Customer Spotlight: Oaga Art Resort Maldives

About Oaga Art Resort Maldives

A small island with 60 villas with beach and over water options, 4 dining venues and a spa inspired by Maldivian traditional healing practices, Oaga Art Resort Maldives’ artistic and creative spaces offer an immersive experience curated by local and visiting artists, and craftsmen from the Maldives.

We sat down with Imran Khan, E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Manager at Oaga Art Resort Maldives to understand how he has been using Rate and Market Insight to get this brand-new property off to a flying start.

Rate Insight helps to understand the market

When the property first opened, we had a limited inventory of 35 rooms which were competing with well established resorts in a market. We didn’t have any data or past history to check and while we had an idea of our pricing points, we needed a tool to better understand the market. 

Rate Insight played a crucial role in enabling us to conduct market analysis and make informed decisions. By focusing on our rate and pricing strategy, supported by data from Rate Insight, we reached our target within 15 days of implementation, achieving 100% occupancy on at least five occasions during the initial 20 days. This success was solely due to the implementation of a pricing strategy derived from Rate Insight data. As a result, we now maintain an average occupancy of 50-60% without any marketing efforts.

Effective, efficient and confident decision-making

When we have the accurate numbers to work with as well as an understanding of the market trends, the probability of the success rate increases. We have a very competitive market, and in order to survive, we have to be proactive in how we position ourselves now, and when we release future products. Luckily we have Rate and Market Insight. These are our surviving tools.

Rate Insight really helped us to understand this and position ourselves in an effective way, where even in the first month we were able to see a strong pickup. Having Rate Insight gives me the confidence I need to make decisions effectively and efficiently.

Market positioning for a new a property

Initially we were missing out to our competitors. We were not able to penetrate the market effectively because most of our decisions were based on dated price points and older market trends. Every day the price changes in line with demand so it's very important to know exactly where you need to push your yield on your room types and your rates.

After using Rate Insight we were able to get real-time data, see the pricing trends and what our competitive positioning was in the market. Rate Insight helps me to take informed decisions on pricing, strategy, room inventory or channels. By using real-time, market-demand data we have the tools to implement an effective strategy where we can make confident decisions and get the maximum ROI out of our actions. This ultimately has helped me to increase my revenue and profitability on a day to day basis. 

Creating opportunities

Since the pandemic, the market has also been behaving differently. There is still a lot of uncertainty, which has meant a lot of last minute bookings two or three days prior to arrival. When you have the right data, you can see what's happening in the market, and you know where you want to position yourself, then you act accordingly.

Because you have the best tools, you create opportunities where you might have missed them. Rate Insight really gives us a lot of information about the market and helps us spot opportunities without compromising on the rates.

Targeted strategies that help reduce costs

I start my day by checking Market Insight and what the trend looks like, what people are searching for, how demand is developing, and what dates should perform better than others. It's very useful that I can see what countries are looking for flights, what countries are booking on GDS etc and what are the length of stays on average and then you can decide what you should be targeting in the coming days.

If the market changes, we have the indicators on Market Insight - you have the data, you have the graph, you just have to adjust to the demand.

Using this data we are able to maximize our potential booking opportunities by zeroing in on the right target audience. With a data-based approach, we can tailor our rate strategies for specific countries; this produces a far more cost-effective approach and makes my acquisition through OTAs much more efficient while reducing commission costs significantly.

Rate Insight helps to understand the market

There are often so many factors and variables to consider, where you have to decide what decision to take, whether to take it or not, when to act, and how to proceed.

Rate Insight helps to eliminate doubts and caution so you end up with a clear idea of what the strategy is and where you could go in a better direction and where you have to adjust your strategy to do more.

Better team alignment

Rate Insight enables key stakeholders, including the general manager and revenue team as well as reservations and finance departments, to harness its data analytics in real-time. This helps to create a unified understanding of what is working, what we have on-the-books and how the forecast is looking. Harnessing this ocean of information allows us to build a stronger foundation for our decision-making process.

Unrivaled customer care

There are lots of technology providers in the market, but it's very important to have one that’s user friendly and transparent. This is what Lighthouse provides us. They are constantly innovating and updating the products and they have really good customer service and swift response time - anything that requires a response is very quick, within 24 hours. Onboarding was very good. It's easy to understand. You can easily grasp all the information provided. With other tech, when you start using it, that's when the complication starts. But at Lighthouse it's very transparent, very user friendly.

A word to your peers

The whole world is now driven by data and AI technologies. It’s there to help you, to guide and to answer all your questions. But very few understand them. If you have data as your starting point, then you can make your decisions based on facts, and then you can optimize your pricing strategy, your room inventory and the distribution channels.

Lighthouse is user friendly, has a strong focus on customer support, the transparency in the real-time data and in the flexibility it gives you to connect with almost all the tools you're using to do everything in your property. I know what I’m getting with Lighthouse, I’m used to the tools and there is no need to deviate from that and make things even more complex.

If I have all I need in one buffet of tools, why would I look for a table at another restaurant?