An increase in revenue of 196% through its direct website thanks to Full Management: Resort Gröbern shows the way

Initial situation & challenge

Let us first take a closer look at our full management client. The 4-star resort in Gröbern, located directly on the Gröberner lake, offers 18 hotel rooms, 35 holiday homes as well as 24 caravan pitches with optimal conditions for a relaxing holiday. With many activity packages and water sports it attracts many visitors to this natural paradise.

However, these various offers could not be optimally presented through their old website. The first impression of the hotel website was mainly confusing, the sense of navigation was not clear enough and the booking engine did not convert well. The result - two thirds of the total revenue came from the OTAs and only one third from direct channels. It quickly became clear that the resort needed to expand direct sales and increase its profitability.

That is how our cooperation started in September 2019 with our full management service.

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Actions

The basis of all measures was a new hotel website designed by myhotelshop. This was primarily intended to be designed in a conversion-optimized way. It should have a better structure and appear more clear, in order to offer potential guests an easy and seamless navigation. At the same time, the content should already create first holiday feelings.

With the goal of increasing direct sales, we also provided comprehensive advice on all aspects of changing the booking engine. Thereby the HotelNetSolutions (HNS) booking engine was chosen, because it fit best to the needs of the hotel.

After the change to HNS and the completed relaunch of the hotel website, the metasearch campaigns could start. In close communication with the hotel, ads were placed on all relevant meta searches:  Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, Tripadvisor & Kayak.

Also, Google Ads campaigns were activated. The first successful results in terms of revenue became apparent very quickly and were regularly analysed in depth with their personal full manager. In addition to the monthly strategy meetings, detailed advice  was also provided on all aspects of online marketing.

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Results

The first positive results can be seen approximately ten months after the start of the cooperation in September 2019. The new hotel website was successfully established as a distribution channel and now generates an outstanding 80% share of total revenues. It is worth noting that sales exclusively via the website have increased by 196% compared to the start of the full management contract.

The success of the website relaunch and the change of booking channel is shown by the conversion rate, which grew by one percentage point from 0.64% to an average of 1.6%. And best of all, the average distribution costs have been in the single-digit range since the start of the cooperation, or to be precise, at an excellent 6.4%.

Nicole Vehse, management assistant at the hotel and our primary contact person, is of course also impressed by this development:

„We have been working together with myhotelshop for almost a year. The relaunch of our website was a complete success!  Together with the new booking engine, we were able to increase the revenue of our own site by an average of almost 200% compared to the previous year on the old site. The share of OTAs was reduced significantly. The communication is excellent and all wishes and requests are implemented immediately."

In the period from September 2019 to June 2020, bookings have already increased by 118% compared to the previous year, with a significant boost in hotel revenue. The coming period also already indicates the first signs of a further positive development in hotel performance.

These figures are more than impressive and are the result of a very trustful cooperation, which will be intensified in the future. Besides the regular analysis of the performance, additional possibilities for improving direct sales are also being examined.