Portofino Vacanze
Smartpms is essential, especially for operators like us who want to maximize direct bookings. We’ve reached 40% direct annual sales.
Portofino
130
Context
Portofino Vacanze is a property management company that operates tourist apartments across Liguria, mainly in the Gulf of Tigullio and the eastern Riviera.
From day one, the business adopted a strong data-driven approach and a clear goal: scale the number of managed properties sustainably while keeping both homeowners and guests highly satisfied.
Their clientele is mainly leisure, with a meaningful share of business travelers during the winter months.
Since 2022 — the year they began using Smartpms, the all-in-one property management system, and Smartpricing for dynamic pricing — Portofino Vacanze has grown from 30 to 130 managed units, with 30 added in the last year alone.
A growth path driven not by chance, but by strategy and data.
The challenge
In the very early years, when the company managed around thirty apartments, every task was handled manually.
But to reach their goal of increasing revenue and scaling rapidly, Portofino Vacanze identified two major bottlenecks:
- Pricing management, which was becoming increasingly complex and time-consuming
- Daily operations, which prevented the manager from focusing on strategic growth
“Our approach is data-driven to the point of obsession. That’s why we were looking for solutions that could help us fully leverage data and build targeted strategies.”
The solution
To solve the most urgent issue — pricing — Portofino Vacanze first implemented Smartpricing and, shortly after, Smartpms.
The choice proved immediately successful: compared with other PMS software the team had evaluated, Smartpms offered far more flexibility and customization options for the needs of a property manager.
“Now that I know how convenient it is to work with Smartpms and Smartpricing, if I could go back, I’d start using them even with just 10 units. Smartpms is perfect for what I need: a tool with virtually unlimited potential that keeps getting better. The integration with dynamic pricing is phenomenal, and I’ve realized over time that this level of integration is not easy to find in other systems.”
For Portofino Vacanze, the Smartpms features that have the biggest impact on time savings and sales are automated bureaucracy, especially sending guest registration forms directly to local authorities, and the unified calendar, which gives a complete overview of prices and bookings — an essential tool to stay in control quickly and easily.
“Smartpms is crucial, especially if you want to push direct bookings to the maximum like we do. We’ve reached 40% direct annual sales. But even if just one in three bookings were direct, trying to log them manually or in Excel would be madness. Even if you work mostly with OTAs, the unified calendar helps tremendously to keep everything organized, especially when you manage many properties.”
Results
By using Smartpms and Smartpricing together, Portofino Vacanze transformed daily operations into a faster, more organized, and more strategic workflow.
The first impact was operational: thanks to the automation of repetitive tasks and dynamic pricing management, the time saved ranges between 8 and 20 hours per week, depending on the season.
Hours that can now be dedicated to business growth, training, and deeper data analysis.
More precise strategies thanks to Smartpms data
Smartpms also plays a decisive role in pricing.
Portofino Vacanze continuously uses data from the channel manager and Smartpms reports to guide its pricing strategy in Smartpricing, enabling a fully data-driven approach.
Two aspects have become particularly important:
1. Creating custom clusters based on real performance data
After three and a half years of usage, Portofino Vacanze is reorganizing its portfolio into clusters built directly from the performance insights generated by Smartpms.
This allows the pricing algorithm to be refined even further, with strategies tailored to the specific characteristics of each apartment type.
2. Analyzing demand by nationality and optimizing minimum stay
Smartpms provides a clear overview of guest nationality, seasonality, average spend, and average length of stay.
These insights are used in Smartpricing to set more accurate dynamic minimum-stay rules.
For example, through data analysis, Portofino Vacanze realized it had been too aggressive with minimum-stay settings during the last spring season. With that information, they were able to adjust the strategy in Smartpricing with precision.
In conclusion, the combination of Smartpms and Smartpricing has transformed the way the business is managed. Today, Portofino Vacanze can experiment, refine, and optimize its strategy quickly without losing control.
“Having both tools together allowed me to manage things at a strategic level: to experiment, adjust, and correct course even in short timeframes. Doing all this manually would have been unthinkable — actually impossible.”
Hotel Andreas
Smartpricing has automated our price adjustments and significantly increased our revenue. We couldn’t be happier – the investment has paid off many times over.
Paradise Garden & View
We constantly strive to improve the quality of our services, dedicating personalized care and attention to each guest. Smartpricing has helped us greatly in this regard.