Pricing stands as a pivotal factor in determining a hotel's success, requiring daily attention. Its impact on guest decisions and occupancy underscores its significance, making it a facet that cannot be overlooked. Through our integration partner Smartpricing, hotels gain access to a dynamic pricing and revenue management tool. When used together with SabeeApp, great results ensue. To gain a more hands-on understanding, the Smartpricing team reached out to one of our clients, Yvonne Loock from Gut Heidefeld, to share her experience with Smartpricing and SabeeApp.
Tell us about your accommodation.
Gut Heidefeld is an old manor house located here at the center of the village and has been fully restored by my parents. At Gut Heidefeld, we rent out two rooms as well as two apartments and two studios in the former village school, which is in the immediate vicinity.
Our clientele is mixed: from business people who book well in advance to tourists and last-minute requests for family visits, there is a bit of everything.
We get our bookings in roughly equal parts from Booking.com and direct bookings.
How long have you been using SabeeApp and what problem did you want to solve with it?
We introduced SabeeApp around 2019. At that time, we were already active on many different booking channels (Booking.com, Expedia, and others). And the problem was always keeping the individual calendars aligned. Maintaining so many sites at the same time was of course a lot of work. Since we manage a small number of accommodations, we don't have a large team behind it that could be constantly dealing with this.
So I went looking for a provider that would allow me to manage availability centrally in order to serve all channels via one tool.
What made you choose SabeeApp?
It wasn't easy to find the right solution at the time. Because many companies were geared more towards large hotel businesses. SabeeApp was recommended to me and I got in touch. And it was confirmed that SabeeApp is also suitable for small businesses that can do without certain functions that a large hotel needs.
I found the software very clear and felt well looked after by the team, so we decided to work together.
What results have you achieved with SabeeApp?
We have definitely achieved the desired reduction in workload. Previously, an employee and I were busy updating the prices on the various portals. I would say that this workload has been reduced by at least 50%.
How long have you been using Smartpricing and how did you manage pricing before?
Since October 2023. Before I was made aware of Smartpricing, I hadn't actually considered the possibility of calculating prices automatically. Before that, we always had fixed prices. We had made our initial calculation and then assigned them to the individual units.
After that we always looked at what the competition in the area was asking and adjusted our prices accordingly.
This adjustment was on an annual basis, meaning that we always had the same price from January to December. We didn’t take into account whether it was the holidays or the low season.
What did you want to change in terms of pricing?
I saw the advantages of a more dynamic pricing structure.
With a fixed price, I might not have as many customers in the low season as I could if I adjusted the prices. The same applies in the high season, when many people book. With dynamic prices, I can position myself in a much more advantageous way.
That's what convinced me to introduce Smartpricing.
What results have you achieved with Smartpricing?
It's still too early for us to assess the impact of Smartpricing, partly because we started in the low season, which tends to be characterized by direct bookings from our regular customers.
The set-up and communication with the Smartpricing team went well so far. We will wait for the numbers from the high season to evaluate the results.
Have you saved time by combining SabeeApp and Smartpricing?
The connection between Smartpricing and SabeeApp is running smoothly. SabeeApp receives the price updates from Smartpricing automatically, which means there's not much for me to do on a daily basis.
We set up our strategy in Smartpricing at the beginning and let the software take over the work of calculating prices.
Valuable insights
Thank you, Yvonne, for sharing your valuable insights, and a big shoutout to the Smartpricing team for facilitating this insightful interview. Customer feedback like yours provides invaluable perspectives that help us continuously improve SabeeApp. Seeing the success of Gut Heidefeld is a testament to our dedication to enhancing our product. We look forward to continuing this journey of improvement together!