Yugo optimizes pricing and group occupancy with Cloudbeds

Yugo spaces are not your typical accommodation. From gyms and podcast recording stations to rooftop pools and on-site restaurants, the aparthotels boast surprising onsite amenities at lower rates than most hotels. Plus, Yugo spaces are centrally located in top European traveler destinations like the UK, Ireland, and Spain

Guests staying in Yugo spaces would never guess that during most of the year, the spaces serve as student residences. But far from the traditional shared dorm rooms of college days, Yugo offers private bedrooms and bathrooms along with balconies with beautiful views, modern decor, and luxurious rest spaces like movie lounges, music rooms, and even bowling lanes! 

Every summer, Yugo spaces undergo a complete transformation into aparthotels within the span of two weeks – including entire building renovations. “We paint, we fix everything, do a complete top-down, sweep every single space, deep clean everything, replace floors, doors, sinks. You name it!” says Daniel Crehan, Yugo Summer Sales Manager. This happens across all cities where Yugo operates (with 4,000 beds located in Dublin alone!) Once the transformation is complete, the Yugo summer team relies on Cloudbeds to run their operation. 

A need to reduce human errors and support business growth 

Yugo was looking for a hospitality management platform that would be easy to use and minimize human errors. They needed a reliable system that was capable of handling a large number of bookings.

“It was very easy to make mistakes in the past with our previous system, especially when we’re operating with the scale of bookings, the number of beds that we were operating – 300 to 600 beds per space is a challenge,” Daniel explained.

Yugo also needed to find a way to update their prices in real-time in order to remain competitive in the market. They wanted a system that would be easy to use for training new staff, and one that would help them increase their direct bookings.

Fast and easy onboarding and staff training

After outgrowing their past software system, Yugo decided to try Cloudbeds Hospitality Management Platform because it’s a software solution Yugo could grow into and has features that challenged them to upgrade certain operations.  

The Yugo team’s experience with Cloudbeds proved to be a success from the start with a smooth onboarding. “We signed the contracts, and we were up and running in a week, probably less time,” relates Daniel. 

Staff training was also a breeze. As Daniel puts it.

We hire a lot of seasonal staff just for summer. We don’t have much time to train them in advance, and we need a really simple system that they’re able to hit the ground running with. So Cloudbeds was definitely a win for us because we found it’s really easy to pick up. Just check someone in, check someone out. It’s literally that easy.

Optimized pricing and group occupancy

Cloudbeds enables the Yugo team to manage and optimize their pricing and occupancy better, especially in a short and tight window of availability.

The Yugo team uses Cloudbeds Pricing Intelligence Engine (PIE) to keep their pricing competitive. Daniel shares, “We operate in such a tight window during the summer. We don’t have the same access to the same data that normal traditional hotels have because we’re not operating all year round. So things like automatic increasing and decreasing of rates, it’s really important.” He continues

With PIE being able to see really quickly what our competitors are doing over the next month is really helpful.

When it comes to optimizing group occupancy, Daniel says that features like putting reserve availability within group allotments and putting timers to automatically expire groups if they don’t accept their offer in time has “definitely helped us increase occupancy.” 

Additionally, Cloudbeds’ automation features, such as automatic charging of cards, has reduced human errors and made operations more efficient, resolving a main issue from their previous software system. “We were making a lot human error mistakes… but, you can’t do that on Cloudbeds. It saved us a lot of time and manpower,” says Daniel

Finally, Daniel appreciates the help his team has gotten from Coudbeds support “It’s nice having someone there all the time, in your time zones, in your language.”