How the Sunlight Group found freedom — and a 329% increase in direct Bookings

Spread out across the crystal-clear waters and white sandy beaches of the islands of Palawan, Philippines, the Sunlight group’s three stunning properties offer its guests the perfect blend of relaxation and adventure.

The flagship, Sunlight Eco Tourism Island Resort, boasts Maldives-inspired villas with full sunrise or sunset views over the rich waters of Culion Island, providing guests with an immersive experience of the area’s natural beauty and marine biodiversity—complemented by world-class dining and renowned local hospitality.

As Radine Brito, General Manager, puts it, “it’s a place where freedom begins.” She continues, “A place where you can have the freedom to explore, to relax, to reconnect with yourself and your loved ones.”

The team’s internal processes had many opportunities for improvement, especially in finance, sales, reservations, and the front desk. Everything was done manually—confirmation emails, payment collection, and daily tracking of room inventory across channels. Radine sought a solution to streamline operations and boost efficiency.

Then I found Cloudbeds, and within a single dashboard, my team was able to automate these tasks and manage the channels, promos, rates, and packages.

Despite initial concerns about data migration and system compatibility, Cloudbeds provided a seamless onboarding experience with responsive support and expert training. As Radine puts it, “Migrating to a new software can be really intimidating and there are lots of areas to consider like the integrity of the data migration, the training, the user adoption, and the compatibility with some of our existing systems.” 

She continues, “But Cloudbeds made it easy with excellent support, training, and quarterly business performance reports that helped our managers make better decisions.”

Cloudbeds is used by most of the team, from back-office staff to operations and housekeeping, and has significantly improved communication between the properties and the head office—ensuring a smoother reservation process across all locations. With three properties (and counting) managed centrally in Manila, communication gaps have been reduced, giving the team more time to focus on responding to inquiries and enhancing guest experiences.

Cloudbeds rate plans and package functions have proven incredibly useful. Before, the team had to manually sell the property’s promotions through calls or messaging on social media. And adding a step to the overall booking process hindered sales. Now, as Radine puts it, “my rates team and marketing department can come up with a promotion today, configure the rates all in the dashboard of Cloudbeds, and have it live and sold to guests by tomorrow.”

The live chat feature also allows the team to engage with guests directly, making communication faster and more efficient. Radine points out that this functionality helps them ensure quick responses and support. “I can redirect my team to reach out to them instead of managing that internally.”

Most impressively, the team achieved a 329% increase in direct bookings in just three months. While several Cloudbeds features contributed to this success, Radine credits the Cloudbeds Digital Marketing,—a hospitality-focused, one-stop shop that helps properties maximize their online presence and drive more reservations—as a key factor. “There’s a direct correlation between the use of Cloudbeds Digital Marketing and our increase in direct bookings because the visibility on Google now, next to all the OTAs, is there.”

When it comes to maintaining competitive pricing, Cloudbeds’ pricing and revenue management features have proven instrumental. By leveraging competitor rate tracking and price adjustment recommendations, the team can ensure their prices stay dynamic and responsive to real-time market data. This has empowered management to make informed pricing decisions, boosting revenue while staying competitive.

To further automate previously time-consuming processes and offer additional services to guests, the team makes use of Poster, a POS system, and Gift Up, a Gift Voucher software. Both integrate seamlessly with Cloudbeds.

What stands out most to the Sunlight Group team is access to real-time information, enabling quicker, more informed decisions that drive business growth and operational improvements.

“The biggest value is the access to real-time data which helps us on a day-to-day basis with decision making – giving us more confidence in the decisions that we make because these are backed by numbers.” Radine continues,

It’s definitely affected our company’s bottom line. Everyone is more in-sync now with the numbers. We all have a central point of reference. We know that we’re more aligned when it comes to decision making. The numbers from Cloudbeds are numbers we can all rely on.

Asked whether she would recommend Cloudbeds, Radine responds:

“Yes, for sure. Being a property owner myself and having been there from the demo to the onboarding, configurations, and training, I highly recommend Cloudbeds to other property owners, mainly because it’s so user friendly, the support is so responsive. They’re constantly innovating as well, so everytime we have new needs and new challenges, Cloudbeds is always there to find workarounds for us.”

If we need new functions or systems or tools, we know that they can support us in that area, so It’s very flexible, very agile, and quick – and I think that’s the beauty of Cloudbeds.