Rezcontrol PMS works with Brakspear across its ‘Honeycomb Houses’ portfolio, while SiteMinder manages their distribution, ensuring visibility and optimised pricing across multiple channels. Since combining forces, Honeycomb houses have gone from strength to strength.
Brakspear operates a large portfolio of British pubs, including a group of ten ‘Honeycomb Houses’, which together account for around 140 bedrooms across seven of these properties – three remain standalone pubs or restaurants. Each property is unique, often housed in listed or historic buildings, oozing character and charm under the ethos “our home is your home.” While each property maintains an independent look and feel, they are run with a consistent structure, particularly regarding their menus and overall approach to hospitality – creating consistency for the brand, which is now being matched in its operational systems and functions.
Brakspear aimed to streamline operations in revenue management and optimise bookings, assigning the task to Sid Kostromin, Bedrooms support for Honeycomb Houses at Brakspear.
“We knew we needed to move to the cloud for greater efficiencies, as well as to enable Rezcontrol and SiteMinder to integrate seamlessly”
Rates and distribution were also handled manually, so rate setting wasn’t optimised and channel choices could be hit or miss. The decision to adopt Rezcontrol and SiteMinder was therefore driven by the need to modernise and move to the cloud, to integrate them fully and so better manage room availability, pricing and distribution.
A game-changing integration
“With Rezcontrol and SiteMinder, Brakspear now has centralised access to all key platforms, allowing for smoother management, reducing the complexity of multiple logins – it is so much more straightforward and reliable.”
Sid explains “Bringing Rezcontrol and SiteMinder together created a single, centralised rate management and bookings hub. The key benefit of this upgrade was the ability for the systems to communicate through a single, centralised hub, eliminating the need to contact each solution provider individually, consistently saving a significant amount of time.
Sid confidently states that, Rezcontrol and SiteMinder’s combined solution has dramatically improved efficiency for Brakspear and tasks that once took hours are now completed in minutes thanks to automation. “For example, setting up a wedding promotion code used to be a lengthy manual process, but it now takes me just 30 seconds,” said Sid. “Automation has reduced the administrative burden, allowing myself and the team to focus on higher-level tasks, such as strategic planning and guest service. I also carry out a monthly review and take care of any exception reporting – much of it essentially runs itself!” Sid also notes the quality of the support they receive. “Onboarding was exceptionally smooth and the support team, if I do need them, are excellent.”
Maximising revenue through dynamic pricing and seamless distribution
“Dynamic pricing means rooms are always sold at the best possible rates.”
SiteMinder provides extensive insights and reporting capabilities that has been key for Brakespears strategy. SiteMinder’s platform have helped ensure that rooms are sold at the best possible rates through dynamic pricing, and that availability is always up-to-date across all channels. While they continue to rely on OTAs like Booking.com, the system has improved overall control and efficiency in managing these relationships. “Managing distribution is much more effective. Availability and pricing are automatically updated across all channels, preventing double bookings or discrepancies between platforms.” Sid explains.
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Embracing innovation with ease
“With training and support, staff now realise how much easier it is to work with intelligent user-friendly technologies.”
Change always involves some level of complexity, and resistance – with the upgrade to Rezcontrol and the integration with SiteMinder this was no exception. Honeycomb Houses do not have dedicated receptionists, so it was imperative that Sid could ensure a seamless off-site reservation process to alleviate pressure on the on-site team. “We did encounter some initial resistance,” said Sid, “particularly from staff who were unfamiliar with technology generally! However, one of the cornerstones of my role is to provide on-site training and hands-on support, especially during the transition, which helped ease any concerns. Now it is fully embedded, they rarely have to call me!” Staff rapidly became more confident, also realising how the new systems reduced their workload while improving accuracy, and created more time for them to spend with their guests.
Sid explains “Eliminating manual processes and the efficiency of systems like Rezcontrol and SiteMinder allow me to work more effectively, freeing up time for other important tasks, In today’s market, embracing automated technology is imperative, and we have finally found the combination that works for us. The benefits of these modern systems are evident in our day-to-day operations.”
Achieving new milestones of success
So, can Brakspear see quantifiable results from the implementation of Rezcontrol and SiteMinder? Using the combined solution with SiteMinder and Rezcontrol has undoubtedly improved productivity and reduced operational costs for Brakspear.
“The return on investment is clear – without the new technology, we wouldn’t be selling rooms as effectively or achieving the occupancy levels we are seeing, while we have increased productivity and reduced operational costs”
Sid didn’t hesitate when asked what guidance he’d offer to fellow hoteliers who are looking to achieve similar results, “I strongly recommend all hoteliers to invest in a reliable Property Management System (PMS) and distribution platform. After working with both Rezcontrol and SiteMinder separately for many years, I see them as the best solutions in the market. In today’s industry, manual management of bookings is no longer feasible. The integration of these two constantly innovating products has brought significant improvements to our operations at Brakspear, streamlining tasks and ensuring smooth business processes. We live in an automated world, so automated hotel tech is essential.”
Sid Kostromin
Bedrooms support | Honeycomb Houses | Brakspear