ADAPT APARTMENTS has been operating since 2012 and started in Berlin Adlershof. At that time it was one of the very first serviced apartments in Germany. The focus of ADAPT Apartments is service, but also sustainability and respect in dealing with people and resources is an essential part of the company’s philosophy.
The owner-managed ADAPT Apartments convince with a mix of hospitality, spacious apartments and selected services, thus combining the best of the two worlds of hotel and living.
An Interview with Ralf Krause the Co-Founder and CEO at Adapt Apartments
Please introduce yourself briefly and tell us what makes your hotel or hosting role special.
My name is Ralf Krause, I am a youngtimer, married and have three children. Co-founder and CEO of the ADAPT Group. We currently operate in four destinations with just over 400 apartments and have three more locations with 220 apartments in the pipeline. From short to long stay – we can do it all. The guest decides. This is also our company philosophy – everything we have done so far and everything we still want to do, we have presented to potential guests and our regular guests to decide and vote. From location to service to equipment and design – our customers and guests have a say in everything. This also applies to the topic of sustainability, which is very important to us.
Did you or how did you do revenue management before you switched to happyhotel?
Nope, everything by hand. Manual, complicated and extremely time-consuming and personnel-intensive. Always and everywhere with an eye on booking and Co.
What were the decision criteria for happyhotel?
We met you – or rather Rafael – last year at SO!Apart – maybe you still remember us? The auction during the evening event with the most expensive sheep in history? 🙂 The decision was really easy for us. We looked at several systems, but no other signaled us this high level of added value compared to happyhotel. After a short test phase and being accompanied by a super pleasant support (Yves is the hammer, super nice, extremely competent and always solution-oriented). Onboarding has never been so easy.
How does happyhotel make your everyday life easier?
In the meantime, we have loosened the reins quite a bit and allow the algorithms the necessary freedom to learn and make decisions. Of course, we are still checking the effects of digital pricing on a daily basis at the moment, but we are noticing that happyhotel is becoming more precise every day. In the long run, this saves us a lot of hours in the team every week. Then there are the analyses, predefined and self-configured, which contribute to decision-making and control. If you can now export the data via Excel or CSV, we’ll be almost happy.
Which features of happyhotel do you not want to miss anymore?
The pickup is ingenious, everything at a glance, which I had to laboriously gather before, then the competitive comparison – you can see at any time where you are and where the others are. The forecast will be exciting, currently we still note down the numbers once a week to compare them retroactively with the real numbers, but the hit rate seems to be quite accurate and with more time the algorithm will learn even more. With excitement we follow the BETA version of the analysis 2.0, let’s see what is still possible here.
What does the dynamic pricing process look like NOW for you guys?
In the meantime, the prices are mostly geyielded by happyhotel. ADR and RevPAR are developing positively in significant steps. Only in the longstay we still set the rates manually, because we have committed ourselves to our longtime regular guests to price stability and will continue to do so.
How has your average workday changed since integrating happyhotel?
Take a relaxed look at happyhotel in the morning and don’t think about it for the rest of the day. I save a lot of time in controlling and have more time for important things – my team and my guests.
What is the best thing about happyhotel? Which feature do you feel saves you the most time?
The elimination of manual yielding. Significantly more reliable figures for my business calculation in the forecast for capacity utilization and ADR. We book everything on a daily basis, which means that we are able to balance our accounts almost daily and regularly scrutinize our forecast calculations.
Have you already made recognizable additional sales and if so, by what percentage have you been able to increase your sales through happyhotel? (Estimate)
It is still too early to make a final statement here, in order to consider the impact of happyhotel comprehensively separated from the extremely positive market situation. What we can say is that ADR increased by just under 8% and RevPAR by over 15%.
What are your personal tips for future happyhotel users?
Just do it – you will not regret it. You can try it out for free and only then decide.
Digitization in the hotel industry – what should a hotelier start with?
Well with digitization 😉 – away from paper, away from manual workflows. Digital guest folder – best via your own homepage and a QR code in the most important places. CheckIN/CheckOUT. Payment. Registration form. Educate your subcontractors to only submit invoices online so you don’t have to store dozens of binders for the registry every year. Of course, we need to motivate our team and our guests and take them along for the ride.
What do you wish for the future of happyhotel?
More freedom in creating your own evaluations and corresponding export options in other formats besides PDF. There are still so many possibilities to further process or evaluate the data from happyhotel, for example with UMNION or make.com.
Name three things you would give to other hoteliers.
Clearly define the company and the brand and clearly position one’s own product. Create and live a credible and sustainable corporate mission statement.
Ralf Krause
Co-Founder & CEO of ADAPT APARTMENTS
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✓ Up to 25% increase in sales
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✓ Fully automated room rate optimization
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