Herman Hotel Pattaya

As Valentina evaluated the operations of different departments, she quickly realized that a technology implementation was needed. Valentina’s friend introduced her to Cloudbeds, and she was quickly impressed by the cloud technology that allowed users to log in to the system from anywhere.

The hotel was previously running on a technology named Comanche. Valentina “felt like I was coding when working with this system. It was just so outdated.” Beyond the complexity, she manually updated rates across ten different OTAs daily.

Payments were also an issue. The front desk had to take a cash deposit, and if the guests lost the deposit slip, they wouldn’t get their money back. The hotel management had difficulties tracking cash flow and encountered several misconducts by some front desk staff.

When the Hermann Hotel reopened its doors after lockdown, it needed to hire new staff. With the help of Cloudbeds University and Cloudbeds’ easy-to-use interface, the team quickly learned the system. The hotel currently employs five front office staff and three housekeeping staff. The hotel is open at 30% capacity and plans to hire more staff, so training is critical to its operational efficiency.

“Training is very straightforward. I was relieved that our staff could learn the system quickly and are very happy with the new system.”

With Cloudbeds’ fully integrated channel manager, Valentina can reduce her time on updating rate and rate plans across OTAs. She estimates that this has decreased from one hour to 10 minutes per day, saving close to six hours per week.

The Cloudbeds platform has allowed her to operate with a leaner staff. Previously, they had to hire and pay five accountants to handle reporting. She has cut costs and now works with just one accountant due to Cloudbeds’ robust reporting.

From her experience with the sales process to the day-to-day support, Valentina gives very high marks to everyone at Cloudbeds. She notes that “it feels like Cloudbeds cares about me. The support has felt very personalized.”

The staff at Hermann Hotel can get quick responses when needed.

“Live chat has been excellent! I no longer have to wait on emails when I have a question,” says Valentina.

Valentina and her staff have dedicated the past six months to optimizing the hotel’s operations. They will continue to open up rooms and hire additional staff to support increased demand. They plan to focus on their marketing efforts, drive more direct bookings, and become less reliant on OTAs. “Tourism is starting to pick up slowly. I’m happy. I’m an optimist,” says Valentina with a smile.