Peacefully situated at the foot of the Aragonese Pre-Pyrenees in Huesca, Spain, Hotel Mirador Las Grullas is a place of tranquility for all visitors.
With free WiFi, swimming pool, sunny terrace, bar, and garden, guests can spend every second in relaxation. This amplified by the fact that every room boasts a patio to overlook the nearby lake. For those who want to explore, nearby attractions include visiting Montmesa, hiking, seeing Loarre’s Castle, the Palace of the Marquises of Ayerbe, and San Pedro’s church.
Maria Torres, General Manager, has the busy job of overseeing the bookings that come in, ensuring the property is operating at a high occupancy level and is maximising revenue income.
The challenge: Reliance on third-party channels a constant headache
As is the case with many hoteliers, Maria and the team were finding that a relationship with online travel agents (OTAs) is a double-edged sword.
‘A high dependency on OTAs with a high proportion of bookings coming from Booking.com was a pain,’ Maria stated. ‘We were looking to increase our direct reservations.’
With reservations from Booking.com dropping in 2020, there was an even greater need to focus on direct bookings.
The solution: Demand Plus a simple product to boost performance
Demand Plus, a value-add feature offered within SiteMinder’s online booking engine, helps hoteliers score more direct reservations from valuable metasearch channels such as Google.
Quick to set-up and maintain, all the hard work is done on behalf of the hotelier; something appreciated by Maria.
‘My experience with Demand Plus has been great so far, helping us to get more direct reservations that contribute to high occupancy rates during this summer,’ she said.
‘The process to get up and running was all good, a really smooth experience.’
The results: A measurable increase in direct revenue
When comparing results year to year, Hotel Mirador Las Grullas could easily track the great improvements that were made thanks to Demand Plus.
Maria explained how vital it is for the team to own their customer relationship, to provide a better service pre and post-stay and take more advantage of chances to cross-sell and upsell.
With the boost in direct bookings from Demand Plus, they’re able to do just that.
‘We experienced an average of 30% more direct reservations this summer compared to last year,’ she reported.
Congratulations Hotel Mirador Las Grullas!
To remove their dependency on third-party channels and increase direct bookings, Hotel Mirador Las Grullas began using SiteMinder’s platform solution, which leverages technology from AWS including EC2, RDS, Kinesis, ElastiCache, DynamoDB, Lambda as well as various AWS networking technologies. By doing so they have experienced an average of 30% more direct reservations.