A luxury country house hotel is bucking the challenging hotel market conditions as it reveals substantial year on year growth.
Horwood House in Buckinghamshire is heading into its fifth year under the ownership of Karim Kassam, who purchased the property in late 2019.
It’s been a challenging few years for the hospitality sector, but independent Horwood House has remained a consistent success story.
Now Kassam has shared new data following the implementation of a new digital booking strategy showing an increase in excess of 100 percent in revenue and a doubling in online bookings – data which goes against market trends showing a downturn in revenue.
Kassam said: “In April 2023 we launched a new website, which has resulted in fantastic business growth. In the 12 months to March 2024 we have seen an increase in bookings of 62 percent, booked room nights up by 76 percent and we have more than doubled our booked revenue, factoring in an increase in average room rate during this time as well.
“We have also seen mobile bookings go up 48 percent of total online bookings and towards the end of last year we also launched a new voucher platform which saw £11k of revenue generated in December alone.”
The positive upturn comes as the result of a new partnership with leading hotel technology provider and booking specialist Net Affinity.
As an independent hotel, Horwood House identified a real need to focus on the digital and mobile booking side of their business and elected to work with a business that wouldn’t see them as just another hotel and one that had genuine experience in the hospitality industry.
“Being an independent hotel, digital and mobile is key for us as we don’t have an international brand machine behind us,” added Kassam, who has owned and operated hotels under internationally recognised brands such as IHG, Hilton and Accor, since 1997.
“We could have opted to become a branded hotel, but I firmly believe the fees we would have spent on franchise and royalties have been far better spent with more return on the investment we have made into the Net Affinity affiliation.”
Next up for Horwood House is an increased focus on the corporate market using the Net Affinity corporate booking platform to ease in house pressure and continued development of exciting new offerings for guests.
“We will continue to reinvest the money saved from OTA commissions both for rooms and the spa into this avenue of marketing as well, as direct bookings continue to grow,” added Kassam.
For more information about Horwood House, its restaurant Harry’s Bar & Kitchen or H Spa, visit horwoodhouse.co.uk. For more information on Net Affinity, please visit netaffinity.com and for further examples of how its technology has impacted hotels, visit netaffinity.com/casestudies.
