Everyone loves a good success story. In fact, we have over 100 of them on our customer page.
As you well know, being a hotelier is no easy thing. Those that inspire us with their vision and approach to hospitality deserve to be celebrated, which is exactly the purpose of this article. In an industry where transformation has come slowly, the last few years have seen hospitality finally waking up.
Here are five times that properties embraced modern technology to transform their operations and deliver remarkable experiences for their guests and staff.
Table of contents
1. Glampsource North Hatley: no more paper
The new generation of hoteliers are lucky. They don’t know some of the painful, time-consuming processes that used to be necessary before technology came along.
Take Glampsource North Hatley, for example. Before joining Mews, they managed their operations completely manually, everything handwritten and communicated by phone. A moment’s appreciation, please, for all those hotel staff who still managed to provide amazing service despite this.
Now, it’s a different story. Everything’s managed on the cloud, which means fast and easy reservation management and seamless opportunities for better rate and tent management, upsells and more.
Their successes include:
- 35% growth in business
- Two thirds of bookings are made direct
- OTA management workload reduced by 300% thanks to automation
2. Paradise Resort Gold Coast: payment empowerment
Payments: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. At least, that’s how many hoteliers feel when it comes to taking and processing payments, reconciliation and chasing bills.
The Paradise Resort Gold Coast team used to spend hours every day manually processing, tracking and chasing every payment and booking. That’s enough to drive anyone to despair. Enter Mews Payments.
With payment automation, guests choose when and how they’d like to pay, with easy options to do so pre-arrival during reservation and online check-in. And when a guest’s payment is overdue, an automatic reminder pops up within Mews, giving the team time to follow up with the guest and save the booking – or have more time to resell the room.
Their successes include:
- Hours of staff time saved every day
- 6+ minutes saved on average check-in time
- $139 average upsell per reservation (in Mews Booking Engine)
3. Samesun: remote revolution
One of the many problems with an on-premises property management system is that you’re reliant on that hardware – if the power or the internet goes down, that’s it. Oh, and it also requires staff to be onsite if they want to access the system effectively.
Going cloud-native with Mews has changed how Samesun run their business. Before, if the internet crashed, they had to take guest names by hand and sync data over the phone. Now, even if the internet goes down, they can still access Mews and charge guests. If someone on staff has signal on their phone, they can easily run Mews through there.
It’s also transformed life for their management team, who now work fully remotely. Managers can securely log in from anywhere without asking IT to set up a VPN and get credentials, a big time saving for everyone.
Their success include:
- Automated and standardized operations across multiple properties
- 50% faster to train new staff
- 7% boost in online check-ins through SMS reminders
4. Zien Group: operational overhaul
The first hurdle in any hotel transformation is the mindset shift. When you’re worked off your feet and stuck following long-standing industry ‘best-practice’, it can be hard to find the headspace to think about a better way of working.
Zien Group are a shining example of how it pays off. The Dutch hotel group overhauled their business infrastructure (technology and physical spaces) to eliminate many of the manual processes that had been holding them back. Two-hour night audits, admin-heavy check-ins, duplicated workloads across properties, lengthy new staff training times... All consigned to the past.
Embracing integrated and digital guest journey (booking engine, unified payment platform, online check-in and guest engagement tools), has transformed the guest experience. So too hasMews Multi-Property, which provides easy centralized control across hotels, accelerating the brand’s growth.
Their successes include:
- Reception desks removed from three hotels
- Front-house staff training reduced from two weeks to 15 hours
- 11 hotels onboarded in just five months
5. Capsule Hotel Switzerland: customer convenience
Whether a guest is traveling for work or leisure, the one thing they want is a convenient stay. They want minimal admin and to choose a user journey that suits their own preferences.
Capsule Hotel Switzerland embraced technology to provide a seamless guest journey from start to finish. What does this look like exactly? It means aself-serve kiosk for guests to check-in and purchase upsells in one tap. It means mobile keys so guests can unlock their capsules with their phones. And it means integrated payments so guests can use their payment method of choice.
It means that at a hotel with 140+ capsules, they only need one person per shift, who can also oversee the entire F&B department too.
Their successes include:
- 50% of guests access capsules using their phones
- Less than two minutes for guests to check in
- 100% payment automation and zero chargebacks
Inspired by these transformational success stories? There are a whole bunch more on our customer page.
Author
Tom Brown
When Tom isn't creating outstanding marketing content for Mews, he writes fiction for himself. Either way, he only uses the best words.
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