Customer Spotlight: B-aparthotels
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Key Results:
Faster, data-driven pricing decisions: Real-time insights and automated recommendations enable quick rate adjustments, keeping hotels competitive without the guesswork.
Higher occupancy during peak demand: Visibility into market trends and competitor pricing helps capture more bookings, especially during high-demand events.
Time savings on daily operations: Automating pricing and distribution reduces manual work, allowing teams to focus more on guest experience and strategy.
“Lighthouse has become essential for us. If we had to go back to manual pricing and distribution, we’d probably need three to four times the staff!”
Background
B-aparthotels is a growing apart-hotel brand that specializes in long-stay accommodations with the convenience of fully equipped apartments. Founded in Belgium, the company operates multiple properties in Brussels and The Hague, catering to both business travelers and tourists seeking a more flexible and comfortable stay.
With a mix of short-term guests and extended-stay visitors, B-aparthotels focuses on providing a home-away-from-home experience while maintaining competitive pricing in an increasingly crowded market. As the company expanded, managing reservations, pricing, and distribution across multiple properties became more complex.
To stay ahead, B-aparthotels turned to Lighthouse, leveraging Pricing Manager, Channel Manager and Reservation Manager to streamline operations, enhance revenue management, and improve efficiency.
Time-consuming competitive pricing practices
Challenge
Before adopting Lighthouse, B-aparthotels struggled with a lack of visibility into competitor pricing trends. Pricing adjustments required a manual, time-intensive process, including checking multiple OTA websites, tracking fluctuations on spreadsheets, and even making test bookings to verify rates.
This approach made it difficult to react quickly to market changes, leading to missed opportunities to optimize revenue. By the time they identified a pricing gap, competitors had already adjusted their rates, putting them at a disadvantage.
Solution
Pricing Manager provided B-aparthotels with a centralized, real-time view of competitor pricing. Instead of spending hours gathering data, the team can now instantly access market trends and competitor rates, allowing them to make informed pricing decisions in minutes. Lighthouse’s automated recommendations suggest when to raise or lower rates, ensuring B-aparthotels stays competitive without the guesswork.
Results
Pricing adjustments are now a lot faster, allowing the team to react quickly to market changes and maintain a competitive edge. Revenue optimization has improved, reducing the risk of underpricing or overpricing rooms.
“Before it wasn’t so easy for us to always be up to date. So in terms of competitors we had to do a lot of investigating, go into their websites or go into the OTAs, look into the prices... Now I don’t have to keep opening tabs or pretend to make a new reservation so I can see prices. It’s much quicker.”
Updating rates across OTAs was a hassle
Challenge
With properties listed across multiple OTAs like Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb, ensuring accurate and consistent pricing was a major challenge. Each platform required separate logins and manual updates, increasing the risk of errors such as double bookings, incorrect pricing, or outdated availability.
Without a centralized system, the team spent valuable hours each day updating rates, making it harder to focus on guest experience and strategic growth.
Solution
Lighthouse’s Channel Manager eliminated the need for manual updates. Now, with just a few clicks, B-aparthotels can sync prices and availability across all OTAs simultaneously.
The system also allows them to set rules, such as ensuring direct website rates are always lower than OTAs, which helps drive more direct bookings and increase profitability.
Results
Automated bulk updates have saved hours per week, minimizing pricing errors and ensuring rate consistency across platforms. Their website now consistently offers the best rates, leading to more direct bookings.
“The bulk update feature is a game-changer. We no longer have to update each OTA individually because it’s all automated, saving us valuable time.”
Limited visibility into future demand and events
Challenge
B-aparthotels operates in high-demand urban locations where seasonal trends, local events, and conventions significantly impact booking patterns. However, without reliable forward-looking data, they were often reactive rather than proactive in adjusting pricing.
This meant that they either set prices too low, leaving money on the table, or priced too high, missing out on potential bookings. During major events in The Hague, for example, they struggled to anticipate demand spikes, leading to last-minute scrambles to adjust pricing.
Solution
Lighthouse’s Pricing Manager helped B-aparthotels monitor pricing trends in advance, allowing them to adjust rates before demand spikes rather than after.
With real-time data on competitor strategies, booking pace, and local demand indicators, they can now optimize pricing for peak periods and capture more bookings at the best possible rates. Recently, this helped them capitalize on a major convention in The Hague, securing more last-minute reservations at premium rates.
Results
By leveraging forward-looking data, B-aparthotels has increased occupancy during peak demand periods and captured more last-minute reservations at premium rates by adjusting prices in advance.
“We tend to check what the competitors are doing for those dates in Lighthouse. Just now actually, a convention here just finished, and we did have a lot of last-minute reservations which was after adjusting the prices and doing some promotions in some of the OTAs. Lighthouse helps us stay on the top of our game basically.”
Less time for guests because of manual operations
Challenge
Before Lighthouse, the team spent significant time on administrative tasks, including checking reservations, manually adjusting pricing, and updating availability across platforms.
This left less time to focus on guest interactions, on-site operations, and overall business strategy. The hotel team found themselves caught in a constant cycle of monitoring rates and OTAs, rather than improving the guest experience or strategizing for long-term growth.
Solution
By automating key tasks like pricing updates, OTA synchronization, and competitor tracking, Lighthouse has freed up valuable time for the B-aparthotels team. Additionally, the mobile-friendly Reservation Manager allows them to check reservations and housekeeping lists on the go, ensuring they never miss a new reservation and can make sure the team is aligned, even outside the office.
Results
With automation reducing manual tasks, staff now spend more time engaging with guests, enhancing service quality and personalization, leading to higher guest satisfaction.
“It allows us to have more time to deal with other things outside of the office and computer environment. So it buys us time in the long run to enhance the guest experience.”
Final thoughts
Since implementing Lighthouse, B-aparthotels has significantly improved its efficiency and revenue performance. Pricing adjustments are now a lot faster, allowing them to react quickly to market changes. Automated OTA updates have saved hours per week, reducing errors and increasing direct bookings. By leveraging forward-looking data, they have boosted occupancy during peak demand periods and secured more last-minute reservations at higher rates. Most importantly, automation has freed up the team’s time, enabling them to focus more on guest experience and strategic growth.