Case Study Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Dublin

Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel is an 18th Century 4 Star Castle Hotel offering stylish surroundings, a friendly personal service and tranquillity within breath-taking surroundings overlooking Dublin Bay. Voted as the #1 hotel in Killiney and conveniently located near Dalkey & Dun Laoghaire, the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel makes an ideal venue for business or families. Featuring a leisure centre with swimming pool and gym, the hotel is also a reputable Dublin wedding venue, offering some of the best wedding packages Dublin can provide.

• Old, server-based system was not very intuitive, and training new recruits was challenging and time-consuming.
• Access to reporting and data was cumbersome and laborious.
• The team had limited access to their systems when off site or on the fly around the hotel – they couldn’t assist guests on the move around the hotel or at busy reception times.
• As part of a wider operational plan to move all their IT infrastructure to the cloud, the hotel wanted a cloud-based PMS that was accessible, functional and intuitive which ultimately helped enhance the guest experience and improve operations.

• Guestline Rezlynx Cloud PMS
• Guestline Channel Manager
• Advanced C&B
• Integration to Avvio’s online booking platform
• Integration with Right Revenue RMS

Mark Scott-Lennon, Director & General Manager of Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Dublin, Ireland: 

"We’re delighted that we migrated to the cloud and implemented Guestline’s Property Management System and distribution solutions. The remote access and automated processes are key in helping us deliver efficiencies and enhance the guest experience. Not only has it made us more productive, it has enabled our staff to be more guest facing and spend less time on the systems.

It’s intuitive and easy to access all the data and reports remotely which allows me to make informed decisions with the enhanced business intelligence I now have access to, from wherever I am, be it at home, off site or at the hotel. We’ve also got peace of mind that our systems are safe and secure.”

“Why migrating to the cloud is a no-brainer for today’s hoteliers”  - Mark Scott-Lennon recently participated in Guestline’s ‘cloud’ webinar where Mark, and other top hospitality specialists, discussed the future of hotel cloud technology and why migrating to the cloud is the first choice for forward-thinking hoteliers. Watch the webinar here.

The team can access the hotel Property Management System on any web browser, on any device from wherever they are in the hotel and off-site e.g. at home or at meetings. This is proving valuable in assisting guests when out and about across the property and reducing queues at reception.

For example, at Reception, any member of the team can access a guest’s room number (to get them to their room quicker) from a mobile device or help them make a dinner reservation. At check out, staff can view the guest’s outstanding balance on a tablet, facilitate payment and check them out. Likewise, if a prospective customer enquires about the availability for an event in an evening, the team can check there and then and respond quicker.

The ability to access everything they need remotely has greatly assisted the team to work from home safely and efficiently during Covid-19. This has enabled them to keep more people working, doing everything they would do normally as if they were at the hotel which has proved invaluable.

Management now have access to centralised reports and business on the books at the touch of a button. Whether they’re working from home or attending meetings, the team can review the actual and forecast report; view the dashboard and see the check ins/outs for the following day - this report was previously distributed at 10am every morning, now they can see it the night before. This also helps give the team advanced notice if any VIPs are checking-in the next morning.

This is invaluable when Mark Scott-Lennon attends off-site IHF meetings and has access to real-time figures, as previously Mark had to email his Reservations team to assist.

This helps the team become more self-sufficient, and more operationally efficient.

As the systems are so intuitive, new staff pick it up straight away with minimal training. This means the hotel can recruit staff more for their hospitable personality and guest focused attitude rather than their technical expertise.

Having experienced down time when their server crashed at pertinent times [e.g. at busy times at weekends when they had to resort to pen and paper when their PMS and POS systems were down], the team were keen to alleviate this. Being cloud-hosted PMS, their new technology is more reliable (internet access is dependable, and they could always tether off their phones if need be) and it’s always backed up.

Having seen another local hotel have their server-based system hacked just before Christmas, Fitzpatrick’s wanted to have water-tight security at all times. With Guestline’s PMS  being cloud hosted by Microsoft Azure they were provided with a cost effective and reliable service leveraging the security and scalability of the world’s leading cloud technology service provider.

With the automated two-way integration to the channel manager, the Reservation team don’t lose time on manually uploading rates and bookings every day. The team are now more productive and with the time saved, they can focus on their rate and inventory strategy with access to live, real-time availability and the ability to look further out in the dairy. Likewise, with the time saved, they can also be re-deployed to more guest facing work to help improve the guest experience.

The system has boosted the efficiency of the housekeeping team who now can access their task lists on a tablet and update rooms accordingly – if a guest wishes to check in early, the Front Desk team can look at the live, updated system to check the room status [and re-prioritise if it’s not ready] without the need for numerous calls to the housekeeping team.

Being cloud hosted, it was simple to integrate with other third-party cloud hosted interfaces - for example, they now integrate with Right Revenue which provide them with revenue management services and Avvio’s online booking platform.