Best Year Ever: How Go Hotels Beat Business Expectations By Using Automated Pricing

REVENUE MANAGEMENT

Go Hotels is a young budget-friendly brand based in Copenhagen, Denmark. It started with a single property in the Danish capital and has since grown to include five hotels with room counts ranging from 56 to 219. The sixth property is already in the pipeline. On top of that, the portfolio boasts the Hages Badehotel. It’s set on the coast of the Baltic Sea and offers 72 houses (124 rooms) surrounded by nature. Given that things are going well, the group is looking to add more hotels and branch into serviced apartments. We recently spoke with Tim Tidman, general manager at Go Hotels, about the role modern hotel technology plays in the company’s expansion plans and its ongoing success.

Why it matters: The Go Hotels brand promises excellent value for money as well as an unforgettable experience. From the earliest days, their goal has been to over-deliver on service quality. Since they are a budget brand and run on a lean team, they have always leveraged technology. It keeps the workload manageable for their staff and makes the stay fun and easy for travelers. For this to work, Tim and his team had to lay the right foundation. That meant implementing a property management system that makes it straightforward to roll out other new tech solutions.

As markets became more volatile due to the pandemic, Tim and his team decided to move away from pricing their rooms manually. In the past, they used a rate shopper to see what their competitors were doing and updated their rates accordingly. This manual approach worked as long as demand was predictable, and they had only one hotel to manage. But when booking patterns were flipped upside down and they began adding new properties, they knew it was time to get an RMS.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Keep a lean team, increase efficiency and automate pricing processes.

Keep a lean team: Go Hotels wanted a cost-effective solution that would be easy to learn and use. Atomize fit that bill and it offered an automated pricing module. That was exactly what they needed to keep their team lean but achieve their revenue goals at the same time.
Increase efficiency: Before implementing Atomize, Tim spent the first hours of every day analyzing competitor rates and adjusting his prices accordingly. Once the RMS went live, this changed dramatically. The system automatically provided rate recommendations based on the latest market developments and all Tim had to do was approve or reject them.
Automate pricing processes: After a couple of weeks of reviewing Atomize’s price suggestions every day, they became comfortable with the system’s approach. That made Go Hotels decide to give the full autopilot mode a try. It was a complete game changer, and they haven’t looked back. Now the system handles all rate updates.

Innovators Mentioned

Go Hotels

Atomize

Tim Tidman

COO

Go Hotels

"After a couple of weeks of reviewing Atomize’s price suggestions every day, I became comfortable with the system’s approach. That made me decide to give the full autopilot mode a try. It was a complete game changer, and I haven’t looked back. Now the system handles all rate updates. I only open the dashboard for a few minutes in the morning to get an overview of the latest changes. And sometimes I check the mobile version when I’m on the go, just because it’s fun."

Tim Tidman

COO

👍 COO Tim Tidman said that Full autopilot has been a game changer.:

"After a couple of weeks of reviewing Atomize’s price suggestions every day, I became comfortable with the system’s approach. That made me decide to give the full autopilot mode a try. It was a complete game changer, and I haven’t looked back. Now the system handles all rate updates. I only open the dashboard for a few minutes in the morning to get an overview of the latest changes. And sometimes I check the mobile version when I’m on the go, just because it’s fun."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Tim Tidman also researched IDeaS, Duetto, and ultimately decided Atomize was the best fit for them.

COO Tim Tidman said, about their decision: "We wanted to try a new approach to increasing revenue at Go Hotels and Atomize seemed like a solid starting point. The results have been fantastic, especially during the low season. That’s where we really see the system seizing opportunities we didn’t know existed."

📈 The results: Increased ADR and RevPar, increased prices and higher on-the-books business.

2022, the year Go Hotels began using Atomize, was the company’s best business year to date. After implementing the RMS, their ADR and RevPAR increased by over 10% compared to 2019 and beat budgeted figures.
Atomize helps them see things in a new light. They can check OTB business, the forecast, and their history in just a few clicks in the RMS. That allows them to be bolder with their pricing than they would have been in the past because they know exactly what’s happening at their hotels and in the market.
As of May 2023, the group’s year-to-date on-the-books business is considerably higher than last year’s. That applies especially to times that used to be considered middle- or off-season. Seeing these results has strengthened Tim’s confidence in the RMS’ recommendations and in his brand’s ability to deliver the value guests expect.