Case Studies

Luxury Resort & Spa Case Study
Montage Resort & Spa, Laguna Beach
www.montagelagunabeach.com

Montage Resort & Spa, which opened in February 2003, is a 262-room ultra-luxury resort located in Laguna Beach, California, serving both affluent leisure travelers and group business clientele. The property is the recipient of many prestigious awards including: Conde Nast Traveler's Annual Reader's Choice Awards - Ranked #2 U.S. Resort (November 2004) and Spa Montage - Five Stars from Mobil Travel Guide (April 2005), "100 Best Places to Stay" - Robb Report Luxury Resorts (2006), Voted One of "The World's Best Hotels" - Travel + Leisure Magazine (2006), and "Best of the Best" - Celebrated Living (2006).

The Challenge:

As the flagship property for a new luxury hotel brand, Montage Resort & Spa, Laguna Beach, initially approached E-site Marketing to design a Website and develop and implement a fully integrated, strategic online marketing program that would:

• Establish and promote brand awareness for a newly-formed, ultra-luxury hotel company/brand
• Position the flagship property online during critical stages of the resort's opening phase, as well as into the future
• Generate and increase qualified leads, conversion potential and significant revenue sources to meet ambitious online sales goals

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Hotel Management Company Case Study
Destination Hotels and Resorts
www.destinationhotels.com

Destination Hotels & Resorts is one of the industry's leaders in the management and marketing of high-quality independent properties, many of which were successfully converted from major brand affiliations. Over the years Destination Hotels & Resorts, a wholly owned subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Lowe Enterprises, has grown to be the fifth largest independent management company in the United States, managing a portfolio in excess of a billion dollars.

The Challenge:

• Build online brand awareness and increase revenues across the portfolio of 30(+) properties/independent hotels.
• Consistent tracking across the portfolio to demonstrate ROI to asset owners.
• Implement uniform corporate Information Architecture & E-commerce guidelines.
• Increase email capture to support CRM initiative.
• Increase online market share against larger and established hotel brands.

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Spa Resort Case Study
Lake Austin Spa Resort
www.lakeaustin.com

Lake Austin Spa Resort, located outside of Austin Texas, offers world-class spa services and has been honored by the Zagat Survey as the Number Five Spa in the U.S. and by Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure and Luxury Spafinder magazines as a Top U.S. Spa.

The Challenge:

Although the Lake Austin Spa Resort determined they had built a solid base of local business and developed a loyal following of destination spa visitors, they felt they were not reaching the growing audience of potential spa guests conducting research online. E-site Marketing was retained to develop and implement strategies that would:

• Improve and enhance Lake Austin Spa Resort's online exposure
• Increase incremental revenues generated via the Website's online store

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City Hotel Case Study
The Hay-Adams
www.hayadams.com

The Hay-Adams is a 145 room independent, luxury hotel located directly across from the White House, in Washington, DC. The AAA Four Diamond property, and member of Leading Hotels of the World, is ranked on Conde Nast Traveler's Gold List as one of the Top 75 North American Hotels.

The Challenge:

Upon completion of an extensive restoration, during which period the hotel was closed, The Hay-Adams wanted to increase awareness of the restoration effort and the grand reopening of the hotel, as well as special promotional rates for the reopening.

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Larkspur Landing increases RevPAR 9.7% after moving to the SynXis Platform, including Voice Agent, for Complete Distribution

"By implementing the RedX platform across all channels we simplified our inventory and revenue management function, allowing us to maximize market share. Switching our reservation offices to Voice Agent really improved our sales agents' ability to sell across our brand. SynXis is a great partner - they listen to feedback and make sure we are involved in product enhancements."
Michael J. Sherwood, Vice President, Revenue Management, Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants

Established in 1996, Larkspur Hotels & Restaurants is a rapidly growing company boasts a portfolio of 23 hotels, including three distinct hotel brands: Larkspur Landing, Larkspur Hotels and The Larkspur Collection. In order to manage the properties more effectively, the executive team decided to move all brands onto one reservation platform, RedX. With 75% of reservations coming in direct to the hotel, management also needed a tool that improved how the front desk sold the property and brand. They chose Voice Agent, part of the RedX Distribution Management System.

The Challenge

• Properties needed to be on one CRS platform that provided efficient product management.
• Front desk sales agents needed a more effective way to sell individual properties and properties across the brands.
• Management needed a CRS platform that "communicated" with the PMSs

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SynXis Solutions Boost LodgeWorks Reservations By 15% With A Single-Image of Inventory

"SynXis stood out amongst the competition not only for their technology and integration tools but for their willingness to meet some of our very specific needs as a management company. Their ability to work with us to address all reservation types and guest payment scenarios was particularly impressive and after seeing the results we are confident that we selected the right partner."
Christen Garb, Vice President, Revenue Management and Distribution, LodgeWorks

LodgeWorks, a privately held hotel development and management company, owns and operates a number of hotels and hotel chains throughout the country. LodgeWorks needed a comprehensive Central Reservation System (CRS) that could handle the integration and support needs that a growing hotel company like theirs required and a solution that would incorporate all channels of distribution into a single-image to facilitate streamlined inventory management.

The Challenge

• Finding new technology to fulfill the vision of a growing hotel company
• Managing all channels from a single point of entry to help optimize revenue and ADR
• Achieving a single-image of inventory of all reservations

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Shell Hospitality Incorporates Suite of SynXis Solutions, Boosts GDS Bookings by Over 40%

"We have a great success story with SynXis! The team really understands our needs and has been instrumental in helping us grow our revenues through their innovative products and services. The results speak for themselves."
Karen Johnson, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Shell Vacations Hospitality

Shell Vacations Hospitality, a collection of 23 upscale international timeshare properties, needed a solution to help streamline their reservations process. Shell chose SynXis for its comprehensive CRS solutions to increase revenues and drive down overall costs.

