Sarovar sees 500% growth in revenue from direct bookings

Fairway Colombo hits 10% in direct bookings with Simplotel Booking Engine

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Learn how Simplotel's Booking Engine helped Fairway Colombo to surpass LKR. 1 million in monthly direct-booking revenue.

Most of us do not take the road less traveled. But then you have Sarovar Hotels and Resorts who did, and they became trailblazers in the Indian hospitality industry.

Sarovar operates 96 hotels across 55 destinations worldwide. One of the leading hotel chains in India, Sarovar was founded by Anil Madhok (Executive Chairman) and Ajay Bakaya (Managing Director) nearly a quarter of a century ago. Sarovar Hotels was the first mover in India to adopt the asset-light model, where it manages and services other hotel properties through strategic alliances with other chains.

Sarovar started operations when it took franchises of Park Plaza and Park Inn brands for India. A decade later (circa 2005), Sarovar began promoting its own brands: Portico, Hometel and Premiere. Fast-forward to another decade and the Louvre Hotels Group, one of Europe’s leading hospitality brands, purchased a stake in Sarovar in 2017. Another milestone in this impressive growth story.

Fairway Colombo is a smart-luxury hotel situated in the capital of Sri Lanka. Located just opposite the World Trade Center and the popular Dutch Hospital Shopping Precinct in Colombo, the hotel is a paradigm of impressive designs, modern amenities and sophisticated technology.

Shatabdi Dutta, General Manager (Marketing) at Sarovar, believes that Simplotel’s USP is its digital marketing service. “Simplotel helped us rank in terms of traffic generation across online channels and drive conversions. We received great technical support from the team, which we lacked earlier. The website design is great and user friendly. We have received positive feedback from guests that the booking journey does not take much time, is hassle free, and most importantly, the mobile site is responsive!”

Fairway Colombo is a subsidiary of Fairway Holdings (FWH) — a conglomerate with businesses in real estate, financial services, waste management, aviation, interior designing and biotechnology. Founded by FWH Chairman Hemaka de Alwis, Fairway Colombo began operations in 2016.

Avinga Wanigasekara, Head of Sales & Marketing at Fairway Colombo, believes that de Alwis is a maverick. “He is a man of many hats with a career spanning across law, politics and real estate, to name a few. FWH began its leisure subsidiary with Fairway Colombo. After witnessing phenomenal success with the hotel, we expanded to Fairway Sunset Serviced Apartments (Galle), Lakeside Cottages (Nuwara Eliya) and a caravan park at Gregory Lake. We’ll soon start a property at Bambarakanda Falls, which is aimed to attract nature enthusiasts.”

The Deluxe Family Room at Fairway Colombo

The 181-key property onboarded the Simplotel Booking Engine. There were hiccups initially. However, within three months, Fairway Colombo was able to cross Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR.) 1 million in direct-booking revenue. “We would receive only about 13 direct bookings (LKR. 200,000 in revenue) each month. After onboarding the Simplotel Booking Engine, we have consistently crossed 120 direct bookings for the past few months. We did our highest direct-booking revenue in May at LKR. 1,400,000,” says Wanigasekara.

“We’re sceptical about onboarding Simplotel since we wanted a local provider. However, the previous local vendor was not flexible with their policies and the interface was not user-friendly. We were not treated as partners. After working with Simplotel, we learned the support was superb. Even our local suppliers don’t respond so quickly. Additionally, the simplicity of the booking engine with the three-step booking process, remarketing feature, white-labelling of the URL and integration with WhatsApp have helped us hit outstanding numbers. Even the company board didn’t believe that we could cross LKR. 1 million in direct booking revenue every month. Witnessing this success with Simplotel, FWH decided to also onboard Fairway Sunset Serviced Apartments and Lakeside Cottages to the Simplotel Booking Engine,” adds Wanigasekara.

Within a year of onboarding Simplotel, Sarovar had hit over 3x growth in revenue from direct bookings. In another year, this growth doubled to 6x since it went live with Simplotel. “We were able to use Simplotel’s technology to begin promotions and campaigns that gave us a major boost”, says Khan. The average monthly organic traffic also nearly doubled for The Louvre Hotels-backed hospitality chain. However, this was only possible as Sarovar had managed to put their vision into action and achieve the almost impossible in such a short span of time.

On personal learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic, both Khan and Dutta agree that they have learned to live life more passionately and prioritize family. On the professional front, they have learned to think out of the box to jumpstart Sarovar’s operations and forge deeper connections with their partners.

The Superior Queen Room at Fairway Colombo

Prior to onboarding Simplotel, Fairway Colombo would do only about 1% of their total occupancy in direct bookings. With the Simplotel Booking Engine, their direct bookings have now jumped to 10% of total occupancy.

“Simplotel’s scorecards have also helped us to gauge advanced search and length-of-stay patterns. This has helped us to identify our room for improvement. We created offers and then with Simplotel’s remarketing feature and WhatsApp integration, we were able to nurture and convert our website visitors into customers,” says Wanigasekara.

Wanigasekara concludes, “The guest is the most important element in hospitality. Therefore, you need to have people skills and be a team player in order to succeed.”