Located just 3 kilometres from Zirc, in the heart of the Bakony region, Szarvaskút Wellness and Conference Hotel began its collaboration with Everguest in the last quarter of 2023. By this time, the four-star hotel had already completed a significant product and service development project, increasing the number of rooms from 22 to 38. The hotel’s management recognised the need to revamp their previous communication and pricing strategies in order to stay competitive in the wellness sector. This is where the Everguest team became part of the hotel’s journey.

Enhanced Online and Social Media Presence

From the outset of the collaboration, it was clear that continuous, active communication was necessary to achieve the hotel’s growth goals. However, improving the existing online infrastructure was essential for this. A new website for the hotel launched in October 2023, and alongside this, Everguest developed content and advertising plans for Google and social media. From October 2023, Everguest’s performance marketing team began managing the campaigns.

“As with any newly acquired property, our work begins with planning, calculations, and optimising the settings, but achieving good results requires continuous fine-tuning,” says Bea Balogh, Head of the Everguest PPC team. “To make the most effective use of available resources, we monitor the performance of ads, copy, and visuals, while also considering changes in revenue management pickup and booking data. This is why we adjust the advertising budget allocation on a daily basis if necessary and update content and settings when required.”

In addition to managing the ads, Everguest operates a comprehensive communication ecosystem for the hotel: handling the full management of the newsletter system and producing video and image content for TikTok. The agency is also responsible for managing the hotel’s presence on LinkedIn, with the primary aim of supporting the events side of the business.

“When creating content, it’s important that we try to cover as many social media platforms as possible, while meeting their individual specifications,” emphasises Réka Sályi, Everguest’s Marketing Director, highlighting the importance of platform-specific placement. “We pay special attention to ensuring that the content we produce can be easily edited and repurposed in multiple ways, which is highly advantageous and recommended from the perspective of different social media algorithms.”

Comprehensive Revenue Management Project

In March 2024, the communication collaboration was expanded to include full-scale revenue management services. The necessary audit for this started earlier, in November 2023, with the integration of systems and technical setup completed by early 2024.

“Following the expansion of our guest capacity and the update of our service portfolio, it became clear that we needed to work on our business strategy and technological framework. A fundamental part of this was to rethink our pricing strategy. However, aligned with our business philosophy, we wanted to break away from the traditional practices commonly used in Hungary. We had been considering implementing dynamic pricing for some time and were delighted to be able to rely on Everguest’s team in this area as well,” says Tibor Répás, Director of Hotel Szarvaskút.

“Dynamic pricing is a complex professional challenge, as it must simultaneously meet technological, business, and financial performance requirements, while also keeping up with market changes. Furthermore, a revenue manager must play an active role in planning communication activities, as the advertisements, for example, need to align with pricing strategies,” explains Csenge Fazekas, Everguest’s Revenue Manager, describing the complexity of the task.

Outstanding Growth in All Key Metrics

After completing the pricing and technological planning, Szarvaskút entrusted Everguest with the entire dynamic pricing process. Following the coordination of joint processes needed for communication, the work began in March 2024 in this area as well.

The well-thought-out planning led to rapid growth: comparing the period from March to July 2024 with the same period the previous year, Szarvaskút achieved nearly 40% growth in REVPAR (Revenue Per Available Room), with occupancy increasing by 18%. This latter result is particularly outstanding, as the hotel achieved this with 70% more available capacity compared to the previous year.

The close collaboration between the Everguest revenue and marketing teams delivered remarkable results across all key metrics. While the proportion of monthly direct bookings had already increased by an average of 35% since the start of the project in autumn 2023 due to the revamped online communication, after the revenue team joined in March 2024, this figure grew to 64%, with a 17% increase in average room rate (ADR) compared to the previous year. Additionally, in the comparison between direct and OTA bookings, the direct booking ratio exceeded 90%, positively impacting distribution costs.

“We entrusted the Everguest team with tasks that have a fundamental impact on our core business processes, so mutual trust and transparency are the foundations of our collaboration,” says Tibor Répás, Hotel Director. “Their work not only increases our efficiency but also creates the opportunity for us to focus entirely on our guests. The results we’ve achieved together have exceeded our expectations in every area, and we are excited to see what elements, possibly technological solutions, we can incorporate into our future collaboration.”

Hotel Szarvaskút welcomes guests year-round who are eager to explore the unique natural treasures of the Bakony region. Bookings: https://hotelszarvaskut.hu

If you’re interested in Everguest’s revenue and communication services, get in touch with us today: https://services.everguest.com/hu/kapcsolat/