How a Design Hotels Property Increased Revenue, Efficiency
Rosas y Xocolate Boutique Hotel and Spa, a Design Hotels property and Historic Hotels Worldwide member, is made up of two exquisite, restored, French-style mansions on Paseo Montejo, in the heart of Mérida, Mexico. As a boutique, 17-room luxury hotel outside of a main tourist city, the property relies on a relatively small number of staff members to provide a high level of service to its guests. Ensuring that the team at Rosas y Xocolate can operate efficiently with limited resources was one of the main reasons that Sales & Reservations Manager for the hotel, Christian F. Ix-Caamal, chose to look for new technology solutions that could improve and streamline operations at the property.
“As a small property, we’re always looking for ways to do more for our guests without having to increase the number of staff,” says Ix-Caamal. “Our team does a great job of providing our guests with a wonderful experience when they’re at the property, but we can’t be everywhere all at once. We knew there had to be technology solutions available that could help us work more efficiently and continue to provide a high level of service,” he continues. “A contactless or mobile check-in solution was what we really needed.”
More Personality, Less Paperwork
Though the Rosas y Xocolate hotel is a part of Design Hotels and therefore owned by Marriott, Ix-Caamal said it was entirely up to him and his team as to what technology solutions they want to deploy. “When it comes to technology, we have the freedom to work with whatever solutions we feel are best,” he says.
After evaluating a few of the top contactless check-in solutions for hotels, it became clear to Ix-Caamal and his team that Canary Technologies provided the best way to reduce administrative work at the front desk and free up staff to simply focus on providing an incredible in-stay experience.
“Seeing that other hotels using Canary were able to improve staff efficiency by 35-40% is really what sold it for me,” says Ix-Caamal. “If we were able to save 35% of the time we currently spend going through arrival paperwork and other administrative processes with guests at the front desk, that would be tremendous and meaningfully free us up to provide other services.”
Within a few weeks of launching Canary at the property, Ix-Caamal reported similar results to those he had seen highlighted by other luxury properties on the platform. “We also saw about a 35% increase in staff efficiency. It’s really nice to have a tool provide the exact value you expected it to, and Canary does just that. And guests love it.”
Adding Upsells To Increase Revenue
Shortly after implementing Contactless Check-In, there was another Canary solution that caught Ix-Caamal’s eye — Dynamic Upsells.
“At Rosas y Xocolate, we’re constantly searching for ways to sell more and increase our hotel’s revenue,” he says. “When I saw Canary’s Upsells solution for the first time, I knew right away that we could use it to immediately drive more revenue.”
Ix-Caamal points out that guests often arrive at the Rosas y Xocolate Hotel earlier than the standard check-in time. In the past, hotel staff would simply try to accommodate guests as best as they could and did not charge a fee for early check-ins. Upon seeing Canary’s Upsells solution, Ix-Caamal realized he could offer options for early check-in and late checkout to guests before they ever set foot on the property.
“Canary makes it very easy to offer these options to our guests before they arrive at Rosas y Xocolate,” says Ix-Caamal. “And since we now know in advance which guests will want to check-in early, we can ensure rooms are ready to go when a guest gets here.”
He continues, “We saw a lot of early check-in and late checkout sales very quickly. And it wasn’t long before we started adding other upsell options to our menu such as massages, bottles of wine and more. The owner of the hotel also has three restaurants around the city, so we’ve been pushing these dining options through the Upsells solution as well.”
Ix-Caamal says that since adding Dynamic Upsells to its technology stack Rosas y Xocolate has driven thousands of dollars in new ancillary revenue without the need for staff to do any selling themselves.