Meet the #TeamGuestline Andrew O’Connor

We recently caught up with one of the newer members of the Guestline team, Andrew O’Connor, who joined us this Spring as Business Development Manager for Ireland.

With an impressive background in sales and an in-depth understanding of the Irish hospitality market, we are delighted to welcome Andrew to the Guestline team and took the opportunity to chat with him about his previous experience, what he was looking forward to most in his role and his talent for cars.

I have had the privilege of working in the Irish hospitality sector for the past few years, and I am excited to embark on my fourth role within this dynamic industry. As the inaugural Hospitality Sales Manager for myTaxi (now Free Now) in Ireland, I spearheaded the expansion of the company's market presence beyond the capital. During my tenure as Head of Sales at SeaChange, I achieved remarkable growth, increasing their Irish hotel customer base by approximately 7 times and successfully launching innovative digital products. In my most recent position at Snapfix, I played a pivotal role in securing 70% of all new hotel business in Ireland. It has been a thrilling and fulfilling journey thus far!

I am the new Business Development Manager for Ireland, and I am excited to collaborate with Country Manager Clio to bring cloud-based solutions to hoteliers.

Each day brings new experiences and unique challenges in my role. As I navigate through the initial settling-in period, I have the opportunity to shadow Clio, gaining hands-on knowledge about Guestline and its operations. This includes engaging with hoteliers, allowing me to grasp their evolving requirements within the market. I have had the privilege of meeting the wider Guestline team in the UK and hosted a Partner Day event in Ireland with our esteemed tech partners. I’m also busy familiarising myself with the intricate process of integrating Guestline’s solutions seamlessly with hotelier’s operations.

I am a people’s person and I love the opportunity to meet with and help different people on their technology buying journey. I enjoy positioning the right products against a client’s requirements ensuring maximum customer satisfaction. As strange as it may sound, I love the challenge of objection-handling! It is a real opportunity to communicate the incredible value that Guestline can bring to a hotel’s operations.

I have known about Guestline for about 2 years. I first met Clio when dealing with a mutual customers requirement for an integration. When I worked in hotels in my late teens / early 20’s I recall the unattractive and complicated PMS that we would use to check in guests or to make bookings. On the face of it Guestline seemed to provide innovate, fresh and exciting products that were, most importantly, easy to use and packed a serious punch! After my initial few weeks, I can confidently say that I was right – only I did not realise the full power of the products and how they collectively can help hotel teams really improve and streamline their tech stack.

Go for it! Guestline is constantly adding new products and making updates to existing solutions which makes work very exciting and full of opportunity. From my visit to Head Office, one of the things that struck me was the amount of people who have been with the company for a very long time! This is testament to the type of Company that Guestline is.

Am I supposed to say salesperson here? I am going to channel my inner child and say a hybrid of a musician and a car journalist – maybe this is a new thing I could try, review cars but sing the reviews! #watchthisspace

Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Clodagh McKenna and Rachel Allen. Not sure if you pieced it together but the plan here is to let them do all the cooking whilst I eat and hopefully have some craic too!

My 5-year-old tells me ‘Daddy you know everything!’. Sadly, this is not true, and I am not an encyclopaedia, but I have been told that my ‘talent’ to be able to identify any car from a distance, even at night from just the headlights, is quite impressive! Will that do?