In the winter months, QuickStay takes the more conservative strategy, allowing Wheelhouse to lower our prices sooner. During those harder-to-sell months, this ensures our suites are booked at the highest occupancy. When there’s more demand in the market, we go with a more aggressive approach, leaving the rates higher for longer to get those jaw-dropping ADRs.
Wheelhouse’s minimum price feature is the ideal safety net for property managers experimenting with their pricing strategies. When making adjustments, whether daily or seasonally, this makes sure you have the final say. As a luxury brand competing with 4-star hotels on pricing, it’s important we never undersell our properties. If we do, we put our properties, neighbours and owners at risk, as extremely low rates encourage higher-risk reservations. Using the minimum price feature, we never sell below our set value.
Now, let’s talk weekends. In the property management world, weekends are gold. With Friday to Sunday getaways being more enticing than ever, property managers need to set their daily rates accordingly. Using the weekend adjustments feature, we mark up weekends significantly to prevent high occupancy suites from getting booked prematurely for only one night. By increasing these rates, we decrease higher risk reservations, while keeping our calendars free for longer stays. Why welcome a one-night booking when we can have a weekend booking, or even better, an entire week!
On the other hand, if we’re going to accept a single-night, the ADR better be worth it — and it often is. We found that with proper screening and process, one-day bookings account for 15% of our overall revenue. But you have to be careful. Guests must agree to your house rules and go through thorough verification. Thankfully, there are systems available that screen guests automatically, like Autohost.