How HotelRunner uses pricing per guest to offer tailored prices and increase occupancy rates

Since the day it was founded 10 years ago, HotelRunner has been on a mission to bring the travel industry together. The company built the industry’s first peer-to-peer networked marketplace and today it works with over 60,000 accommodation partners and more than 150 travel partners from 193 countries. It processes more than 35 million transactions a day and has processed billions of dollars worth of transactions to date – all while helping its partners save 36% operational time and increase occupancy by 22%.*

HotelRunner has always been agile in implementing APIs and improving the connectivity experience for accommodation partners. By integrating the occupancy-based pricing capability in early 2020, it became one of our first partners to adopt pricing per guest. We spoke with Rıza Kaynak, Director of Demand at HotelRunner, who told us about how this integration has contributed to the performance of our mutual property partners.

Why did you decide to offer pricing per guest?

Occupancy-based pricing allows properties to increase the occupancy rate of their more spacious but most valuable rooms by offering a tailored price depending on the number of people staying in each room. Previously, properties would open new room types with different occupancy if they wanted to offer customised prices. It was time consuming and also confusing. With pricing per guest, they’re able to send their occupancy-based prices directly via API. This method is very easy to use, functional and flexible.

How did you communicate this new feature to your properties?

To achieve maximum reach, we sent an email and push notifications to our properties connected to Booking.com. In these communications we explained what occupancy-based pricing is, how it’s different from standard pricing, and how our properties can benefit from it – encouraging them to take action. Subsequently, our team reached each and every one of our Booking.com users to guide them through the process. The entire operation was a great success, and we couldn’t be happier about it.

How did your accommodation partners benefit from this feature?

The ultimate goals of implementing pricing per guest were to help our properties rank better in search results, gain a competitive advantage, get the most value out of rooms, and boost their overall revenue. Occupancy-based pricing enabled our properties to achieve exactly that.

The annual revenue of our properties increased once they had the chance to tailor their prices and improve their visibility for different guest segments like solo and group travellers. Eventually, the total number of booked room nights at our properties increased by 116% from September 2020 to September 2022. The most amazing side-effect of this integration is that the number of HotelRunner properties connected to Booking.com has increased by 47% since January 2020 until now, as pricing per guest attracted more and more properties to our platform.

What did you take out from this experience?

The hospitality and tourism industry is extremely dynamic and there are always new ways to achieve your revenue goals. Changing the standard pricing systems and methodologies, which are out of date and no longer functional, is also a part of this evolution. As a company that always strives to improve its products and services by implementing these kinds of features, seeing our properties succeed is proof that we are on the right track.

What advice would you give to other connectivity partners?

HotelRunner and Booking.com have been strategic partners for over eight years and most importantly, have always worked side-by-side. This close relationship ensures we’re informed of better ways to help our properties and improve our connectivity accordingly.

Our advice would be to understand your customers and trust your partner. During more than 10 years of experience in the hospitality industry, we’ve gained invaluable insight – but we still listen and learn from our properties today. Having a trusted partner like Booking.com allows us to brainstorm and find the perfect solution to answer our properties’ evolving needs and expectations.

* Based on an internal study conducted by HotelRunner between April 2022 – October 2022 with more than 10,000 properties participating.

**Source: Booking.com