Background
PS91 hospitality is a group of four charming pub hotels in the Cotswolds, spreading over the Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire borders. They were acquired by owner/director Jacqui Bartels and her husband Adrian in 2024, when the couple purchased these properties which had all been part of a larger group they previously managed.
The group is made up of their flagship hotel The Bull in Fairford, a market square property with 22 bedrooms; and The Rose and Crown in Ashbury, The Coach and Horses in Chiselhampton and The Eliot Arms in South Cerney, which each have nine bedrooms.
The name PS91 stands for both Personal Style, as well as Passionate Service. As a family steeped in hospitality tradition, Jacqui and Adrian are equally dedicated to serving their local communities (a proportion of profits is awarded to local charities and two of their pubs now have community choirs), and to developing hospitality staff.
The Bartels have an unwavering commitment to their teams, offering a complete training programme including apprenticeships and NVQs, open to all of their 103 team members spread across the four properties, as well as an in-depth induction.
Their core values are FAMILY – Foundation, Accountability, Mentorship, Integrity, Leadership, and finally ‘YES’ – to which they attribute their success.
The problem
“Other systems were clunkier and harder to use"
While Jacqui herself had previous experience of Avondata’s server-based system, Hotel Executive, on acquisition the properties in the group used another system which were harder to navigate and clunkier to use, with poor levels of customer support.
“We always had an excellent relationship with Hotel Executive, as well as having been frustrated by the system we inherited,” explained Jacqui. “When we took over the properties which went on to form PS91, we immediately saw the benefits of Rezcontrol, which would take our PMS into the cloud and streamline all our processes.”
The solution
“The system is so easy to use and saves us hours of admin"
PS91s motto is ‘one plate at a time’, with a focus on individual customer service, and to this end the automations offered by Rezcontrol have helped the teams to streamline their offering, saving hours of admin and the potential for error, in areas such as email confirmations, HR rota planning, billing and financial processes.
“Our goal is to use automation to help staff serve our customers better,” explained Jacqui. “Automation isn’t an end in itself – we use it strategically to enable our teams to be their best.”
“We chose Rezcontrol for our shared values. Meanwhile, the system saves us hours of admin through its automations”
Most of all, however, it is in the alignment of values and the service Rezcontrol provides that Jacqui sees the most benefit.
The benefits of Rezcontrol
“Rezcontrol’s service and support are amazing - migration and onboarding were incredibly smooth”
“Your team is just fantastic – it really helps that many of them have worked in hospitality themselves,” she said. “The onboarding process was incredibly smooth – all our bookings migrated without a hitch. Iwona and Lauren were amazing with the migration and things like setting up rates, while Stuart really helped with setting up our financial systems in Xero. Nathan, our account manager, has been invaluable – because he’s done their jobs himself, he knows how to explain things to our teams.”
The team at PS91 have found that the fusion of Rezcontrol’s platform features and functionality, with its intuitive ease of use and carefully chosen integrations, is a winning combination.
“Our staff tend to pick the system up really quickly,” said Jacqui, “which is ideal when we are training people, as we can both have confidence in them and give them the confidence to know they are doing their jobs well.”
Features and integrations – working seamlessly together
PS91 uses a fair number of integrations, and loves the fact that they are all managed by Rezcontrol, so the teams never have to set up tickets with other providers which may take a long time to get resolved.
“We rely on Resdiary for table bookings, RotaReady for staffing, SiteMinder for visibility and Rezcontrol’s POS and payment services. It is all completely seamless – and if there is a problem, one of the team is on the case,” said Jacqui.
“Most of all, however, it is this sense of a shared journey which makes it such a positive partnership. Rezcontrol’s holistic nature really helps us to realise our vision – and now we have implemented the system throughout our properties, we can work on Phase 2 which is integrating all four sites into one brand – at which point we will also make more use of the group dashboard!”