Customer Spotlight: The Views Hotels

About The Views Hotels

The Views Hotels operates three upscale properties on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Each one boasts unique characteristics and a terrific location, creating ideal options for various types of travelers. All three hotels draw inspiration from local culture and heritage, thus encouraging guests to explore Madeira’s many facets. The Views Hotels is known for its dedication to reducing its carbon footprint and making green practices an important part of the group’s identity. 

In a recent chat with Maurílio Barreto, Revenue and Environmental Manager at The Views Hotels, we found out how he has been leveraging Rate Insight and Market Insight. In this interview, he outlines how these business intelligence (BI) tools have helped him better position his hotels, realize their full revenue potential and make more time for his tasks as the group’s Environmental Manager.

Easy access to relevant, real-time market and competitor data

I implemented Rate Insight and Market Insight soon after I took over the position of revenue manager at The Views Hotels. Before that, I set our rates based mainly on historical data and information I gathered during manual competitor research. This approach was time-consuming and complicated. It also meant I often had to make pricing decisions without having a full overview of demand shifts and how my competitors were reacting. This made it harder to spot emerging revenue opportunities and make the most of new market developments. 

Rate Insight and Market Insight were the solutions we needed. As soon as the tools were up and running, we were able to access relevant market and competitor data in real-time. The platform reveals our compset’s rates, how we compare, and how demand is shaping up in the market in just a few clicks. Instead of basing pricing decisions on an incomplete or outdated snapshot, we can now leverage broad sets of live data. That allows us to make well-informed decisions faster which is crucial in today’s highly volatile markets. 

Increased efficiency frees up time for other tasks

Thanks to Rate and Market Insight, I spend a lot less time manually gathering and going through market and competitor data. The BI tools give me an overview of all the information I need in a single spot. With these powerful insights, I can easily find and take advantage of revenue opportunities as soon as they arise. 

In the past, it took me the better part of a day to do this for a single hotel. Since this process is much more efficient now, I can review the data and update the rates at all three properties in one day. As a result, I’m confident that the prices at all our hotels continuously reflect the latest market shifts. 

Another positive impact of this increased efficiency is that I now have more time for other tasks, including my role as environmental manager.

Staying competitive with optimized positioning

Rate Insight’s live price positioning tool allows us to always know exactly where we stand. A single click is enough to refresh it and see how we’re positioned in relation to our competitors in real-time. 

This has been especially helpful in the aftermath of the pandemic. Today, our market is much more volatile than before, and we have to react quickly to maintain our ideal positioning. Being able to see how we compare to the compset at all times shows us immediately when we need to adjust our rates to stay competitive. This helps us maintain our optimal positioning and ensures we don’t outprice ourselves or leave money on the table.

Realizing our full revenue potential with forward-looking data

Only when we started using Lighthouse’s BI suite, we fully understood our hotels’ potential for revenue growth. To our surprise, it was bigger than we’d ever imagined. Market Insight’s forward-looking demand data proved especially helpful in realizing this potential. 

The access to future-facing insights has totally changed our decision-making process. Being able to see a live overview of future demand, market and competitor data allows me to form a strategy based on what’s actually going to happen. This reduces our reliance on historical data which no longer provides the guidance it once did. 

With the help of real-time forward-looking data, we can quickly adapt to new market situations, seize new revenue opportunities or see where we’re currently missing out. This only works because Market Insight handles all the data collection and makes it so easy to see and even anticipate new changes. As a result, we’ve been able to lift our ADR and overall revenue considerably since implementing Lighthouse’s tools.

Sharing data and improving collaboration across departments

Apart from me, the GM also checks Lighthouse’s BI tools regularly because the platform provides a comprehensive performance overview. This makes it easy for him to see how each property is doing and how our results compare to the compset or the market overall. 

I’ve also invited our Marketing Manager to use Market Insight because I think he can benefit from the forward-looking demand data. He’s interested in learning more and I’m confident we can leverage the platform to better coordinate our efforts and work more closely together in the future.

Superior customer support

So far, working with Lighthouse has been a wonderful experience. The tool is easy to use for everyone, especially if you already have a commercial background. Since the solution works so well, I’ve rarely had to reach out to the support team. But whenever I have questions, the team is outstanding. Their responses are always quick and helpful. This, combined with the frequent tool updates, creates the perfect base for a long-term partnership with Lighthouse.

A word to your peers

Taking advantage of new hotel technology is more important than ever today. When we recently implemented Rate Insight and Market Insight, we immediately began reaping the rewards in terms of increased ADR, overall revenue and saved time. In that way, the solution pays for itself. 

That’s why I think that everyone should give such tools a try. It’s worth it to put in the time and compare the many offers in the market, read reviews and do some trials. In my experience, once you start using Rate and Market Insight, you won’t be able to imagine going back to life without them.