How Riverside Hotel boosted revenue 40% with dynamic pricing

Customer Profile

Located five minutes from the city center of Durban, Riverside Hotel offers versatile options for both business and leisure travelers. With over 160 bedrooms, semi-self-catering facilities, two restaurants, and a conference facility, Riverside Hotel is designed to offer its guests a luxurious and relaxed environment. Riverside Hotel is a full-service property. Features include, but are not limited to, a 24-hour reception, currency exchange, conference facility, room service, laundry, gym, babysitting facilities, restaurant, shuttle service, tours, spa, and Hop’s Pub and Grill.

Challenge

The property encompasses 160+ rooms, for which multiple rate plans, room types, and various channel sources are offered across several online travel agencies. Initially, the distribution was uneven and prices were static. The property was facing revenue loss due to poor price optimization and rate disparity. As a result, the hotelier spent several hours daily updating rates across various online travel agencies and therefore could not focus on enriching the customer experience.

Solution

Leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS), Yanolja Cloud’s hospitality management solutions subsidiary provided YCS Mint, a dynamic revenue management software, to enable Riverside Hotel to automate inventory pricing. YCS Mint, in conjunction with YCS Centrix, our channel management software, helped Riverside Hotel (i) optimize the distribution of inventory across various online channels by mapping available rooms and rates from the property management system to online platforms, (ii) analyze booking and pricing patterns based on seasonality and timing, and (iii) implement appropriate rules to maximize revenue while accounting for the detected booking and pricing patterns.

In addition to the software, we offered recommendations and guidance to ensure that Riverside Hotel was getting the most out of YCS Mint. AWS services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon Aurora, and Amazon S3 equipped YCS Mint with scalable architecture, uninterrupted services, and secure and efficient data storage to provide a seamless experience for Riverside Hotel.

Result

Within 3 days of implementing YCS Mint, Riverside Hotel’s average daily rate increased by 22%. Furthermore, with just a 3% increase in room nights, revenue increased by 40% MoM. As a result, Riverside has not only generated more revenue through dynamic pricing strategies but also eliminated the cost of hiring a revenue manager, thereby significantly improving bottom-line performance.