Wylie Inn: The Market Cut Rate. We Changed Who We Sold To.
Client: Wylie Inn & Conference Center at Endicott College
Industry: Independent hotel, conference center and wedding venue, Beverly, Massachusetts
The challenge
An independent hotel competes against brands with national sales teams, loyalty programs and big marketing budgets. Wylie Inn has a lot going for it: a waterfront campus on Boston’s North Shore, modern rooms, meeting space, and Tupper Manor, its wedding venue, next door. But it was fighting for every booking with a fraction of the tools.
Pricing was reactive. Most of the business came through online travel agencies, which take a commission on every room. The website, the cheapest room the hotel can sell, wasn’t pulling its weight. And when the market softened, the easy move was the one everyone else made: cut rate and hope volume follows.
Over a full year, Wylie was still earning less than its fair share of revenue against its competitive set.
What we did
We have partnered with Wylie since August 2022, first on revenue management, then on digital marketing and, most recently, on how the hotel shows up in AI search. The work rests on one idea: know which guest is worth the most, and build pricing, sales and marketing around them.
- Pricing with a strategy behind it. Weekly revenue management, a clear target mix of group and transient business, and rates set against the competitive set instead of in reaction to it.
- A profile of every guest worth winning. We built personas and value propositions for six segments, from leisure families and business travelers to university visitors, wedding guests, social groups and corporate offsites. Every campaign and sales conversation now starts from what that guest cares about.
- The website as the best room in the house. We oversee the hotel’s digital marketing and paid search with one goal: more direct bookings, at a better rate, with no commission.
- A board-level view, every month. Each review answers the questions an owner asks: Did we beat the market? Did we give up rate? Where is the next dollar coming from?
- Getting found in AI answers. As planners start asking AI tools for venues, we track where the hotel shows up and build the content that gets it named.
The result
In August 2026, while the market was cutting rate, Wylie held its price and won more of the business:
- RevPAR index 108.2, up 17.4% on the year before, well above fair share.
- Occupancy 81.2%, up 11.0%. Rate up 1.9% in a month the competitive set cut rate 6.6%.
- Group took the rooms, at a higher rate. Group guests paid about $40 more a night than transient. Shifting the mix lifted rate and revenue together.
- Fiscal year to date, above fair share: revenue index 102.4, up 12.5%.
The direct channel grew too. In September 2026, compared with the year before:
- Website revenue up 84%, with bookings up 34% and room nights up 40%.
- Direct rate up 31%: $252 a room night, with no commission.
- Paid search returning $18.62 for every $1, up from 2.27 in late 2024.
The rolling 12-month index is still under 100, but it is up 14.4% and closing fast. Wylie stopped chasing the market down and started choosing its guests.