How Portugal’s Cheese & Wine Continues to Scale “Handmade Hospitality

OPERATIONS

Cheese & Wine, a family-run hospitality brand in Lisbon, partnered with Cloudbeds to scale its signature “handmade hospitality” without losing the warmth and personal touch that define its guest experience. With Cloudbeds, the team improved efficiency, doubled direct bookings, and empowered staff with smarter scheduling and simpler operations.

Why it matters: Cloudbeds helped Cheese & Wine balance heartfelt, human-centered hospitality with modern technology — enabling them to expand sustainably, streamline operations, and strengthen both guest satisfaction and staff retention.

Cloudbeds provides Cheese & Wine with an integrated platform for property management, revenue optimization, and guest experience automation — simplifying multi-property operations while allowing the team to focus on people, not processes.

Top 3 Core Objectives: As Cheese & Wine expanded to multiple properties, they needed a reliable, all-in-one system that could support growth, increase direct revenue, and maintain their people-first culture.

Replace unreliable systems: Transition away from a previous PMS that lacked responsive support and adaptability to meet evolving business needs.
Boost direct bookings: Strengthen their direct booking strategy with a user-friendly website and booking engine to reduce reliance on third-party channels.
Efficiency and staff well-being: Automate key guest communications and check-in processes to reduce front-office workload and improve staff schedules.

Innovators Mentioned

Cloudbeds

SCP

Sérgio Cândido Pinheiro

Co-Owner

Cheese & Wine

"We more than doubled our share of direct reservations without doing much — only switching to a new Cloudbeds Website and its booking engine."

Sérgio Cândido Pinheiro

Co-Owner

👍 Co-Owner Sérgio Cândido Pinheiro said that Cloudbeds empowered Cheese & Wine to grow direct bookings effortlessly.:

"We more than doubled our share of direct reservations without doing much — only switching to a new Cloudbeds Website and its booking engine."

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

Co-Owner Sérgio Cândido Pinheiro said, about their decision: "Cloudbeds’ guest experience platform has been incredible. It allows us to deliver fantastic customer service while at the same time reducing front-office team turnover due to long hours and night shifts. Thanks to Cloudbeds, we offer our staff much better schedules."

📈 The results: With Cloudbeds, Cheese & Wine doubled direct bookings, improved operational efficiency, and enhanced staff satisfaction — all while preserving their distinctive approach to personalized hospitality.

2x increase in direct bookings after launching a new Cloudbeds Website and booking engine
18% increase in direct reservations at their flagship property
70% of guest communication automated, including online check-in