Vienna Sporthotel

Tell us a bit about your property.

The Sporthotel has been around since 1998 and offers 79 rooms across three categories: single rooms, double rooms, and business rooms.

In terms of seasonality, Vienna now has such a diverse offering that demand stays steady from March through December, thanks to events and conferences scheduled even in the shoulder months.

Our guest mix is made up of about 30% groups and 40% repeat guests. The remaining bookings come from Booking.com, Expedia, HotelSpecials, and our own website – in that order, with Booking.com accounting for the largest share.

Especially for those 40% coming in via OTAs, we pay close attention to keeping our pricing structure well-aligned and competitive.

For example, when a concert date in July was announced, we used to already be fully booked before we even had the chance to adjust our prices. Smartpricing has changed that completely: it picks up on new events or market shifts automatically and updates our prices right away. That means we never miss an opportunity to capture higher rates.

Since when have you been using Smartpricing?

We’ve been using Smartpricing since December 2023. As part of a hotel renovation, we switched to a new PMS system, and we wanted to add a solution that could automate and optimize our pricing strategy. That’s how we came across Smartpricing.

With our previous provider, this kind of setup wasn’t possible – we didn’t have access to our PMS data. We needed a tool that could automatically adjust our rates across platforms like Booking.com.

How did you manage your pricing before Smartpricing?

Manually. Every day, I’d track revenue development in an Excel spreadsheet and adjust our prices based on years of comparative data. To monitor market prices, we also used other tools to analyze competitor rates on Booking.com and similar platforms.

Based on all that information, we’d manually set our rates.

What need or challenge were you looking to address?

The biggest issue with our old setup was that it didn’t allow us to react quickly. Like I mentioned, if a concert date was announced, we’d often be sold out before we could even raise our prices.

With Smartpricing, all of that happens automatically now: new events or market changes are fed directly into the system, and prices adjust in real time. That way, we never miss the chance to increase our rates when demand rises.

The same applies in the opposite case – if demand softens or competitors lower their prices, we can respond immediately.

So, our primary goal was faster responsiveness to market developments. Naturally, we also hoped for a positive boost in our average daily rate – and that goal was absolutely met.

What convinced you to go with Smartpricing?

With 79 rooms, we’re a medium-sized, privately-owned hotel – we’re not a big player. Still, we have to keep up with the challenges of today’s market.

Since we host a lot of group guests on weekends and mostly corporate clients during the week, the number of rooms we have left to sell isn’t huge. For us, it was crucial to have a solution that offered the right balance of cost and benefit.

Smartpricing fits perfectly with our size and needs.

What results have you seen with Smartpricing?

This year, we’ve managed to increase our average rate by 5%, and in some months, even up to 8%.

What’s the biggest benefit you’ve gained from using Smartpricing?

Smartpricing integrates directly with our channel manager – which is fantastic. We can adjust rates in both directions from one single platform and react quickly.

I don’t have to log into the channel manager separately anymore; I can control everything right from Smartpricing. Plus, it’s really intuitive and easy to use.

Thanks to the regular training sessions, I also know exactly how to set parameters, adjust pricing strategies, and factor in the impact of events. That’s a huge advantage for us – and the time savings are significant thanks to all the manual work Smartpricing takes off our plate.

So, would you say you’re using Smartpricing to its full capacity?

Not quite at 100% yet, but definitely at around 80%. It’s an ongoing process – Smartpricing keeps evolving, and we’re growing alongside it.

And whenever we need support, we get quick feedback and assistance. It’s ideal, really.

If you had to describe Smartpricing in one word?

Relief. It’s a real relief in our day-to-day work – paired with the added benefit of higher revenue.