London, 10 March 2025 – Pubs with rooms giant, Greene King, grew GDS business 30% – increasing pre-Covid corporate travel revenue and continues to be a focus.
Working with GDS specialist HotelREZ, the UK’s leading pub retailer and brewer managed to add to its bottom line with growth in Average Daily Rate (ADR) within the corporate market.
Having emerged post-Covid as a growing force in the hotel world, Greene King made significant investment in its properties, coupled with a refreshed positioning. This led to an adaptation in the group’s commercial strategy, placing greater emphasis on the corporate travel market.
The group has been working with HotelREZ for over a decade, predominantly as a GDS provider, but also in representation services, where it supports Greene King through agent outreach, RFPs and niche marketing programmes.
With each location providing quality food and beverage through a Greene King pub, the group’s hotel business has wide-reaching appeal to both corporate travellers and weekend leisure guests.
Lauren Goodwin, Head of Hotel Sales at Greene King, said: “A big part of my job is ensuring the segmentation is correct for each hotel, finding the right business which helps hotels hit their budgets.
“Five years ago, we shifted from an occupancy-led commercial strategy to one that’s more focused on driving rate. As part of that refresh, we looked closely at our segmentation and sought ways both internally and via HotelREZ to drive better-rated business. Our key focus has been to grow our corporate business, particularly with the type of guest who will dine with us, and we extended the challenge to HotelREZ to deliver via the GDS.”
Michelle Mayes, commercial sales manager for hotels at Greene King, said: “Enabling agents to book directly into our system is so important, and the GDS from HotelREZ facilitates that. A lot of our corporate success I’d put down to the GDS, but having the relationships is important in driving awareness that our hotels are available on the system.”
Daniel Simmons, CCO of HotelREZ, said: “The corporate travel market isn’t all high-flying executives; all sorts of companies and all sorts of employees have travel needs. Greene King’s portfolio is a great match for a diverse range of guests, and with so many different brands under their umbrella, it’s important to put the right brand in front of the right client and agent.
“This is where our partnership really comes into its own: we connect them with the right people through our niche marketing programme and representation services. They do a fabulous job of selling their hotels, and the booker can easily make a reservation via the GDS.”
With their corporate bookings at an all-time high, Greene King is now seeking to boost their weekend business with additional leisure guests.
Mayes said: “We’ve started working with HotelREZ to tap into other segments to support our weekend bookings. This involves their niche marketing programmes; some of our hotels welcome dogs or are located near airports, so we’ve recently signed up to the relevant targeted campaigns and are looking forward to seeing the results.”
For the full case study please visit HotelREZ .
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About Greene King
Greene King is the country’s leading pub company and brewer with c.2,600 pubs, restaurants and hotels across England, Wales, and Scotland. At Greene King we are passionate about delivering our purpose to ‘pour happiness into lives.’ That’s for our customers, our team, our pub partners, our suppliers, and the communities in which we live, operate, and serve. Founded in 1799 with offices in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and Burton on Trent in Staffordshire we employ around 40,000 people across the group with three divisions: Greene King pubs, Destination Brands & Ventures, and Brewing & Brands.
- Greene King pubs: Greene King pubs is our mainstream pub brand located where people and communities come together; pubs enjoyed in cities, towns, and villages throughout the country with clear ambition to be “The Nation’s Most Loved Pub Brand.” Pub Partners runs our tenanted and leased pubs business and Hive Franchise pubs.
- Destination Brands & Ventures: Destination Brands is a portfolio of distinct brands which includes Hungry Horse, Chef & Brewer, Farmhouse Inns and Flaming Grill that bring friends and family together, delivering great service, quality, and value for money for a range of eating out and drinking occasions. Venture includes Hickory’s, Premium (Crafted Pubs & Metropolitan Pub Company) and Hotels which operate autonomously of Greene King’s managed pub brands.
- Brewing & Brands covers the brewing sides of the business. Quality ales are brewed at the Westgate brewery in Bury St Edmunds and the Belhaven Brewery in Dunbar. Our industry-leading portfolio includes Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale, Ice Breaker, and Belhaven Best and our premium beers, Level Head and Flint Eye, brewed for the modern-day drinker.
For more information Greene King, visit greeneking.co.uk please email [email protected]
