CASE STUDIES

Red Roof Is Sleeping Better,

with Increased Efficiency and Execution.

Snapshot

Industry: Hospitality & Leisure
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Year founded: 1973
Company size: Nearly 700 properties & four brands

Benefits

  • Increased control of digital assets and content
  • Flexibility to add features across multiple brands
  • Experienced accelerated webpage loads, faster than its rivals.

Profile

Red Roof is a hospitality company with nearly 700 properties and four brands; Red Roof Inn, Red Roof PLUS+, The Red Collection, and HomeTowne Studios by Red Roof. The chain is primarily in the Midwest, Southern, and Eastern United States.

Challenge

Red Roof lived on a legacy system and could not move. They needed to have the ability to tie in additional Property Brands and maintain Corporate Brand standards seamlessly. One of the critical issues RR faced was controlling digital assets and the speed of its website. Performance, flexibility, new features, simplicity, and friction reduction topped the to-do list.

Solution

Red Roof was looking for a fresh approach to its website development with a partner rather than a vendor. "LUX was an excellent fit for our organization. Their previous work demonstrated their skill and expertise, and their professionalism, positive attitude, staff alignment, and dedication made them the right fit for us." — Project VP, Red Roof

Previously, in 2018, the CIO of Red Roof reached out to LUX interactive to solve an immediate issue. They were preparing to launch a new hotel brand, and the third party they’d hired to build the website was behind in development. So LUX quickly assessed the issues and worked tirelessly to launch the new brand.

One of the critical issues Red Roof faced was controlling digital assets and the speed of its website. LUX reduced the number of HTTP requests, compressed images, and files, leveraged caching techniques, minimized redirects, and combined multiple files. Additionally, they used strategies to improve page loading times by optimizing code, implementing a Content Delivery Network (CDN), minifying code, optimizing site imagery, and removing unnecessary plugins and design elements.

Red Roof also agreed to allow LUX to unify the booking flows for each brand. This aggregation enabled the developers to eliminate the inherited brand-specific booking flow and the remaining technical debt from the Hometowne Studios® brand. Because of this, they were now able to add new features to the other brands, such as:

  • Weekly and monthly rates
  • Check-in/check-out desk availability (not 24/7 like a hotel)
  • Brand selection/exclusion (as well as several other filters) in the Booking Path

LUX is continuously working toward the optimization of the Red Roof. As a result, the metrics showed Red Roof is more than ten points higher than the top performers in the industry for mobile and desktop.

Ongoing partnership

Fast forward to 2024. LUX and Red Roof still collaborate. LUX offers ongoing support and maintenance, updates, and improvements to the Red Roof Suite of properties including the integration of RWS and Bynder.

“After the site’s redesign and launch, we saw improved site visits and much better control of the digital assets and content. The LUX team continues to recommend and work with our team for ongoing improvements and recommendations.”

Project VP, Red Roof

The team is a full-service, first-in-class partner. They are flexible with delivery and options and will work within the framework of the organization they support. They have been excellent trainers and work well with other consultants and partners we have brought on for different products. They provide ongoing support as well as development work.”
— Project VP, Red Roof

Key Technologies Used

  • RWS: A cost-effective custom software solution using an outsourced service model.
  • Bynder: A digital asset management system that controls content usage and drives brand consistency.
  • Azure: Cloud-based technology utilizing remote resources to store and access data.

Project Management Style

LUX and RRI have weekly stand-ups, both technical and with internal business associates. In addition, they have a dedicated sprint and development cycle and work closely with the teams via Atlassian Jira and Microsoft Teams.

LUX interactive strives to foster relationships rather than accumulate customers. Being involved in the early concept phase of projects allows them to guide the solutions to meet their partner’s needs.

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