Our customer Riva Rooms & Studios is an automated smart hotel in Locarno. With the help of Aivie, they are now also able to attract guests in a timely manner. By successfully setting up an automated newsletter campaign, bookings of several thousand francs have already been achieved by existing guests. This is despite 2024 being a very difficult year for Ticino. Aivie also proved its worth when the storms led to a large number of cancellations and prevented the worst from happening.
The Riva Rooms and Studio Hotel Case in figures
Thanks to a well thought-out strategy and the use of marketing automation with Aivie, Riva Rooms and Studios has managed to build a fully automated sales funnel that automatically encourages existing guests to book again.
| Industry | Hotel industry |
| Focus | B2C (Switzerland and neighboring countries) |
| Company size | 2 Holder |
| Solution | Aivie Pro |
| Services | Growth Marketing Services |
| E-Mail Performance | Open rate: 48 % to 53 % Click rate: 2 % to 17 % Unsubscribes: 1 % to 4 % |
| Additional sales achieved | Several thousand francs (still growing) |
Content
What has been a sense of achievement with Aivie?
More and more guests are now coming back, and through the e-mail campaign we are actively encouraging guests to come back for the first time and they are increasingly taking advantage of this opportunity.
We have already recorded 8 new bookings from returning guests at the start of the season and our target is 20 by the end of the year. I think we are doing quite well so far.
What does the Hotel Riva Rooms and Studios do?
We are an automated, 24/7 smart hotel located in Minusio. It is situated directly on Lake Maggiore and only a 5-minute drive from the beautiful city of Locarno.
Our hotel has been around since 1975 and was completely renovated in 2021. We offer a modern and elegant experience at an affordable price. A small but fine selection of different room types leaves nothing to be desired and offers space for up to 6 people.
The online check-in/out system and the hotel’s own rental car ensure contemporary comfort. The rooms meet a high quality standard and are very affordable compared to the competition.
Many of our guests decide spontaneously to visit us in Ticino depending on the weather. Among other things, our wide range of rooms also encourages them to book. We offer rooms for individuals and couples as well as connecting rooms for families.
What did you want to change?
Adrian Schimpf, the CEO of Aivie, spent a month at our hotel last summer and was fascinated by what we offer. He also frequently talked with us about potential ways to use marketing automation effectively.
Initially, we were a bit critical of the whole thing. The main factors for our doubts were:
- How much time will it take?
- How long will it take before we know how to use the tool decisively?
- And will it actually achieve the desired effect?
We were aware that it could also provide huge added value. So, after a very informative conversation with Adrian, we agreed to choose Aivie’s full-service solution. It was a match.
With the “done for you” service by Aivie, we no longer have to spend time managing the newsletter campaign. The campaign was fully set up for us by the Aivie team.
In our opinion, this is an important step towards the future and full automation of our hotel.
Why did you choose Aivie?
“One important reason was that Aivie was responsible for designing and working with the tool. We were so convinced by Adrian and his vision that this was enough to start the project.”
Yannis Dörig, rivarooms.com
What did you want to achieve?
The basic aim of the newsletter campaign was to ensure more bookings from returning guests and, ideally, to make their stay with us longer.
We also wanted to further expand the visibility and personal branding of our online presence. We are currently tackling this goal with Google Ads, but not via Aivie.
What was important to you?
It was particularly important to us that the marketing automation solution was not too intrusive. We don’t want to scare off our guests with pushy calls to action.
So the Aivie team decided not to implement a pop-up message on the website as usual, but to collect leads the old-school way via a form they placed on the site. This way, the newsletter effectively reaches only qualified leads.
It was also important to us that the newsletter explicitly refers to our contemporary offers.
What changes have been initiated?
Now, emails are sent every month with little effort. Not much has changed for us; we only had a slight increase in workload and successful results were achieved. From the second year onwards, everything runs completely automatically, which is great!
Approach
As already mentioned, Aivie has set up a newsletter campaign for us, which sends a monthly e-mail to our guests.
The emails to feed the campaign come from existing guests and through the website, on which we have placed a form to sign up for the newsletter.
As a treat to make the newsletter appealing to potential guests, we grant subscribers an exclusive discount on their next booking with us. This makes their booking cheaper and gives us the advantage that they don’t book through an external portal like booking.com. When booking through an external portal, we have to give them between 12% and 18% of the total amount.
At the same time, we enjoy the advantage that if our guests subscribe to the newsletter, we can maintain the customer relationship and thus encourage them to return in the future.
The emails are fully set up by the Aivie team. We don’t have to do anything other than provide input and reviews. Aivie handles all the setup work in the first year, and from the second year, everything runs automatically.
Three important milestones
- The data of previous guests is used and they are addressed in a personalized way
- Regular e-mails are sent and processes are standardized and automated.
- Guests are automatically accompanied during their stay to improve the experience and guest lifetime value—for example, by extending the stay or booking a rental car (not yet implemented).
What did you like about the process?
The whole process went very smoothly because, as I said, we didn’t really have much to do with it.
If we had any questions about the tool, there was always someone to talk to and we were always helped quickly. There are also lots of tutorials on the website to help with any questions.
I have to say that we are very happy that Aivie offers us a full service in the first year, as the tool can be very demanding at the beginning without the necessary know-how. However, if you have someone on hand and use it regularly, it runs smoothly over time.
What surprised you?
When we started with email marketing, we assumed that we would receive more bookings.
When the severe storms happened, we were surprised by how much the negative media coverage after the storm in Ticino affected our tourism. Thanks to Aivie, however, we were able to react quickly and directly by showing our guests via email that the situation on-site was not as bad as it was portrayed.
With a humorous message and positive images, we were able to prevent many cancellations. Without Aivie, we would have been completely at the mercy of the negative reporting.
“Due to the storms, we received a large number of cancelations. Thanks to Aivie, we were able to react quickly and convince our future guests to come anyway.”
Sebastian Fritzsche, rivarooms.com
The project was accompanied by Adrian Schimpf
“I saw the collaboration with Riva Rooms & Studios as a very interesting challenge. The hotel industry is in a very challenging environment where the big platforms take up a lot of space and flex their muscles. I am glad that they are now making more of their customer data and can thus count on recurring guests in the long term.
The hotel and the staff have become very dear to me over the last few years. I would like to thank them for the good cooperation, wish them continued success, and look forward to further collaboration.”
Adrian Schimpf,
CEO and founder of Aivie.
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