For Steve Hiatt and his wife Kathy, running a bed and breakfast wasn’t just a business idea. It was something they talked about for years, ever since a stay at a small inn in New Hampshire sparked the dream on their tenth wedding anniversary. That dream became reality in 2004, when they took over the historic Bottger Mansion Bed & Breakfast in Old Town Albuquerque.
With just seven rooms and the warmth of a true owner-run inn, Bottger Mansion embodies everything guests love about independent hospitality. But small, hands-on operations come with challenges, especially when it comes to pricing.
“Spending time trying to figure out your rates was hard and time-consuming,” Steve recalls. “You’ve got breakfast to make, housekeeping, maintenance, marketing, sales—all that stuff that has to go on.”
As the owner, innkeeper, and chef, Steve handled everything. That included pricing, which he describes as “a poor man’s version of yield management.” Rates would get adjusted here and there, usually late and often inconsistently. He knew Bottger Mansion wasn’t capturing the full value of its rooms, he just didn’t know how to fix it.
When Steve first heard about TakeUp, he wasn’t skeptical, just puzzled.
“How are you able to do this with a seven-room property, with just the data from that property?” he asked.
For years, Steve assumed dynamic pricing only worked for big hotels with vast datasets. But once he learned how TakeUp’s AI analyzes broader market and destination signals, everything clicked.
“It took a while to understand that using AI technology, being able to look at what’s going on in the destination, across the country, all that can inform what our rates should be.”
With that understanding came something unexpected: relief.
Like many owner-operators, Steve faced the mental tug-of-war that comes with setting prices for your own rooms.
“We look at our property and say, Would I spend this much money to stay here? It’s an interesting psychological problem,” he says. “Having an outside party take that responsibility from us, that was liberating.”
With nothing to lose, Steve decided he’d try TakeUp for a year.
“What could happen?” he remembers thinking.
That’s when the real surprise began.
As TakeUp started adjusting rates in real time, Steve and Kathy watched bookings roll in at prices they never imagined guests would pay.
“We’d look at rates coming in and we’d go, Really? And dang if we didn’t get it,” Steve says.
For an inn that already had strong marketing and reliable occupancy, the impact was immediate and visible.
“Last year’s revenues were up about 12–13%. It was significant.”
For a seven-room property, that increase represents meaningful, tangible value, earned without adding a single new task to Steve’s overflowing plate.
“If you’re already doing the marketing, if you’re already confident with your occupancy, having dynamic pricing like TakeUp does is a must.”
Steve Hiatt, Owner & Operator of Bottger Mansion
Today, Steve sees dynamic pricing not as a luxury, but a requirement for small properties that want to capture their full potential.
“If you’re already doing the marketing, if you’re already confident with your occupancy, having dynamic pricing like TakeUp does is a must. That’s how you’re going to maximize the revenue on your property.”
What began with a simple question about seven rooms turned into a transformational shift for Bottger Mansion: more revenue, less guesswork, and a newfound freedom from the stressful task of pricing.
Steve and Kathy built Bottger Mansion with intention, passion, and years of dreaming. TakeUp simply helped uncover the value that was always there.
For Steve, the experience is now easy to summarize:
“Watching TakeUp do it—it was mind-blowing.”
👉 To learn more about how TakeUp can impact revenue at your property, schedule a custom pricing analysis.
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