Belfast Africa is a premier luxury concierge and property management company based in Accra, Ghana. Its portfolio includes three distinctive hospitality brands: Number One Oxford Street Hotel & Suites, a contemporary luxury hotel in the heart of Osu; Kwarleyz Residence, an exclusive all-suite residence in the Airport Residential Area; and The Vynyard, Accra, a boutique luxury property designed for travellers seeking privacy and comfort. Together, the three properties offer premium accommodation alongside bespoke travel, lifestyle and wellness services tailored to both business and leisure guests.
Managing distribution, visibility and guest engagement across three unique brands requires technology that can scale with the business. Using SiteMinder, Belfast Africa has streamlined these operations while maintaining the high standards of service each property is known for.
We spoke with Lara Martey, Belfast Africa’s Digital Marketing Coordinator, who oversees the company’s online visibility, distribution strategy and digital performance across its hotel portfolio.
Manual processes were inhibiting the brand’s growth
Before adopting SiteMinder’s leading platform, Belfast Africa was relying on tools that made it hard to keep pace with its ambitions. Updating rates across multiple OTAs for three different properties meant repetitive manual work and an ongoing risk that what guests saw online did not match what was available in the property management system (PMS). Metasearch strategy was also difficult to manage in a coordinated way, which limited how consistently the company could turn digital demand into confirmed bookings.
Bringing new team members into the operation also required more training time than the business would have liked. Older systems were not intuitive, so staff needed additional support to become confident managing inventory and online distribution across the portfolio.
Run every property from one connected platform
Belfast Africa manages three distinct luxury brands from a single SiteMinder setup — real-time distribution, metasearch visibility and guest communication, all in one place. See what it could do for your portfolio.
Learn more
SiteMinder aligned to Belfast Africa’s plans to scale up
As Belfast Africa looked to strengthen its technology stack, the company focused on a few core requirements: real-time, reliable connectivity to key OTAs, smooth integration with its existing PMS and a single platform that could consolidate distribution, guest communication and performance reporting across all three properties.
SiteMinder stood out for meeting these needs while also reflecting a clear understanding of hotelier reality. The platform is updated regularly in response to how hoteliers work, reducing operational friction over time instead of leaving teams to work around a static, one-off tool.
“One thing I appreciate is that the platform keeps evolving. You can tell it’s being built around the real challenges hotels face every day, rather than staying the same year after year,” says Lara.
Turning connectivity, communication and insights into daily advantages
SiteMinder’s channel manager now sits at the centre of Belfast Africa’s guest acquisition setup. The team can adjust rates and availability for all three properties in just a few clicks, with changes reflected across connected channels in real time. What was once a slow routine task has become a streamlined workflow, freeing staff to focus on higher-value initiatives across operations, revenue and marketing. The broader mix of OTAs has also helped Belfast Africa tap into demand from new markets, placing its properties in front of travellers who might not have encountered the brand before.
“The incredible reach of the channel manager has opened us up to distribution channels we probably wouldn’t have considered otherwise. It has definitely helped us expand our visibility and reach more potential guests,” explains Lara.
To complement OTA reach, SiteMinder’s Demand Plus keeps the properties present on key metasearch sites like Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, and Tripadvisor, so Belfast Africa appears where high-intent travellers are actively comparing options. This gives the company’s digital marketing efforts a stronger foundation, with the attention of guests captured at the vital decision-making moments.
“Demand Plus has also been a game changer in maintaining visibility across multiple metasearch platforms,” mentions Lara.
Guest communication has become more structured and scalable. With SiteMinder’s Guest Engagement, the team can email guests, share timely updates and request feedback after departure, all within the same ecosystem. That makes it easier to maintain a consistent brand voice across three properties while building longer-term relationships throughout the guest journey.
On the analytics side, SiteMinder’s reporting and insights provide clear, accessible views of performance. The team can quickly understand channel mix, spot shifts in demand and see how different tactics are performing, without heavy manual reporting. This data sits alongside a broad set of integrations with Belfast Africa’s PMS and third-party tools across CRS, digital marketing, upselling, revenue management and CRM, helping ensure decisions in areas like pricing, promotions and campaigns are grounded in current information.
“The guest management tool makes it easy to email guests, keep them updated, and follow up with post-checkout feedback,” says Lara.
“And the reporting and insights functions are pretty easy to use, straightforward, and very useful for decision-making.”
Stronger visibility, leaner admin and more time for guests
Since adopting SiteMinder’s platform to manage its portfolio, Belfast Africa has seen a clear shift in how efficiently it can operate and grow the business. “We’ve seen steady month-on-month growth across our properties,” says Lara. The three properties (Number One Oxford Street Hotel & Suites, Kwarleyz Residence, The Vynyard, Accra) now benefit from broader exposure through both OTAs and metasearch, which supports sustained improvements in visibility and occupancy.
“Honestly, for us, it’s become the central platform for managing distribution, guest communication and performance across our properties,” says Lara. “The platform integrates well with our existing PMS as well as other hotel-management tools which keep our operations seamless.”
Real-time, accurate updates across channels have sharply reduced the risk of overbookings and manual errors. Bulk updates and streamlined workflows have cut the time spent on routine administration, allowing teams on the ground to invest more energy in crafting the high-touch experiences that define the brand.
“Training new team members is relatively easy since the interface is intuitive, and this saves us considerable onboarding time.”
Taken together, these gains have given Belfast Africa a more predictable and scalable operation, and the confidence to keep expanding its portfolio while preserving the elevated standard of service that guests expect.
Thank you, Lara, for the valued feedback and we look forward to working with Belfast Africa as it continues its growth story!