How Lancaster Hotel in Milan doubled its revenue in a couple of years and reached the Top 10 in Tripadvisor

REVENUE MANAGEMENT

In August 2016 a historic 3-star hotel (30 rooms) in Milan, a few steps from the Castello Sforzesco and a nice walk from the Duomo, starts partnering with the Revenue Team by Franco Grasso. The property had until then worked very little with online channels and a lot with direct customers and companies at static negotiated rates, but it recorded an average monthly occupancy of 57% in the first 7 months of the year. Very low percentages in a city like Milan that in recent years has experienced a profound leisure evolution, a city where every month there is one (or more) events, scattered or overlapping, able to catalyze a very strong demand.

Why it matters: The property struggled due to high static negotiated rates that did not allow to fill the hotel with business customers and on top of that prevented the hotel from properly materializing reservations from online channels. They also struggled with a low online visibility due to few reviews and a below-average ranking score. They were looking for a revenue management company to redefine their entire commercial and pricing structure and boost their online visibility and attractivity.

The collaboration with the experienced revenue managers of Revenue Team by Franco Grasso allowed to revise the negotiated rates of corporate customers and harmonize them with online channels, implement a dynamic pricing consistent with the demand generated by the city attractions, improve the online reputation score and boost the online visibility.

Top 3 Core Objectives: The Lancaster Hotel selected the Revenue Team by Franco Grasso to define a long-term and holistic business strategy through the support of experienced revenue managers. They also wanted to make sure their pricing was always consistent with the market opportunities by making use of the insights of their RMS Revolution Plus.

Revise negotiated corporate rates: The Lancaster Hotel wanted to redefine the commercial strategy adopted with corporate customers, in order to harmonize it with all the online market opportunities provided by Milan.
Increase the online productivity: It was critical to increase the share of online channels, both otas and the website, in order to catch up with an increasingly dynamic market and capture any single chance of extra revenue.
Improve the online reputation: In line with the goal of increasing revenue, the property felt it was necessary to improve their online reputation by growing the volume of reviews and reaching some goals such as the Top 10 in Tripadvisor and the score of 9+ on Booking.com

Innovators Mentioned

Lancaster Hotel

Revolution Plus by Franco Grasso

Filippo Bua

Owner

Lancaster Hotel

"Human skills, supported by their excellent Revolution Plus software, have helped us to achieve outstanding pricing, occupancy, brand reputation and, therefore, ultimately economic and income results (more than double in a couple of years). When it happened that we had some divergence of views on the strategies to implement, we have always found professionals willing to listen to our needs and, with great patience, support us in the less easy moments of hotel management (see years 2020 - 2021)"

Filippo Bua

Owner

👍 Owner Filippo Bua said that Revenue doubled in a couple of years. Excellent human skills and willingness to listen even during the hardest time make the Revenue Team by Franco Grasso and their RMS Revolution Plus a natural choice for the years to come.:

"Human skills, supported by their excellent Revolution Plus software, have helped us to achieve outstanding pricing, occupancy, brand reputation and, therefore, ultimately economic and income results (more than double in a couple of years). When it happened that we had some divergence of views on the strategies to implement, we have always found professionals willing to listen to our needs and, with great patience, support us in the less easy moments of hotel management (see years 2020 - 2021)"

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Filippo Bua evaluated Revolution Plus by Franco Grasso's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that Revolution Plus by Franco Grasso was the best fit solution:

Owner Filippo Bua said, about their decision: "We immediately appreciated the great preparation and professionalism of all the collaborators of the Franco Grasso Revenue Team. This collaboration allows us to have the opinion of expert revenue managers to define and plan long-term business strategies. Furthermore, their daily forecast and help desk service (available 365 days, including holidays) guarantees the Hotel a considerable saving of time and – above all – to have the peace of mind and certainty that online rates and availability are always consistent and up-to-date."

📈 The results: The Revenue Team by Franco Grasso has helped Lancaster Hotel to dramatically boost their revenue in a very short time, by revising the contracts with corporate customers, optimizing the presence, contents, profiles and pricing on online channels, and providing an action plan for an improvement of online reputation and ranking score.

100% increase in revenue and Gross Operating Profit in a couple of years (2017-2019), 15% increase in revenue in 2022 vs 2019, yearly ADR jumped over time from 106 to 163 euros with occupancy consistently above 90%
95% of direct corporate customers switched from static negotiated rates to dynamic rates
Achieved the top 10 in Tripadvisor and jumped from 8.6 to 9+ on Booking.com in 6 months with a 3x increase in reviews volume