hotels, NH Collection, nhow, Tivoli, Anantara, Avani, Elewana and Oaks - that comprise diverse range of options connected to the needs and desires of today's global travelers.  

During a recent conversation with Janneke Messiaen, Director of Distribution, Commercial Systems & Services at NH Hotel Group, we learned how she and her team use Rate Insight and its integration with their revenue management system (RMS) to effectively design and implement a successful commercial strategy .

Seamless business intelligence and RMS integration for simplified workflows and realistic, data-based forecasting

At NH Hotel Group, we’re always looking into new ways to optimize and automate our processes. An integrated tech stack plays a huge role here as it lays the foundation for more efficient and effective operations. That’s why we immediately seized the opportunity to integrate Rate Insight, with Duetto, our RMS. 

Before we did this, there was no way to quickly consolidate all the data required for forecasts and pricing decisions. Our revenue managers had to jump back and forth between several tools on multiple screens to gather data. Creating complex spreadsheets was the only way to have all the needed information in one spot. This resulted in our revenue team spending more time on data collection and collation than on refining their strategies.

However, using Rate Insight alongside Duetto solves this problem. Rate Insight supplies the live competitor and demand data needed to understand how business is developing in the market. Via the integration, Duetto leverages this information, as well as other recent market trends and our on-the-books data, to quickly create accurate and reliable data-based forecasts.

Sometimes we make manual adjustments, but even so, the time and effort required for forecasting are drastically reduced now.

Real-time compset overview and faster responses to market shifts

Since we began using Rate Insight, we no longer have to do manual rate shops and competitor checks. The tool gives us a live overview of how our compset is reacting to demand shifts and how this impacts our properties’ positioning. The dashboard makes it easy to see where we are leading or behind with our rates and highlights dates with potential for revision. 

We can even dig deeper and compare length of stay restrictions and room types to get the most detailed picture of the market. This allows us to make immediate, data-driven rate changes, so we can stay competitive and capture our fair share of demand at the optimal price. This gives us an important edge, at a time when everyone is fiercely fighting for every single booking.

The automated solution for open pricing in an unpredictable market

Before using Rate Insight and Duetto, our revenue managers had to do manual market research and update rates by hand if demand shifted. Especially in cities where our properties aren’t the market leader, we had to keep a close eye on the compset to ensure we adapted room prices in time to maintain our positioning. This was time-consuming and resulted in missed revenue opportunities. 

Having the combined power of Rate Insight and Duetto on our side during the pandemic was a lifesaver. Nobody was able to predict the mid- to long-term impact on the markets, but our set-up allowed us to make the best of an extremely challenging situation. 

Rate Insight provided the live compset data that showed the real-time reactions of hotels around us. This kept us continuously informed on how the competition, travelers and markets overall were behaving. 

The combination of Rate Insight with Duetto and the option to set up automated pricing rules proved especially valuable. Whenever Rate Insight detected a change in the compset’s rates, Duetto automatically uploaded new prices in line with our global pricing guidelines into all distribution systems. 

Of course, we were able to manually adjust Duetto’s recommendations, if needed. This ensured that we always remained competitive, captured demand and maximized revenue through our open pricing strategy. With a much smaller team, this would have been impossible to do manually.

Time saved is the major ROI

Using Rate Insight to monitor our competition’s rates and pricing strategy gives us a more complete understanding of the market all while saving us tremendous amounts of time on manual research, rate shops and data collation. Now, all the information is in one spot, and we can access it in a few clicks whenever we need it. Combining this with Duetto’s automatic, data-driven rate updates, we save about four hours per property every single day. 

Getting real-time access to reliable data and leveraging automated rate updates has also helped us maximize revenue opportunities and drive business during a low-demand period. This is a fantastic result. But with teams being leaner and us having to find ways to do more with less, this level of increased efficiency is priceless. 

User-friendliness and reliability

On top of its many other advantages, Rate Insight is also very user-friendly. The onboarding is quick, and everyone can get the most out of it from the first day they use it. 

That’s very important since it means our team actually works with Rate Insight on a day-to-day basis. It’s not like with some of the convoluted legacy tech solutions which are implemented and never used because they’re too complex. 

The data flow between Rate Insight and Duetto is flawless as well. The information is always reliable and up to date in both tools. Thanks to the stable interface, we never have to worry about outdated data or updated rates not being synced between the two systems. It’s great to have such a stable interface.

Ongoing customer-centric innovation

The team at Lighthouse is always open to new development requests from our side. Many times they’re even ahead of the game and are adapting to emerging needs in the industry before other players have even caught on. That’s great for us as a client because we regularly get access to new features that provide extra value. 

One example is a new feature that allows us to check our compset’s cancellation policies and how travelers react to changes and different options in this domain. 

A word to your peers

I recommend Rate Insight to every revenue management team that wants to maximize their portfolio's revenue potential. It’s an easy-to-use tool that provides the real-time compset information you need for data-driven pricing decisions. 

Rate Insight also integrates with other solutions, like the Duetto RMS, which helps to further save time and boost your results. 

Finally, Lighthouse is constantly introducing new features, so you can be sure you’ve always got the latest tech at your disposal.