Four-Star Boutique Florence Hotel Grows Revenue 16% Following Renovation

The Story

With an established reputation as one of the most culturally significant cities in Europe, Florence welcomes over 16 million visitors each year and the Grand Hotel Minerva’s location in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella is ideal for exploring the history of the famous capital.

As the Grand Hotel Minerva has a rooftop swimming pool, this unique selling proposition further strengthens the appeal of the property in July and August.

In 2016, the hotel underwent a significant renovation, with 75 percent of the rooms and several of the facilities being refurbished with more refurbishment underway in 2017. Additionally, less than 50 percent of the rooms in the hotel are standard room types, with four other room types available.

Achieving more with a trusted partner

The Grand Hotel Minerva’s renovation project provided a perfect opportunity to transition from IDeaS RMS to IDeaS G3 RMS, the most powerful and scientifically advanced revenue management system on the market. Stefano Fusaro, an experienced revenue manager, knew his hotel would need more than historical data to provide accurate forecasts for the new rooms and wanted technology that could handle different room types

“Having worked with IDeaS Revenue Solutions for over six years, we knew that their latest product, IDeaS G3 RMS, would suit our needs,” explains Fusaro.

With a well-established revenue management culture and the discipline of revenue management fully recognised as a business-critical function across the company, Grand Hotel Minerva relies on accurate guest information, predictive analytics and strong integration between customer intelligence and revenue optimisation systems to help inform their strategy.

The team also wanted to look beyond the hotel occupancy numbers to focus on both RevPAR and ADR and incorporate two crucial factors specific to their hotel: seasonality and a variation in room types.

IDeaS G3 RMS offered the type of sophisticated functionality the Grand Hotel Minerva team were seeking and combined with the skills of the hotel revenue management team, has helped to achieve 16 percent growth over the year prior, bringing the hotel eight percent over budget.

We have sold rates that I would have never published if I hadn’t been working with IDeaS. In August, for example, we had revenues up 16 percent versus last year and 8 percent over budget.