How LOPE 226 Replaced Fixed Season Rates With PriceLabs

Executive Summary

Joaquin Rivera is Co-Founder and CEO of Edifikio and Hauzio, the team behind a portfolio of more than 20 boutique hotel and condo-hotel units in Mexico, including LOPE 226 in Polanco, Mexico City, and Casa Xaviera in Puerto Escondido. The projects stand out for their design and for locations in high-demand tourism and business areas.

Capturing demand peaks as they happen, and anticipating last-minute bookings, was the pricing challenge. The team moved from fixed season pricing tables and periodic PMS reviews to PriceLabs, where hotel-by-hotel pricing customizations and Market Dashboard metrics now guide rates, with higher rates in high-demand periods and last-minute discounts that protect midweek occupancy.

About LOPE 226 and Casa Xaviera

LOPE 226 in Polanco, Mexico City, and Casa Xaviera in Puerto Escondido sit within a multi-property portfolio of boutique hotels and luxury condo-hotels, with more than 20 units in total.

Demand comes from both tourism and business travel, and it moves quickly with the season, the day of the week and what is happening in the city. Every project is positioned on design and location, and rates are managed across several distribution channels.

“What makes us special is the one-of-a-kind design of our spaces and a prime location in strategic areas with high tourism and business demand.” – Joaquin Rivera

Challenges Before PriceLabs

Demand moved faster than the pricing calendar. The core challenges were:

• Capturing demand peaks as they happen: The team needed to catch peaks as the market shifted, not after the fact.
• Anticipating last-minute bookings: Booking behavior close to arrival was hard to predict, while occupancy still had to stay high.
• Fixed pricing tables by channel: Rates came from manual pricing schemes or fixed season tables by channel, with periodic checks directly in the PMS.
• A slow response to changes: Sudden shifts in local supply and demand, or events in the city, could not be reflected instantly.

“We used to depend on manual pricing schemes or fixed season tables by channel. That limited our agility to respond instantly to sudden shifts in local supply and demand, or to events in the city.” – Joaquin Rivera

PriceLabs as a Solution

The team needed pricing that follows demand and still fits the character of each hotel.

Key features that made a difference:

• Pricing Customizations, set hotel by hotel: Rules are tailored to each boutique hotel’s guest profile through Pricing Customizations, so every property is priced for the guests it actually hosts, and the team decides how each rule applies.

• Rates that follow demand: PriceLabs reads market demand for each date, including holidays, events and day-of-week patterns, through Demand Factor Sensitivity, so weekends and holidays can have more accurate rates.

• Last-minute pricing: The team applies last-minute discounts to protect midweek occupancy, a setting it controls alongside the rest of its customizations.
• Market Dashboard: The Market Dashboard metrics show how the market around each property is performing, which gives the team context for every pricing decision.

“Our favorite PriceLabs features are the custom rules and the Market Dashboard metrics, because they give us the granularity we need to adapt our strategy to the particularities of each boutique hotel, according to its guest profile.” – Joaquin Rivera

Results

Rates now follow demand across the portfolio, and the team keeps control of how each hotel is priced.

• Accurate rates when demand is high: Weekends and holidays capture stronger rates, because pricing follows demand instead of a fixed season table.
• Midweek occupancy protected: Last-minute discounts help protect occupancy on midweek nights.
• A daily response across channels: Rates respond to daily occupancy across the channels the portfolio sells on.
• Measured result: An uptick of 3% to 5% in overall revenue since implementing PriceLabs.

“The dynamic pricing algorithms capture optimal rates in high-demand periods, like weekends and holidays, and apply last-minute discounts to protect midweek occupancy.” – Joaquin Rivera

Looking Ahead

Joaquin sees three shifts shaping hotels: technology that personalizes the guest experience, sustainability as part of the brand, and predictive analytics on real-time data to improve how properties perform.

“The key trends are technology for personalizing the guest experience, with automation and digital check-in, and sustainability as a brand pillar, with initiatives in energy, self-consumption and reducing our footprint.” – Joaquin Rivera