The UK hospitality industry has this year seen significant growth in the serviced apartment market.
Guestline, hospitality software specialists, continue to echo this trend and has added to their already growing client portfolio of Apart-Hotels with their latest client The Harrington, a serviced apartment group.
So far in 2013 the UK hotel industry has seen several new operators making their mark in the serviced apartment scene, following the success of some of the UK's most well-known apartment groups. SACO Serviced Apartments is one such example and Guestline were proud to recently announce the implementation of their integrated management solutions in all of SACO's 600 apartments across 32 sites in the UK.
Guestline has seen an increase in the requirement for fully integrated solutions for Apart-Hotels, as their market leading technology not only provides a complete property management solution but also integrates alongside a full range of hospitality products. These products, such as the Online Booking Manager, PCI Manager and Channel and Distribution Manager, drive bookings direct through the serviced apartment's website (reducing commission fees) and manage the channels and rates with OTAs across all their portfolio of properties.
This unique cloud based software has been the driving factor in choosing Guestline for all of the 15 Apart-Hotels customers, including The Harrington and SACO.
Ben Harper, Sales Director at SACO, comments on his reasons for implementing these solutions: "Since the implementation of the Online Booking Manager in May this year, SACO has already seen a 50% increase in the number of online bookings. One of our key objectives was to significantly increase the volume of online bookings via our own website; we are delighted with such positive results in just two months. The Online Booking Manager is really supporting us with this strategy," said Harper.
While the focus is on driving online traffic through its own website, due to consumer behaviour, SACO also understood the need for a presence in the OTA market.
"Customers are often turning to OTAs like Booking.com or LateRooms.com to benefit from room rate comparisons, or to book a room fast," said Harper. "We identified the Channel and Distribution Manager as the ideal solution as it allows us to control rates and availability from a single real-time source and is very effective in securing last minute bookings due to short stays or cancellations."
Mickey Arora, Chief Executive of The Harrington, also commented on his reasons for choosing Guestline: "We are a growing serviced apartment organisation; currently our portfolio consists of 80 top end luxury properties in Kensington, London. We needed a new PMS system which was fully integrated and completely flexible."
"The Guestline cloud based PMS system provides us the ability to manage all our properties from wherever we were, with one reporting function. All their systems are fully integrated from the day-to-day management to the compliance and booking system. The Guestline PMS will make our operations efficient, allowing us time to drive revenue and maximise profits."
