How Stay Original Co. has grown its portfolio with Avondata
Why did you choose Avondata to help with the management of your hotels?
We chose the Hotel Executive PMS to help us manage room bookings because it enabled us to make rate changes and manage room revenue much more efficiently than our old system. The two-way communication with our existing Epos system was key to our decision to implement it across all the hotels in the group. It also integrated with our chosen channel manager and booking engine making the transition much smoother.
Stay Original Co. has grown with Avondata’s software and we’ve gradually been implementing additional features and modules across our portfolio of hotels and inns. The GuestRevu marketing module ensures that we communicate with our guests effectively during the booking process whilst the HE-Secure payment gateway has enabled us to take online payments in line with PCI compliance.
The Avondata team is also great to work with and provides excellent support; everyone is very knowledgeable and willing to help with any query.
How has it helped the business?
With the software, we’ve found that manual errors are reduced and that we have been able to focus on improving guest experience. For example, we can create complex tariff bundles which include food and beverage offers, and the system automatically calculates the charges. The marketing features make it easy to group guests into categories so communication is more relevant, and the recent integration of Hotel Executive with a third-party reputation management system has enabled us to manage and respond to feedback more effectively. Finally, the HE-secure payment gateway has made the process of paying for a room much smoother for both the guest and front of house team.
The reporting functions are also important as they’ve enabled us to build up a comprehensive pattern of bookings, so we’re now about to implement Dynamic Pricing through the Tariff Matrix. This means we’ll be able to adjust our hotel prices in real time depending on demand, maximising our booking and revenue potential.
What does the future hold for Stay Original Co.?
We’re currently undergoing the £5 million refurbishment of the King’s Arms in Dorchester which the company bought around three years ago. It’s going to be an amazing and stunning property, and we’re very excited to be opening it early next year.
The building is an old coaching inn in Dorchester which Thomas Hardy mentioned several times in his works and so has a special historic poignancy for the town.
This will be the fifth property in our portfolio for which we will also be implementing Avondata’s Hotel Executive PMS and we’re currently working with the team on using the software with two in-house receptionists.
We’re also looking into adding more modules to our existing systems, such as the housekeeping module which our housekeepers will be able to utilise on their smart phones.
Stay Original Co. is looking forward to continuing its partnership with Avondata as its hotel management software provider!
