Hôtellerie Champêtre • Hotel cooperative
Hôtellerie Champêtre (now Ôrigine artisans hôteliers) is Quebec’s first hotel cooperative, made up of around 40 select 4-star inns and independent hotels in 15 tourist regions across the province.
The carefully selected member establishments offer a wide variety of relaxing, fine dining, romantic, urban, recreational and outdoor experiences and packages.
The group offers gift cards that can be redeemed for stays in all member hotels and inns as well as in their restaurants and spas.It also has a loyalty program that offers rebates, points and exclusive discounts: a superior client experience crafted by RevMax.
The challenge
The cooperative was experiencing a slowdown in its economic benefits and reputation. It was losing market shares to new aggregators marketing hotel products and services, such as online travel agencies and group buying websites, which brought into question the network's relevancy.
A vigorous reorientation of the brand strategy was needed, as well as a shift from traditional to online, not to mention overhauling the loyalty and gift card systems, raising the service to a higher standard, growing the number of members and putting the group's financial house in order.
These concerted efforts improved both the cooperative’s health and increased the economic benefits for the member establishments, enabling Hôtellerie Champêtre to modernize and become Ôrigine artisans hôteliers.
Our mission
Turn around, modernize and optimize a resort hotel cooperative, including:
Recruiting new establishments
Doing a technological overhaul and system integration
Redesigning the website and setting up for e-commerce
Enhancing the promotional tools (print and web)
Setting up the gift package and gift card program, including online sales
Creating distribution networks for the gift card and package products
Creating and maximizing the Privilege loyalty program
Creating new sources of revenue
Conducting a complete review of the business model
Forming an extended permanent team made up of tourism, marketing and hospitality professionals
Developing several customer service, marketing and management training sessions for the owners and their teams
Implementing a co-op marketing program with other stakeholders in the tourism industry, including the Quebec Ministry of Tourism
Researching and obtaining grants for tourism promotion
Setting up a joint purchasing program for economies of scale
Refreshing the brand image
Creating a new membership fee structure, based on the growth of the members’ economic benefits
“The cooperative has had some exceptional years, the result of a strategic vision that the permanent team, the Board of Directors and the member establishments all subscribed to. This explains the banner’s success today.”
The results (within 36 months)
26% increase in accumulated surpluses
11% annual increase in the number of transactions at the member establishments
47% increase in annual gift card sales
52% to 70% increase in the awareness index
268% increase in online sales
38% to 52% annual increase in marketing investments
$9,396,727 in direct economic benefits for the member establishments in 2014
Record number of member establishment affiliated in a single year (+11)
56% increase in loyalty program members
600% increase in group and convention referencing
24% increase in the value of the average shopping cart (online sales)
443% increase in Facebook fans
32% increase in the banner’s revenues
13 new members in less than 18 months, for a total of 1,799 rooms
24% increase in annual own-source revenue for the cooperative
An invitation to change things
During the course of this project, the Corporation de l’industrie touristique du Québec (CITQ) invited RevMax, as an expert in the field, to take part in revising the classification criteria for Quebec hotel establishments (star rating), thus making its mark on Quebec’s tourism industry.
Other projects, other successes
