How Stille Vacations Increased Revenue Using Market-Driven Pricing With PriceLabs

Executive Summary

Anu Drolia spent 26 years in corporate roles at Fortune 500 companies in the United States. After a hard stretch at work and time with a life coach, he finally acted on a long-held interest in real estate. That was 2022.

Today he and his wife run Stille Vacations, which covers five lakefront units on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Four of them are resort condos. Anu still works his corporate job, so pricing has to keep pace with the market on days when he cannot.

He prices all five units with PriceLabs, connected through Hostaway. He checks in every week or two, adopts the base price recommendation, and decides for himself which customizations suit a resort-style property.

About Stille Vacations

Before buying anything, Anu and his wife settled on a name and a rule. “Stille,” taken from a Scandinavian word for peace and quiet, set the standard: every property had to sit by water or in the mountains, away from the middle of a big city, in a place they would choose to vacation themselves.

They began on Lake Superior’s North Shore. All five units are on the lake. One is a townhouse in Lutsen. The other four are resort condos, and Anu owns the entire fourth floor. Guests get an indoor pool, indoor and outdoor hot tubs, a sauna, and the lake right outside.

“If it’s a lakefront property, it falls within that serenity, that peace, that calm that I am trying to sell to the guest.” – Anu Drolia, Founder, Still Vacations

Challenges Before PriceLabs

Anu came to the business without a hospitality background. The core challenges were:

Learning the business, then taking control: In 2022 he started on a full-service platform that ran the operation and took a share of every booking. It gave him room to learn what a property management system does. Once he felt ready, he moved to his own stack around 2024, with a new property management system and PriceLabs.

Pricing a resort among homes: Pricing was the harder part. The four resort condos sit near single-family homes that have no resort amenities, so an average built from those homes would undersell his units.

Watching the market with a full-time job: With a full-time job, he could not watch rates day by day.

“Outside of this resort, there are other properties, but those are more like single-family homes. They don’t have resort amenities. So I did not want to get a pricing based on other units.” – Anu Drolia

PriceLabs as a Solution

Anu researched his options before he bought, and all of his research pointed to PriceLabs for pricing.

Key features that made a difference:

• A base price built on real peers: For the four resort condos, Anu drew a boundary on the market map around the resort units, so PriceLabs compares him with resort-style peers and not the single-family homes nearby. For the Lutsen townhouse, which sits outside the resort, he lets PriceLabs recommend a base price from the market around it.

• Customizations that fit a premium property: Anu uses last-minute pricing and orphan day settings to fit his calendar. His base price already reflects his performance and the market, and a second premium on top could push rates past what guests see as fair value.
• Daily tracking while he works full time: No one can follow a market every day while holding a full-time job. PriceLabs tracks it for him and adjusts last-minute pricing and his other customizations as conditions change.
• A price he can explain: When Anu hovers over a price, the pricing tooltip walks through how it was built, from the base price through each premium and discount.

“When I click or hover over the price, it shows me exactly how it got to the price. I love that because that allows me to understand the market better.” – Anu Drolia

• He also uses Neighborhood Data to see where his units sit against the market on price percentile and on occupancy, so he stays in a competitive range and avoids pricing too high or too low.
• Listing Optimizer: Anu uses Listing Optimizer to review how his units are presented online, then makes the changes it points to.

“I love the Listing Optimizer because it gives me a good perspective on what I need to do. And I did make changes according to that.” – Anu Drolia

Results

Pricing now runs alongside a full-time job, and Anu stays in charge of the decisions that matter.

• Revenue and RevPAR: Revenue grew 65.5% YoY in 2025 while occupancy remained stable, driving clear RevPAR growth.
• Rates he can explain: The pricing tooltip shows how each rate was built, which helps him read the market and trust what he publishes.
• Pricing in line with guest value: With PriceLabs, Anu keeps rates competitive, neither too high nor too low, so guests feel the stay is worth what they pay.
• Clear direction on what to improve: Listing Optimizer grades how his units are presented online and gives him a clear list of what to improve.

“I’m looking at a long-term play. And the only way you can be long-term successful is when guests have a perception that this host is providing me good value and not just I feel like I’m paying way too much.” – Anu Drolia

Looking Ahead

Anu sees strong demand and limited supply on the North Shore, and he does not expect new resorts to outpace demand in the next five to ten years. He owns five units today and plans to add five more over the next five years.

“The fact that PriceLabs is tracking data points on a daily basis, making the appropriate adjustments for last-minute pricing and all the customizations that are available, I love that.” – Anu Drolia

Advice for Other Operators

Anu’s own approach works as a starting playbook for new operators.

• Research before you buy: Anu built a spreadsheet of the features that mattered most, including live phone support, and judged each tool against it.
• Learn with support, then take control: Anu started on a full-service platform in 2022 and moved to his own channels once he was ready.
• Review on a regular rhythm: Anu checks his base price recommendation every week or two, because the market and his property’s performance both move.
• Compare against true peers: Anu drew his boundary around resort-style units, since the single-family homes nearby do not offer the same amenities.