Hotel Kragemann has been welcoming guests in Simmerath since 2015. The picturesque property is located only a few minutes from the Rur Reservoir and Eifel National Park. It offers 13 rooms, one spacious apartment, and access to a wine store.
The holiday complex Schilsbachtal is also located directly at the Rur Reservoir and part of the business. Here guests can choose between 14 holiday homes and huts and enjoy the idyllic space as well as various activities.
We recently spoken to manager Mirja Wolf to find out how the switch to SiteMinder has affected their day-to-day business and direct booking performance.
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Flexible and efficient pricing
Hotel Kragemann has worked with a channel manager in the past, however they were still facing a lot of restrictions and challenges.
“The technical features of our previous system were quite limited, and it wasn’t very user friendly. This is why I was looking for a different solution,” Mirja explained.
After doing her research she found SiteMinder and was immediately impressed by the intuitive design and flexibility of the channel manager feature: “After we decided to go with SiteMinder everything happened really fast. The support during implementation was exceptional and the system itself was ready to go in no time.”
Using the new tool has drastically reduced the manual effort of updating and maintaining their rates. Last minute changes in pricing that used to be complex and time-consuming now only take a few clicks to complete.
“SiteMinder has made us more flexible. Now we can easily react to seasonal changes in demand and update our rates across all channels in one system, saving at least eight hours of work per month,” Mirja said.
Reliable data exchange
While using their previous system the team often struggled with downtime which affected the data exchange between the tool and their channels.
This was another problem that was instantly solved by the switch to SiteMinder.
“I can now rely on the channel manager syncing all our reservation data with the PMS and our inventory online. This gives me peace of mind knowing that we’re not accidentally overbooking any rooms,” Mirja mentioned.
More security and direct bookings
Apart from the channel manager feature, Hotel Kragemann also opted for SiteMinder’s booking engine und metasearch tool Demand Plus. This allows the property to be listed on metasearch sites like Google Hotel Ads, increasing visibility and website clicks. Meanwhile the modern and user-friendly booking interface is generating more direct bookings.
“Our previous direct booking option was very confusing and not very user-friendly. SiteMinder’s booking engine is a lot better integrated on the website and makes it easy for guests to book. So far we have increased our direct bookings by 15 %,“ Mirja said.
These statistics made it easy to plan the next steps: “We’re getting such great results at the hotel that we are already working on the implementation of the booking engine and Demand Plus for the holiday complex Schilsbachtal.”
Thank you so much for this amazing feedback, Mirja! It’s great to hear you’re happy with SiteMinder and we hope you’ll see continued success at Hotel Kragemann and the holiday complex Schilsbachtal.
