The Hotel Folk, Suffolk

The Hotel Folk is a group of award winning, luxury hotels and restaurants located across Suffolk. Each of the six hotels offer a unique style where you can expect wonderful accommodation and excellent dining, set in some of the county’s most memorable locations.

• Brudenell Hotel in Aldeburgh - luxury 4-star hotel with 44 bedrooms
• The Crown at Woodbridge - ten chic and quirky bedrooms
• White Lion Hotel in Aldeburgh - 38 comfortable bedrooms
• The Crown and Castle in Orford - 21 bedrooms
• The Thorpeness Golf Club & Hotel - a 36 bedroom hotel with a 18 hole championship course
• The Swan at Lavenham Hotel & Spa - 45 perfectly appointed bedrooms and suites

Requirements /challenges

• They needed a system that would be scalable so they could incorporate further properties when they acquired new hotels.
• They needed a platform that would seamlessly work across the whole group especially online so their online booking platform could promote all 6 property’s availability and rates in real-time.
• They rebranded and launched new websites and needed a new booking platform to match their new brand identity and effective user experience, and to drive direct bookings.

Solutions in place

Rezlynx PMS, Channel Manager, EPoS, Direct Booking Manager (DBM)

Benefits

• 30% Online revenue increase

Since installing DBM on all 6 hotel websites (in addition to the group website), sales revenue (from rooms and packages) has increased by 30% in the first 6 months and accommodation sales have increased by c.4.5% YOY. Direct booking conversions have escalated due to the platform being simple and easy to use [from a guest perspective] and the hotel advertising packages and having more control over closing out channels.

• OTA commissions reduced by 25%

Due to the increase in direct bookings, commissions from Booking.com have decreased by 25% (saving 15% per transaction), reducing the group’s reliance on OTA channels.

• Seamless guest journey

The live API integration from their online brochure to the DBM offers a live feed of real-time pricing for all rooms including full details of the accommodation. This improvement in the guest booking journey and user experience has helped drive conversions and reduce abandonment.

• Greater transferability of staff

The staff find the systems easy to use and simple to train new starters on. By running the same PMS, EPoS systems and tills across the group, the group has the option of seamlessly moving staff across the hotels if required.

• Integrated restaurant bookings

Guests can make dinner reservations online when they’re booking their room which has boosted online bookings to the extent that a 3rd of restaurant bookings now come from the website.
Guests can dine out at any of the group’s restaurants and have their bills charged back to their hotel room bill.

• Less overburdening admin

As the systems are more efficient and automated, staff are doing less manual admin which allow them to spend more time in front of guests instead.

• Improved guest feedback

The seamless integration to GuestRevu (guest feedback technology) automatically sends an email to guest 2 days after check-out to encourage them to review the quality of their experience. All reviews (including those from OTAs) are collated on one platform which enables the hotels to effectively respond to the guests, identify improvements and reward staff – all from one place.

• Improved centralisation

The team at the Hotel Folk has complete visibility of the group’s and staff’s performance and can view individual hotel performance by several variables e.g. budget, food, rooms.
The automated end of day information is transferred into a BI tool so the group can take decisive action as a result and react swiftly if necessary.

David Scott
CEO The Hotel Folk Group

“We decided to upgrade our systems and we have realised a marked improvement as a result, especially with our online bookings and room revenue. There is no doubt we have achieved a return on our investment and are so happy to have made the change.

Anything that helps us free up resources to allow our staff to spend time with guests is a winner in my opinion - the more of that we can do, the better - and Guestline enables us to do that by being more efficient and automated.”