HOTEL LAHAINA

Allyson Mattox, co-owner of Hotel Lahaina, acquired the historic property in early 2021, which had previously been run as a small inn. She wanted to maintain the beautiful historical elements within the property while elevating the decor and amenities to provide an experience that matched the beauty of the adjoining restaurant.

As part of this business venture, Allyson enrolled in the Cornell University Hospitality Management Program to further her knowledge of the hospitality industry. During the program, she came across Cloudbeds while exploring hospitality management platforms for Hotel Lahaina. What she liked most about Cloudbeds was the user-friendly nature of the platform.

“Our staff is able to access important information at a single glance and can easily run more advanced reports when needed,” says Allyson Mattox, Co-Owner.

Since Hotel Lahaina is a boutique hotel, its staff don’t often overlap throughout their shifts, making it essential to have a system where they can effectively communicate and refer back to notes left by their colleagues. With Cloudbeds, Allyson’s team relies on the notes feature to communicate. She said that “our front desk management team works on a 7-day cycle with varying schedules. With Cloudbeds, I can access everything that I need to when I jump online, and we don’t rely on sticky notes.”

Building a clean website that would drive direct bookings was an important priority for Allyson when unveiling Hotel Lahaina. She initially looked for web developers to help with this project but was met with astronomical quotes. She turned to Cloudbeds Websites, which provided a “simple yet clean and easy-to-use website.”

Being in the Hawaii time zone, Hotel Lahaina needed a 24-hour reservation system that they could rely on and therefore leaned heavily on Cloudbeds websites and booking engine to drive bookings. Allyson advises other hotels “to stick with the Cloudbeds partnership for their website creation.”

Since opening, Hotel Lahaina has seen just over 60% direct bookings, something Allyson didn’t think was possible in the Maui market. The combination of a user-friendly website with integrations into Google Hotel Search has given visibility to Hotel Lahaina even as they compete in the same market with bigger brands like Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, and Montage.

Hotel Lahaina is also active on multiple online travel agencies (OTAs), managed through Cloudbeds Channel Manager. Allyson loves that they can easily change prices and have those pushed out to the OTAs and her own website immediately. Allyson says that Cloudbeds’ calendar and its ability to adjust pricing across marketing channels have had a big impact.

“Due to Cloudbeds’ easy-to-use calendar and channel manager, we’ve been able to increase our ADR by 10-15% above our initial budgeted projections.”

Maui is a challenging market to price due to the high demand and competition across the island. Hotel Lahaina is mindful of the price gouging that occurs and prioritizes providing “affordable luxury” to guests, no matter what season. Travelers who visit Hotel Lahaina can expect all of the amenities you’d see at a luxury hotel, like luxurious spa robes, 24-hour Nespresso machine, Malin+Goetz bath amenities, and more, without the hefty price tag. Allyson is keenly aware that she wants to deliver value to her guest and she sees the result of these amenities in her guest reviews.

Hotel Lahaina leverages Cloudbeds’ marketplace to further automate operations and provide a personalized guest experience. The Akia-Cloudbeds integration helps the staff automate communication and create a better check-in experience as well as personalized two-way texting throughout the stay.

Hotel Lahaina currently uses Cloudbeds Payments as part of their contactless payment process. They collect 100% of payments at the point of booking to streamline the payment process. Allyson notes “I like Cloudbeds Payments and how it easily works and integrates with the rest of the platform.”

Moving forward, Hotel Lahaina looks to continue to optimize its direct booking channels and invest in further digital marketing efforts to attract travelers to its website and reduce commissions paid to OTAs and other third-party websites.