Launching, advertising and growing a thriving boutique hotel with eviivo Suite™

MARKETING

After selling their courier business a decade ago, David and Susan asked themselves, “What’s next?” Their far-from-obvious answer was to convert a late 19th-century mansion in the Scottish Borders into a hotel! After a year and a half of dedicated renovation to bring the property back to its original splendour, this spectacular hotel was ready for guests.

Why it matters: The luxurious retreat is now a hugely successful business that guests return to repeatedly. David and Susan have expanded their offerings by adding two lodges and welcoming furry friends with dedicated pet-friendly rooms. Find out here how using evivo Suite helped them do it.

David and Susan have made use of eviivo Suite to set-up, launch, and manage their successful hotel. Key features for the hotel's operations include the industry-leading, in-built channel manager, email automation, and actionable reporting insights.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Setting up a hotel in a historic building as their first venture into hospitality was a bold move for David and Susan. They knew they “needed to learn everything—and quickly—with regards to driving bookings” recalls David. Leveraging key online travel agencies (OTAs) here was crucial.

List on OTAs easily: The hoteliers needed a simple process for on-boarding, listing and opting in to OTAs. They need a PMS with deep integrations to sell rooms on OTAs according to their own policies, and update images and descriptions from one centralised location.
Streamline guest communications: David and Susan wanted to avoid spending hours answering calls and sending emails & messages manually. They also wanted to be able to respond to guests who had booked via various OTAs from one platform, with no need to log into each OTA's extranet.
Centralised management: Their goal was to manage as much as possible from one platform, including monitoring the hotel’s performance over time. They wanted this centralised platform to be easy to use, with ongoing training available.

Innovators Mentioned

Balcary House Hotel

eviivo

David Watson

Hotel Owner

Balcary House Hotel

"We were mindful from the start of using OTAs to get first-time guests, but then have them repeat book directly. We remind people to leave us a review with automated emails – we have great scores and are rated ‘fabulous’ on the OTAs."

David Watson

Hotel Owner

👍 Hotel Owner David Watson said that eviivo Suite has helped the hotel drive more bookings from all the leading OTAs (and more positive reviews through automated emails) while making it easy for guests to repeat book directly::

"We were mindful from the start of using OTAs to get first-time guests, but then have them repeat book directly. We remind people to leave us a review with automated emails – we have great scores and are rated ‘fabulous’ on the OTAs."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, David Watson evaluated eviivo's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that eviivo was the best fit solution:

Hotel Owner David Watson said, about their decision: "Our website designer highlighted eviivo as the most reliable option. It was easy to pick up and is an intuitive system. There is always help at hand if I need it."

📈 The results: Since they began annually reviewing their key performance indicators using eviivo, David and Susan have seen substantial growth year-on-year (YOY). Data in eviivo Suite also shows that more than 10% of the hotel’s annual guests are international, demonstrating how connecting to globally-known OTAs through eviivo has expanded the hotel’s online reach.

The value of direct bookings has increased by 57% YoY.
Online bookings overall are up 22% YoY, with eviivo-powered booking pages providing all the information travellers need when planning a stay.
Total room nights booked online is up 33%, enabling the hotel's recent expansion.