Scaling smarter: How We Hotels Group prepared for its biggest year yet

We Hotels Group is a proudly independent hospitality company with more than 30 years of experience. The group got its start with a flagship hotel located just steps from Mexico City’s Benito Juárez airport, which initially operated under a major international brand.

After trying to adapt to the rigid structures of chain operations, the team realized something important: their vision for hospitality didn’t fit inside someone else’s playbook. Roughly 12 years ago, they made the decision to go fully independent, and never looked back.

Today, We Hotels operates three 100-room properties in Mexico City and Acapulco, serving a wide range of guests from connecting travelers to business clients and event-goers. With five new hotel openings on the horizon and 2026 projected to be their biggest year yet, the group is preparing for rapid growth. But to move forward, they first had to replace the outdated systems that were holding them back.

For years, the team relied on a traditional property management system hosted on a physical server, installed and maintained by an external developer. It was clunky, outdated, and completely disconnected from modern tools.

Rate loading alone could take up to three hours. Reservations had to be entered manually. And guests often found themselves waiting in the lobby while their bookings were confirmed, sometimes for over an hour.

To make matters worse, the front desk had no way to guarantee the best rate in person. Guests regularly pulled out their phones and booked through OTAs right from the lobby, undermining the hotel’s direct sales and driving reliance on third-party channels. At one point, OTA bookings accounted for the vast majority of their revenue.

When Mauricio Hernandez joined We Hotels Group as Revenue Manager in December, he saw an opportunity to do things differently. With prior experience using Cloudbeds, he knew it could address the group’s long-standing inefficiencies—but also understood that successful implementation meant addressing both operational and emotional barriers to change.

He began by working closely with the front desk team, who were understandably hesitant. “When you make the teams, the ownership, and management understand that the system is going to work for us and not us for the system,” Mauricio explained, “you reduce a lot of tension, you reduce a lot of workload and you also reduce a lot of stress that hoteliers normally carry when they have a system and a management model that is obsolete or has already expired.”

He walked through their daily pain points and showed how Cloudbeds would solve them, from eliminating hours of manual rate loading to ensuring reservations appeared instantly. The message was clear: this wasn’t about replacing people. It was about giving them the tools to do their jobs better.

To convince the owners, Mauricio shifted the conversation to data. Cloudbeds would give leadership real-time access to reservations, payment activity, and performance metrics from anywhere—no need to rely on staff to pull reports or navigate clunky software. That level of visibility and control sealed the deal.

Cloudbeds went live in February, and the transformation was immediate. Manual reservation entry disappeared. Check-in delays became a thing of the past. And most importantly, front desk agents were able to spend more time focused on guests.

When Cloudbeds came along, the receptionists started being able to look the guests in the eye. That’s what we’ve been gaining—people can focus more on the people and less on the computer.

The shift was more than operational; it was cultural. With less stress and fewer distractions, the entire team was more present, more confident, and more engaged.

With Cloudbeds’ integrated booking engine and channel manager, We Hotels regained control over distribution. OTA share dropped significantly—from around 80% to just 50%. The other half now flows through their direct website, booking engine, and even WhatsApp, giving the team a healthier, more profitable sales mix.

They now issue discount codes for corporate clients, streamline group bookings, and offer unique packages for concertgoers that include transportation and meals, all through Cloudbeds.

At the same time, Cloudbeds Guest Experience enabled faster, more personalized communication. The team now uses WhatsApp for direct messaging and leverages automated templates to drastically reduce OTA response times, making guest service more efficient across every touchpoint.

With the basics running smoothly, Mauricio turned his attention to pricing. Using Cloudbeds’ dynamic pricing tools, he implemented automated rate strategies, freeing him from the time-consuming work of manual updates to focus on developing other business units. 

The results followed quickly: a 28% lift in RevPAR and up to 40% more revenue in some months compared to the previous year. And according to Mauricio, one key to that success was how Cloudbeds supported the team through the transition.

I believe that the onboarding process and the people in charge of the onboarding process collaborate a lot in order to be able to have a peaceful and adequate transition. That generates a lot of tranquility and certainty for the hoteliers who are going to adopt the system.

Cloudbeds didn’t force We Hotels to rebuild their workflows. Instead, it integrated with their existing invoicing system, automated their routine tasks, and simplified everything from OTA communication to guest messaging.

“Cloudbeds’ team helped give us peace of mind and certainty that everything will be ready and very well done for the interests and benefits of our business,” Mauricio shared.

With five new openings on the way—and 2026 set to be the biggest growth year in company history—We Hotels Group is ready to scale confidently, without adding complexity. The technology is in place. The team is empowered. And the vision is clear.

For Mauricio, Cloudbeds didn’t just solve the pain of the past. It created a path forward.