Set on 3.5 acres of lakeside woodland in Wiltshire, Willowbank Lodges offers five traditional Scandinavian log cabins designed for a truly rural retreat. But what really sets them apart? Their genuine dog-friendly approach.
“We make no pet charge, and our guests bringing a couple of dogs is no problem at all. We’ve got a pet dog exercise area on site… and that’s brought us a lot of really loyal customers.” – Nigel, Willowbank Lodges
Nigel and his team aren’t new to the world of hospitality. Their wider business manages UK boating holidays and waterside rentals, giving them deep experience with booking systems. They knew what they needed out of a PMS. That experience made it all the more frustrating when their first choice of system didn’t deliver.
At launch in 2024, Willowbank Lodges signed up to a different booking system, swayed by promises of flawless channel management and Google integrations.
Unfortunately, those promises never materialised.
“There was absolutely no integration with Google at all. They’d applied for it, but 18 months later, nothing had gone through. That was having a severe impact on our business.”
Instead of true channel management, the system relied on basic iCal links. The main issue came with Airbnb, where only iCal integration was available and no price sync was supported, making it difficult to manage effectively.
“It’s still on their website as being available…but it’s not. Despite just having renewed for 12 months, the impact was too great. So, we terminated our contract.”
Willowbank Lodges were familiar with freetobook, but when the team came across the system’s new bloom booking pages, everything changed.
“We very much like the new bloom product from freetobook. We thought it was very attractive from a purely aesthetic point of view, and it had a good flow on it as well from the customer’s booking journey.”
Beyond the look and feel, freetobook offered the functionality their previous system had promised but never delivered:
“Freetobook has exceeded our expectations on the channel management side. The Messaging feature is superb, especially for Airbnb, it takes away a huge amount of hassle.”
Moving from one system to another can feel daunting, but Willowbank Lodges found the transition refreshingly simple.
“We dealt with Heather, who helped us get set up through a series of Teams meetings, which was brilliant. That underlined to us that the product was good and the support was good.”
Even ongoing support impressed:
“One Sunday evening, I pinged a helpdesk message, expecting a reply the next day. Within 30 minutes, I had a response. I was really impressed.”
“Before, we had a fairly empty September. Now we’re just about fully booked, and that’s pretty much all direct bookings. Our direct bookings are probably in excess of 95%.”
Today, over 95% of Willowbank Lodge’s bookings come direct, a huge leap forward from where they were.
The surge in bookings was down to a combination of factors:
With Google Hotel Ads and Google Zero (Google Free Booking Links) in place, Willowbank gained a much stronger profile:
“It gives us a much higher profile. Customers can instantly see where our direct price sits against other channels. Clicking takes them straight to availability, it’s brilliant.”
“We literally have a full series of uplifts on there…it’s covering our additional charges and producing supplementary bookings. We’ve just qualified for Airbnb Superhost through improving our performance.”
“Most customers have booked and paid quite happily online. They’re clearly finding it easy to use; in the past, we had many more phone calls asking for help.”
“Reputation Suite is extremely good. I hadn’t appreciated how powerful it was until we started using it, but it’s incredibly clever. It lets us respond properly to guests who’ve had an issue, while at the same time get good reviews from those who are happy with their stay. It’s been terrific, and we’re already seeing excellent results from it.”
Willowbank Lodges isn’t just stopping at better bookings. The team continues to invest in guest experience and sustainability, adding EV chargers, solar panels, and smart energy systems.
“That has probably cut our energy costs by about 30% and reduced our carbon footprint significantly. Our customers like that we’re pushing sustainability as well.”
“I would have no hesitation in recommending freetobook…as far as I’m concerned, it’s the best in class. Particularly if you’re using different channels like Airbnb and Booking.com, it makes pricing and availability so much easier to manage.”
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