Driftwood Hotels: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management
medium45 min0 submissions
Bain
Scenario

Driftwood Hotels runs a hospitality marketplace in Southeast Asia, live in 26 cities.

Last month: 69,619 active buyers, 26,166 active sellers, 485,370 searches, and an overall fill rate of 59%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 74%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 16%.

Growth marketing has been buying buyer-side installs, because buyer acquisition is cheaper and the install numbers look good in the board deck. Supply acquisition is manual and slow.

Supporting data

scale

searches
485370
active buyers
69619
active sellers
26166
buyer to seller ratio
2.7

liquidity

cities live
26
overall fill rate pct
59
top 3 cities fill pct
74
bottom half cities fill pct
16

acquisition

buyer side
paid, scaling
seller side
manual, flat
Your task

Advise the general manager. Your answer should provide:

  1. Analysis — which side is constrained, where, and what the fill rate really says.
  2. Risks — what happens if you keep acquiring on the current side.
  3. Recommendation — which side, which cities, which mechanism, and the metric that proves it.

State any assumptions you make.

Ready to move forward? Up next: Northwind Energy: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to BuyNext question
How you'll be graded

80 points, 60% to pass.

  • recommendation15
  • market analysis25
  • risk assessment20
  • financial analysis20
Hint
Reveal suggested structure

Liquidity is local. Find the constrained side per geography, stop acquiring on the long side, and concentrate supply until density crosses the threshold.