Boutique hotel pays tribute to new integrated hospitality technology platform as occupancy rates, room rates and revenue increase

Boutique hotel pays tribute to new integrated hospitality technology platform as occupancy rates, room rates and revenue increase

Cannizaro House, the only four-star boutique hotel in Wimbledon, Surrey, has revealed details of the contribution its new integrated hospitality technology platform from Agilysys (Europe) is making to its success.

“We are a hotel where guests truly are the focus: a place where their preferences are remembered and the team is always eager to please,” said Jeff Ward, the hotel’s general manager.

Cannizaro House has just completed a major refurbishment, including replacing its MICROS legacy management system with Agilysys technology, to streamline operations and enhance guest service.

Managing diverse channels

The new solution comprises the Visual One Property Management System (PMS), InfoGenesis Point of Service (POS) for sales processing, and ResPAK for dining reservations and table management. “Every element of the Agilysys portfolio has been hugely beneficial to our business,” Ward said.

The new PMS technology has helped Cannizaro House to increase occupancy rates, improve room rates, drive more online business, produce better reporting that delivers deliver better business visibility for the finance team. Ward commented: “We saw an immediate improvement with Visual One. Now the bookings team only sell rooms by type, and only at the rates we set. We didn’t have that with our previous system, and it’s automatically uplifted revenue. Visual One has helped us drive up our occupancy rate from 57% last year to 75% in the same month this year.”

Visual One has improved the hotel’s website too. “We now have far better and easier viewing of our rates online. We can put offers and rate promotions out faster into the marketplace,” he added.

Maintaining customer excellence

In respect of ResPAK and its effect on managing the restaurant, Ward said: “It was time to replace our manual restaurant diary and ResPAK is an excellent solution. It’s very easy to use, front-of-house and in the back-office, and interfaces well with InfoGenesis POS. I’m really pleased with that. As we extend the business, we know ResPAK will have rich data stored within it to support us.”

The InfoGenesis POS has also helped to make point-of-sale processing more comprehensive and accurate, while supporting the hotel’s ethos of exceptional, personalised service. “A key driver was the desire for an integrated system, to enable us to manage average room rates better, and that’s exactly what has happened,” he added. “InfoGenesis ‘ticks all the boxes’. It’s definitely speeded up service.”

Ward concluded: “I wanted technology that would enable us to achieve more. Our monthly room revenue is, in some cases, showing 50% growth. There can’t be many hotels, especially in the current climate, able to say that. Agilysys went a long way towards helping us achieve this. Implementing Agilysys was certainly the right move, and their ongoing support has further justified that. I’m very pleased with our decision to go with them.”