How You&Co Apartments Grew Direct Sales from 0 to 40% by Returning to Exely

About You&Co Apartments

You&Co Apartments is a modern co-living space in Dubai offering flexible accommodation for digital nomads, creatives, and young professionals. The hotel is located just 15 minutes from Dubai Marina. 

Residents benefit from flexible rental terms, transparent pricing, and access to communal facilities including a coworking space, gym, swimming pool, and cinema room. Regular events, community support, and pet-friendly facilities make You&Co suitable for those looking for a place to live, work, and socialize.

Challenges

• Limited number of distribution channels available for connection through the channel manager 
• Key rate restrictions missing from the channel manager 
• Extra fees for each connected channel 

After initially working with Exely, You&Co decided to test other providers' channel managers. However, those solutions quickly revealed their limitations. There were fewer channels to connect, some rate restrictions were missing, and their user accounts were confusing. 

On top of that, You&Co had to pay separately for every channel it added — a model that made cost management more complex. With less flexibility and more manual work, it became clear that its current tech provider was holding the property back. 

The initial goal was simply to generate bookings. But as time passed, the focus shifted to boosting direct sales, increasing ADR, and building a stronger digital presence. To meet these goals, You&Co returned to Exely. 

Solution

Increasing Occupancy with Smart Distribution Tools 

Exely Channel Manager. It offers a seamless, centralized platform to manage all OTA from a single Extranet. Bookings from both Exely Booking Engine and connected OTAs are automatically synced, saving the You&Co team time and reducing overbooking risks. This simplified daily operations, increased visibility, and helped stabilize occupancy throughout the month.  

Different team members benefit from Channel Manager in different ways: revenue managers optimize sales strategy, while operational staff save time thanks to simplified syncing and centralized updates. The system provides detailed reports on each channel’s performance — how many bookings and how much revenue each source brings.  

With this data, the team can make informed decisions: focus on the most effective platforms and reduce dependence on less profitable ones. Now, the hotel can easily adjust availability, rates, and restrictions (like MaxLOS or MinStay) across multiple channels at once — which was previously impossible. 

Driving Revenue Through Direct Sales 

Exely Booking Engine. The property got this solution to increase website bookings. Built-in widgets and motivators trigger guests to book directly on the website. To stimulate higher-value bookings, You&Co has been using flexible pricing rules, mobile-only discounts, special offers, and promo codes. As a result, the ADR on direct bookings increased, and since OTA commissions were avoided, profit margins grew significantly. 

Exely Reputation Manager. The solution allows You&Co to monitor all reviews from hotel review websites through a single extranet. Ratings and reviews are displayed on the hotel’s website via the widget — boosting social proof and direct conversion.  

Exely Customer Success Manager. You&Co’s personal manager tracks market trends and the property’s performance to maximize growth opportunities. With regular check-ins and tailored strategies, Exely Customer Success manager helped launch banner promos, mobile discounts, seasonal offers, and automated review requests — all to boost visibility and drive direct bookings. 

Result

After switching back to Exely, You&Co streamlined operations, improved online visibility, and optimized distribution strategy across all distribution channels. Thanks to Exely Booking Engine and Channel Manager, the hotel doubled its direct bookings in a year. Direct sales from the official website now account for around 40%.