The Challenge

• Taking advantage of the growing online distribution channel
• Reservation calls were going to individual properties and were not always efficient
• With a timeshare business model, owners lose money when rooms go unused so it is critical that rooms can sell quickly.
• Needed to have high conversion rates from prospects
• Property Management System (PMS) was not integrated to CRS

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Aqua Hotels & Resorts switch to Guest Connect and conversions increase by 38%

"Visitors to our website have found our new booking engine very easy to use as evidenced by the huge increase in conversions, bookings and revenue!  We've found the multi-step booking process to enhance usability as consumers are familiar with this way of shopping.  Another benefit of switching to Guest Connect has been a decrease in questions about the website booking process to our central reservations office; guests are now comfortable completing the whole booking online."

Amber Watt, Directory of Internet Strategy, Aqua Hotels & Resorts

Aqua Hotels & Resorts is a full-service hotel management company with 16 properties throughout Hawaii catering to a wide range of travelers.  Aqua's goal was to power its website  with a booking engine that gave visitors a simple way to shop for and book exactly what they wanted.  Because of the wide range of markets served they needed unlimited merchandising flexibility to showcase each property's unique offerings.  In order to gain better operational, marketing and revenue management efficiencies Aqua also needed a system that could be managed at the chain-level.

Aqua Hotels & Resorts needs:

• Fast and reliable booking engine to accommodate the growing online market
• Easy and intuitive user interface that enabled guests to complete the entire booking online without overburdening the reservations call center
• Increase revenues per booking by selling packages and ancillary products during the booking process
• Increase efficiency in revenue management, marketing, operations and reservations across the group
• Enable guests to make multiple reservations with one booking

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DeHistoriske sees an almost 50% increase in bookings after switching properties to Guest Connect Booking Engine

"We are thrilled with the results we've seen since switching to SynXis. Recently we have experienced a growth in demand and interest in our product that required a booking engine whose capabilities could meet a variety of different customer and property needs. Guest Connect can accommodate both our individual property's needs as well as our brand."
Nils Henrik Geitle, Managing Director, DeHistoriske

De Historiske - Historic Hotels and Restaurants of Norway, a collection of 37 unique and distinguished properties across Norway, needed a solution to help drive revenue to their properties through their own booking engine. The chain was looking for a booking engine that would help them increase exposure to online customers, in addition to a distribution partner whose account management team was experienced and could assist them with implementing their strategy.

The Challenge

• De Historiske needed a strong online technology solution to help grow its presence on the Internet.
• De Historiske required a booking engine which would give property managers the flexibility to market each property to a diverse customer base.

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Magnolia Hotels adds SynXis Internet Marketing and RezTrack Reporting Tools, Improves Year Over Year Bookings By Almost 12%

"We need the flexibility to try new and innovative marketing programs and know immediately what works to drive more business and what doesn't. All the data we need is available in the RezTrack Report and SynXis' Internet Marketing Portal. Together these tools have been a tremendous help in guiding us on where to spend our marketing dollars to ensure the highest return."
Mike Pratt, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Magnolia Hotels

Magnolia Hotel, a privately-held hotel management and development company headquartered in Denver, Colorado, manages four-star hotel properties in four different cities in the United States, all situated in historic buildings and prime downtown locations. Magnolia Hotels chose to implement the SynXis RezTrack® and Internet Marketing Reporting Tools to gain a better understanding of return on investment for its E-marketing campaigns as well as increase its look to book ratios and reservations on its booking engine.

The Challenge

• Reservation tracking was processed manually through rate codes and via multiple locations.
• Manual tracking resulted in unorganized data.
• Lack of reliable data made it difficult to know where to spend marketing dollars.
• Customer database was not growing quickly enough, slowing down new customer acquisitions and return visits from previous guests.

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SynXis assists Grand Hotel Amstelveen with Revenue Management Strategy; Hotel sees year-on-year revenue growth of 105%

"SynXis has a huge wealth of knowledge within its team, and we are pleased to be able to benefit so greatly from this. We couldn't imagine that just making these changes could make such an enormous difference!"
Mr. M. Nagel, General Manager, Grand Hotel Amstelveen

Grand Hotel Amsterdam, an independent property located in the Netherlands, felt that there were too few bookings coming from the GDS channel given their close proximity to the airport as well as to the city of Amsterdam. Also, the hotel did not have a Revenue Manager on its staff so looked to their SynXis account manager for consultancy on optimizing their revenue strategy and merchandising their property better on the various distribution channels.

The Challenge

• Room reservations coming through the GDS channel were dropping
• Only one standard public rate had been set-up in GDS and the property's general manager felt that they were lacking a targeted revenue strategy
• Hotel felt they could maximize exposure to other channels as well

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Crane's BeachHouse Implements SynXis Revenue Management Program, Increases Off-Season Bookings By Nearly 40%

"I need to wear many hats to get my job done, but with the SynXis Revenue Management services I can relax and trust that all of my online rates are in parity. SynXis has given us a means to information and strategy that we would not be able to afford on our own and we have seen incredible results since working with SynXis."
Cathy Balestriere, General Manager, Cranes Beach House

Crane's BeachHouse, a 27 room resort located in Delray Beach, Florida, needed better controls in place to help maximize its hotel revenue. Crane's BeachHouse chose to implement the SynXis Revenue management Consulting Program to optimize revenues and increase occupancy while competing against a number of larger chain hotels in the immediate area.

The Challenge

• Limited staff for monitoring competitive pricing and room occupancy
• Difficulty managing inventory, stay restrictions, and pricing on a consistent basis
• Steep occupancy drop-offs during off-peak season (June, July, August)
• Weak distribution channel production

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