Jul 30, 2025
Maximising Profitability in Luxury Hospitality
The luxury hospitality sector operates in a highly competitive environment, where driving both bookings and profitability is paramount. For an iconic destination like Marina Bay Sands, the challenge was not just to attract guests, but to maximise profit by targeting consumers of higher value and those who would book longer hotel stays. This case study deep dive explores how a data driven approach, leveraging custom algorithms, delivered significant and measurable results, offering invaluable lessons for any brand seeking to optimise their media investment.
The Client Challenge: Value Over Volume
Marina Bay Sands, a world renowned integrated resort, sought to move beyond simply driving room nights. Their objective was to enhance profitability by focusing on guests who would generate higher average booking values and extend their stays. Traditional media optimisation often prioritises volume (e.g., lowest cost per acquisition), which can overlook the quality of the conversion. The challenge was to shift this paradigm and embed a value based optimisation strategy.
The Strategic Solution: Custom Algorithms for Profit
To address this, the strategy focused on developing and implementing two bespoke algorithms designed to optimise media spend towards specific profit driven outcomes:
Average Booking Value (ABV) Optimisation Algorithm: This algorithm was engineered to identify and target audiences most likely to make higher value bookings. It analysed historical data related to booking size, room types, and ancillary spend, adjusting media delivery in real time to favour segments exhibiting these profitable behaviours.
Average Room Nights (ARN) Optimisation Algorithm: The second algorithm concentrated on increasing the duration of stays. By analysing patterns of longer bookings and the characteristics of guests who typically extended their visits, the algorithm directed media spend towards audiences with a higher propensity for extended stays.
This approach moved beyond standard campaign optimisation metrics, directly linking media performance to core business profitability indicators.
Implementation: Data Integration and Real Time Adjustments
The success of these algorithms relied on robust data integration and the ability to make real time adjustments.
Unified Data Sources: Data from various sources, including booking systems, website analytics, and media platforms, was consolidated and cleaned to provide a comprehensive view of customer behaviour and booking characteristics.
Algorithmic Learning: The algorithms continuously learned from new data, refining their targeting and bidding strategies to improve efficiency and effectiveness over time.
Dynamic Media Buying: The insights from the algorithms were directly fed into programmatic media buying platforms, enabling dynamic adjustments to bids, audience segments, and creative delivery based on the predicted value of each impression.
The Measurable Results: Significant Uplift in Profitability
The implementation of these custom algorithms yielded impressive, quantifiable results for Marina Bay Sands:
Algorithm 1 (ABV Optimisation):
8% increase in Average Booking Value. This directly translated to higher revenue per booking.
7% increase in overall Revenue. By focusing on higher value guests, the campaigns generated more income from the same or even more efficient media spend.
Algorithm 2 (ARN Optimisation):
13% increase in Average Nights. This extended the duration of guest stays, contributing to higher overall occupancy and revenue without necessarily increasing the number of individual bookings.
These outcomes demonstrated a clear shift from volume based media buying to a highly effective, profit driven optimisation strategy.
Key Lessons for Global Brands
This case study offers critical insights for any business looking to enhance their digital media performance:
Define Value Beyond Conversion: Do not just chase conversions. Understand what a "valuable" conversion means for your business (e.g., higher order value, longer retention, specific product sales) and optimise towards that.
Leverage Custom Algorithms: Standard platform optimisations are a starting point, but custom algorithms, particularly those powered by AI, can unlock deeper levels of efficiency and profitability tailored to your unique business goals.
Integrate Your Data: The ability to combine data from various sources (CRM, sales, web, media) is fundamental for building sophisticated optimisation models.
Focus on Real Time Optimisation: The digital landscape changes rapidly. Algorithms that can learn and adapt in real time provide a significant competitive advantage.
Partnership with Expertise: Working with consultants who possess deep analytical skills and experience in building custom solutions can accelerate your journey to advanced media optimisation.
Conclusion: The Future of Media is Intelligent and Value Driven
The success at Marina Bay Sands underscores a vital truth: the future of media optimisation is intelligent and value driven. By moving beyond basic metrics and investing in sophisticated, data powered strategies, brands can not only improve campaign performance but fundamentally enhance their profitability. This approach ensures that every marketing pound spent is working harder, delivering not just clicks, but genuine, high value business growth.
Inspired by these results? Discover how I can help your brand implement advanced media optimisation strategies.
