Customer Spotlight: Inspira Liberdade Boutique Hotel

About Inspira Liberdade Boutique Hotel

The Inspira Liberdade Boutique Hotel is set in the heart of Lisbon, just a few steps away from the famous Avenida da Liberdade. The spa hotel’s award-winning concept is built on the basis of environmental sustainability and social responsibility. This is felt throughout the property, be it in the rooms, the F&B venues or the expansive wellness area.

Recently, we spoke with Beatriz Cadete, Revenue Manager at the Inspira Liberdade Boutique Hotel about how she has been benefiting from using Rate Insight and Market Insight. She described the key role that live business intelligence plays in her pricing decisions, targeted marketing and demand forecasting.

Navigating a changed distribution landscape

We used to understand our source markets and their demand patterns well. That knowledge, combined with Rate Insight’s live competitor data, helped us form successful revenue strategies pre-pandemic. 

However, once Covid-19 struck, everything changed. We no longer knew when to expect demand peaks or drops. And even our source market mix changed dramatically. That made forecasting demand and setting the optimal rates a big challenge. 

As soon as we added Market Insight to our tech stack, this became a lot easier. Now, I can see demand trends emerge and adjust our strategies well in advance. On top of that, I use Rate Insight every day to monitor our Comp Set and fine-tune our rates and positioning. This is how I’ve managed to navigate our new demand landscape and seize the revenue opportunities it presents.

Accurate demand forecasting and improved pricing decisions

Market Insight provides me with a wealth of forward-looking demand data. Among other things, this includes search pressure in various source markets, lead time and popular stay durations. These data points offer detailed insights into emerging and shifting demand that I wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. Having this information at my fingertips in real time helps me adjust my rates to actual demand and capture my fair share of it. 

For example, Market Insight showed much stronger demand post-lockdown than we would have expected. This encouraged me to keep our rates up despite seeing slower pick-up initially. Other properties around us scrambled for bookings immediately after reopening and filled up on low prices. But we trusted the data, stayed the course and achieved a solid ADR. Since implementing Market Insight, we’ve seen this KPI grow by roughly 10-15%. 

The tech stack’s role in decision-making today

Having a solid tech stack that includes powerful BI tools is essential if you want to effectively navigate today’s changed, volatile demand landscapes. Lighthouse’s solutions help me monitor and understand our market’s fast-paced developments in real time. Since they provide competitor and forward-looking demand information in a well-organized format, I can skip the lengthy data collection and collation process. I reinvest this time in analysis and making well-informed pricing and distribution decisions.

Optimal staffing thanks to accurate demand forecasting

When we reopened the hotel in July 2021, we weren’t sure when our guests would be returning, and how long they’d book for. A look at Market Insight answered our questions and helped us forecast how busy we would be in the months ahead. 

Apart from allowing us to optimize our rates, that was also helpful for our operations team. They used the forecasts to plan their rotas and ensure we always scheduled the optimal number of staff. That had two important benefits. First, we kept our staffing costs in check on slower days. Second, we knew when we’d be busy well in advance and were able to bring in enough staff to handle the heavier workload.

More targeted and effective digital marketing

Market Insight reveals how our individual source markets are behaving in real-time. Now, I see where potential guests are searching for trips to Lisbon and which length of stay they’re interested in. This reveals promising markets and allows me to better target them with promotions and AdWords campaigns that reflect their current demand patterns. That way I can increase the return on my ad spend. 

We also share this information with our external digital marketing team. It helps them work more effectively because they can base their content and marketing activities on accurate, real-time data.

Outstanding customer support

Lighthouse is much more than just a software provider. Each of their team members shows a personal interest in their clients’ success. Since we began working with them, we’ve built a strong connection with our account manager who is always there to support us. Whenever we have a doubt or a question, I always get a quick response, be it from our main contact or via the chat. This level of personal support makes a big difference.

A word to your peers

Lighthouse’s suite of BI tools is an investment with a very quick ROI. If you take advantage of the platform, you’ll always have access to live market and competitor information. This helps you make well-informed pricing and distribution decisions, better target your marketing and increase your overall revenue.