How Hotel National achieved a net profit increase with the help of Exely

About Hotel National

Hotel National is a five-star hotel with 75 rooms in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. The hotel sits next to the main attraction of the city, Republic Square. For almost 11 years, Hotel National has been hosting both ordinary tourists, foreign government officials, as well as leaders of state.

Challenges

• The hotel's website was not working;
• The hotel was underrepresented online;
• The staff was overloaded, especially during the high season;
• Employees did not have a tool to automatically allocate pricing, availability and information to booking platforms. 

Guests could not book on the website, and its content had not been updated for a long time. The reason is that the hotel terminated the contract with the development company after a year of cooperation; access to the site was not given to the hotel. Information on the site quickly became outdated, and guests stopped using it.

The hotel had been selling rooms on traveler platforms for a long time without using Channel Manager. It was difficult for employees to open and close availability manually, especially during the high season.

Solution

• Exely Hotel Website Development. In order to quickly make changes and implement special offers on the website, Hotel National chose Exely, a developer who fully transfers access to the website and technically maintains it; finalizes the functionality, draws banners for promotions, and performs backups.
• Exely Booking Engine. The hotel relied on direct online sales to reduce the cost of intermediary commissions. With Exely Booking Engine, the hotel easily sells rooms and additional services, offers guests room upgrades, and launches promotions on its website.
• Exely Channel Manager. To free up staff time, the hotel decided to automate sales on booking sites. Instead of making manual settings in each distribution channel separately, employees fill in one personal account, and Exely Channel Manager updates information on all connected sites.

Result

• The hotel favors direct bookings. The commission from such bookings is much lower: 4% compared to 15-20% channel commission.
• The new website attracts over 1,000 visitors per month. The conversion rate of a website visitor to a booking is 2%, and the conversion rate of a Booking Engine visitor to a booking is 5.7%.
• Hotel National offers discounts to guests without damaging margins, thereby increasing their loyalty. The hotel gives a 10% discount on distribution channels. And on the website, due to the low commission, they can offer 15% off for signing-up on the website and 15-20% off as a loyalty discount. 
• The hotel has connected new channels for which it previously lacked resources. With Exely Channel Manager, Hotel National can sell rooms on any channel effortlessly and quickly evaluate performance.