Alamo Inn and Suites

During the pandemic, theme parks suffered…and the hotels that rely on all that family tourism were particularly hard hit. Disneyland® in Anaheim, California was certainly no exception.

The Alamo Inn & Suites, a limited service hotel with 86 spacious rooms and family suites, found itself having to make some hard choices as the happy families and visitors to the land of Mickey Mouse dried up.

We spoke to General Manager Tony Tzeng about how they managed through the pandemic and how their tech stack has helped them bounce back stronger than ever.

Old-School Frustrations

"When I took over running the property back in 2014, I had no background in hospitality at all. The Alamo was unique in that it was only a 15-minute walk from downtown Disneyland®.

"Soon after I was able to start considering an RMS. We tried some competitors but they simply could not recommend good rates. We worked closely with one of the top-rated competitors – for an entire year even – to get our pricing right but their algorithm couldn't do it. No amount of manual tinkering and rule setting could help.

"There are well over a hundred hotels in Disneyland® so it's a competitive environment to say the least. The decision engine's focus on demand data makes way more sense in our highly competitive environment.

"And after my previous experience, I now believe less in the value of an RMS that constantly adjusts around compsets. The platform was so easy to handle – it just makes sense to our rate manager, who is not as tech savvy, unlike the other systems we tried."

Instant Results

"The continuous pricing has been exceptional. With our September and October rates we were only off by a few thousand dollars in comparison to a bumper 2019, which was the best year on record in Anaheim. We ended up selling a few hundred less rooms for that two month span but were almost able to match the revenue totals.

"For us, the forecasting features are great. I like how it rarely over-calculates your revenue and is conservative with its numbers. It gives me a great forecast graph for the upcoming year that helps me to prepare our entire business.

"The forecasting feature alone made a profound human impact on our business during the pandemic. We could really plan the workload effectively in advance and distribute shifts and wages. As a result, over 80 percent of our staff were able to stay with us the entire time."

"We made a bold decision – we decided to go down to minimum wage for the ENTIRE workforce and then to make sure to evenly share the work time so that everyone could share wages. The only way we were able to do this was thanks to FLYR for Hospitality. We operated like that for an entire year – from March 2020 to March 2021.

"When our local attractions opened for business and demand began to trickle in, the forecasting helped us to prepare for the ramp up and we experienced minimal staffing disruptions even as our occupancy jumped from 30% (April 2021) to 50% (May 2021) to 80% (June 2021). Now we are back up to 90 percent occupancy."