Spier Hotel

A forward thinking hotel ready to collaborate with a progressive technology partner

The family who have owned Spier since 1993 work hands-on in keeping Spier true to its intentions: to make good wine and grow good food, investing in people, the environment and South African art.

Spier is a historic Stellenbosch wine farm. Their passion for winemaking is matched by their love of growing and making good food. Most of what you'll eat in their restaurants and hotel is homegrown, or sourced nearby.

Spier Hotel is about restfulness, with a river running through it and an inspiring collection of contemporary South African art. Nature is in charge here, and you can feel it.

The challenge

Spier may be a heritage brand with a legacy of bringing together creativity and craft, but they are also adept at leveraging digital channels to augment its guest experience, and they knew that that there were many opportunities to improve the overall commercial performance of their digital channels and the booking experience, as well as to improve key commercial metrics.

Spier Hotel started working with allora.ai, SHR Group's Al powered booking and recommender engine, in December 2021 and have seen significant performance improvements ever since, as well as upweighting and improving the way in which they use data to make better marketing and revenue optimisation decisions.

The goals

• Increase booking conversion rates from website
• Increase booked revenue
• Increase ABV

The Solution

Spier Hotel partnered up with allora.ai in December 2021 for their Al-driven booking & recommender engine, and their internal marketing and revenue teams have been leveraging the full extent of the engine's ability to drive optimization of key metrics, save time and money through automation and to use the platform's data to improve digital marketing efforts. Spier has:

• Seen immediate YOY improvements in both booked revenue, ABV and booking engine conversion rates.
• Used the data dashboards to evaluate demand by period, up to 6 months in advance, thus allowing their marketing team to optimise availability and pricing to drive improved conversion.
• Used allora.ai's wait list functionality to drive further conversion through automation.
• Used allora.ai's closed user group functionality to improve and simplify the management of 3rd party loyalty programme promotional codes, as well as reduce manual workload.
• Leveraging the data generated by the platform to drive marketing campaign effectiveness.

The Results

• Improved overall booking engine conversion rate to perform consistently above industry standard
• Since the move to Allora.ai, the overall direct room bookings have improved by 36%.