Thwaites Aligns Rooms and Meetings & Events Strategy to Grow Revenue Across the Hotel

MEETINGS & EVENTS

Boutique hotels and inns are a cornerstone of most villages in Northwest England. Combining the rugged beauty of the countryside with historic properties, guests have an opportunity for truly unique experiences in this region. Thwaites is known for providing a warm and welcoming atmosphere within its six hotels, as well as its brewpubs, inns and lodges.

Why it matters: This idyllic setting is a draw for visitors of all sorts, including groups in need of meeting and event spaces. In addition to an average of 100 guest rooms at each of its hotels, Thwaites boasts modern function spaces for meeting- and event-related group business. But like most hotels, Thwaites had been challenged to strategically manage its function space through the ebbs and flows of conference business demand. The revenue management staff wanted to align function-space and guest-room revenue strategies, yet they lacked the same level of insight into function-space demand that they had with guest rooms.

With an executive directive to achieve positive rate growth in conference group (and room) business, Thwaites sought to find a tool that had key revenue management characteristics that could support a broader function space strategy for the business. Hurved and team identified IDeaS SmartSpace as the ideal tool to meet its needs.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Conference group business was becoming one of the most yieldable pieces of Thwaites' business. They needed software that would provide the insights needed to reduce manual upkeep.

Optimize Bookings: Accurately and efficiently forecast conference business demand
Increase revenue: Align function-space and guest-room revenue strategies
Identify new opportunities: Better strategy for evaluating pricing and inventory for event inquiries

Innovators Mentioned

Thwaites Hotel and Spas & Inns

IDeaS

Katharine Hurved

Group Revenue Manager

Thwaites Hotel and Spas & Inns

"IDeaS SmartSpace has enabled us to focus on more than just guest rooms, and our teams are constantly sharing valuable data with one another. We’ve been very pleased. It allows us to see the big picture."

Katharine Hurved

Group Revenue Manager

👍 Group Revenue Manager Katharine Hurved said that Thwaites wanted to get to a place where we're looking at one revenue strategy across the portfolio:

"IDeaS SmartSpace has enabled us to focus on more than just guest rooms, and our teams are constantly sharing valuable data with one another. We’ve been very pleased. It allows us to see the big picture."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Katharine Hurved evaluated IDeaS's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that IDeaS was the best fit solution:

Group Revenue Manager Katharine Hurved said, about their decision: "SmartSpace helped us look at our rate and pricing structure in a very different way, and it challenged us to maximize pricing opportunities on our conference business, said Hurved. This was our first attempt toward yielding our conference business, and it worked."

📈 The results: By making the data easier to consume and analyze, the team quickly discovered opportunities to increase revenue, and it was more efficient to share information across revenue management and group business teams.