Executives Hotel Olaya shows strong signs of recovery through intelligent distribution mix.
RIYADH – Executives Hotel Olaya has been experiencing a good recovery in times of Covid-19, given its strategic online distribution mix and technology alliance with RateTiger. The Riyadh based four-star property has been using RateTiger Product Suite to manage its online distribution since 2018 and has experienced almost 25% growth in revenue since then. Moving away from manual updating of online channels has made life easy for the team. With real-time ARI updates, it helped the team to apply dynamic rate strategies swiftly which led to better conversions and revenue.
Further, during the pandemic, the team found RateTiger even more beneficial as they could clearly identify channels that were generating bookings, which helped them bounce back and improve revenue effectively.
Centrally located in the business and shopping district of Riyadh, Executives Hotel Olaya caters primarily to business travelers. Even when Saudi Arabia was under lockdown during the initial months of the pandemic, the hotel witnessed an increase in advanced booking compared to pre-pandemic level. The revenue management team has been leveraging RateTiger’s seamless connectivity with over 400 OTAs, metasearch and GDS channels to optimize their distribution mix.
“The extreme competition within the Riyadh hotel landscape means we always needs to stay up-to-date. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, demand dropped significantly with international travel coming to a stand-still. However, even then we experienced 3% – 5% increase in revenue compared to pre-pandemic level. Our occupancy started improving from July, driven by domestic demand from key regional channels, thanks to RateTiger’s wide connectivity,” said Hamada El Shahat, Operation Manager, Executives Hotel Olaya.
Over the last few months, the Saudi hotel industry has grown significantly driven by strong demand for leisure and religious travel. Even though Executives Hotel Olaya’s online booking primarily comes through OTAs, the property has been focusing on expanding direct bookings to improve profitability. In 2019, they upgraded their internet booking engine through RateTiger and implemented BookOnlineNow.
Hamada further stated, “Our direct business used to be only 1-2% of total bookings, through direct walk-ins. This changed last year when we implemented the booking engine. We currently receive almost 7% of all bookings through our website, which is huge in terms of revenue. Even during the pandemic, we have received bookings through our website. This is a substantial improvement and we are really very happy. Further RateTiger offers round the clock support and guidance which makes this partnership very valuable for us.”
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Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
