Ummed Hotels records 10x growth in direct bookings

Courtyard of The Ummed Jodhpur, Palace Resort & Spa

Ummed Hotels records 10x growth in direct bookings

The Luxury Hotel & Resort Chain Has Seen its Direct Bookings Hit 25% of its Total Online Bookings

Ummed Hotels is a collection of 5-star hotels & resorts with properties across various Indian states. It owns The Ummed Ahmedabad in Gujarat and The Ummed Jodhpur, Palace Resort & Spa and Ummed Haveli in Rajasthan.

Sunny Prasher, General Manager of The Ummed Ahmedabad, believes direct bookings is the most profitable channel for any hotel. “I wanted to grow our direct bookings considerably and save on distribution costs with online travel agencies (OTAs). I believe OTAs should command about 20% of total inventory being sold if a hotel wants to be profitable. Then the only other alternative was to drive bookings through the hotel’s brand website,” says Prasher.

Prasher has nearly two decades of experience working in hospitality. He is well recognised for managing hotels with large inventories. “I had heard good things about Simplotel. When I joined Ummed Hotels, I knew Simplotel would cast their magic here as well.”

With the aim of growing direct bookings exponentially, Ummed Hotels onboarded Simplotel Hotel E-commerce (Simplotel Hotel Website Builder & Simplotel Booking Engine). Within six months, the luxury hospitality chain saw its average monthly room nights (across both the properties) through the website grow 10 times from 30 to 300. “This growth has been phenomenal and has brought our distribution cost down. We were really happy though not surprised with the results considering the growth in direct bookings Simplotel has done for other hotel chains,” says Prasher.

Amit Soni, General Manager of The Ummed Jodhpur, Palace Resort and Spa, believes Simplotel’s technology has the potential to drive even more direct bookings for Ummed Hotels. “We also love the synergy with Simplotel. The team is always responsive and takes initiative to inform us on growth opportunities. The analytics are simple and insightful. Simplotel is simple. It’s phenomenal to see us hit 25% in direct out of our total online bookings across the entire chain.”

Soni advises two important criteria for people who wish to enter the hospitality industry. First, they need to educate themselves on technology and data. Second, they need to have an understanding of the target market and the customer, because the customer is ultimately the king.