Jennifer Axness
The boutique Seattle hotel Inn at the Market has shown a very strong return on investment (ROI) – increasing revenue by over 500% (full year 2022 vs. revenue through August 2023) – since they started utilizing the marketing capabilities of Amadeus’ Guest Management Solutions early in 2023. The hotel is flourishing, powered by its use of Amadeus’ full suite of solutions including Business Intelligence (BI); Guest Management Solutions (GMS); Media Solutions; and iHotelier® Booking Engine.
Shelley Wooten, General Manager, Inn at the Market: “We love how easy it is to use the Amadeus suite of products. Being a small independent hotel, these tools allow us to swiftly analyze our competitive landscape and plot an action plan. The bundle package also allows us to reach the guest with our marketing material in a refined and meaningful way. We would not be as successful without Amadeus’ product offerings and support of best practices.”
SETTING THE SCENE
With a total of 79 cozy rooms, the Inn at the Market is a small, top-rated, elegant hotel in the heart of Seattle. Located directly across from the city’s top attraction, the Pike Place Market – one of the oldest public farmer’s markets in the U.S – the award-winning Inn is an independent property with access to some of the most outstanding restaurants and shopping in the city.
The hotel’s General Manager and Director of Sales & Marketing have been with the property for over 10 years, showing their commitment to the hotel. They have expressed an appreciation of working together with the Amadeus team – one of whom already had an extensive relationship with the customer, even prior to working with Amadeus – in a successful working relationship based on trust and a feeling of “family.”
THE CHALLENGE
The property was looking to maximize revenue in 2023. They had already been using Amadeus’ GMS Campaign Manager and were seeking to expand their capabilities to include more flexibility and autonomy in delivery of their marketing initiatives. They needed a tool that would support their goals as a small, independent property of less than 100 rooms.
THE SOLUTION
At the start of 2023, the hotel began subscribing to Amadeus’ GMS marketing automation bundle and learned the use of these new tools by working closely with two dedicated Amadeus Customer Success Managers (CSMs). One feature of this new solution – Campaign Advisor – has helped the property take the guesswork out of when they should send their campaigns and helped ensure that emails are hitting recipients’ boxes at the right time.
The property also successfully activated the Cart Abandonment feature of GMS, which they had not used previously. By using this tool, the hotel can pull in additional revenue by reaching back out to individuals who have been on the hotel’s booking engine and have left the site either having been idle or not having completed a booking, with a reminder email.
RESULTS
Between February and August 2023, the hotel ran monthly email campaigns leading to 266 new reservations while achieving an average distinct open rate of 42.74%, more than double the industry standard, and click through rate of 2.32%, almost twice the industry benchmark.
Year-to-date 2023 iHotelier performance has resulted in an 8% increase in revenue (not including property management system (PMS) revenue), driven by an uplift of nearly 1,100 bookings and an average increase of $48 to the average daily rate (ADR).
One component of these results is the activation of the Cart Abandonment feature which drove an incremental increase of over $38,000 in revenue supporting seasonal shifts in bookings, as illustrated below.
With Metasearch, conversion rates are above industry averages, with Meta traffic and performance exceeding industry benchmarks on Google by 11%, TripAdvisor by 6.3%, and Trivago by 5.2%. The hotel has attained a 4.7% (almost 5-star) rating on Google and an outstanding 5-start rating on TripAdvisor.
To learn more about how hoteliers are driving success today, visit our Trendsetters in Travel page.
