Background
This magnificent, baronial castle hotel on the south side of Glasgow offers 18 luxury bedrooms, two bars, a restaurant and four event spaces that cater for up to 200 people. Sherbrooke Castle Hotel welcomes both business and leisure guests, especially those touring Scotland from the UK and US, and makes a stunning wedding venue.
The castle was conceived as a baronial villa by a respected contractor in the late Victorian era; became a hotel just before World War II, and was used as a radar training centre during the war before returning to life as a hotel in 1945.
“We really focus on quality, and our standing as the only castle-type hotel in the area drives a lot of business,” explained Stuart McIntyre, the hotel’s Finance Manager. “We host around 90 weddings a year, as well as numerous wakes and conferences, so we needed a PMS which was renowned for managing events requirements alongside our regular guests – events bring in a major part of our revenue.”
The problem
“We needed a system which could handle multiple events”
“We’ve actually been with Avondata for almost 20 years,” said Stuart. “I started out at Sherbrooke Castle around 17 years ago, and introduced Hotel Executive after looking at a few systems – when I joined, the hotel still did bookings on paper!
“I then left, came back, and promptly chose Rezcontrol, as it was clear it was going to be the optimum solution for us, being ideal for both a bespoke destination of our size and scope of operations, with under 20 bedrooms, but also a major event provider.
“We went live in spring 2023. Onboarding was very smooth, and tech support responds almost instantaneously, so our experience has been incredibly positive from the off.”
The solution
“Rezcontrol provided the cloud-based access we needed"
Sherbrooke Castle was ready to move to the cloud when Rezcontrol replaced Hotel Executive, Avondata’s server-based PMS. “I’m often off-site, so I love the fact that I can access the system anywhere, from my phone or tablet, and use the planner and other features,” said Stuart.
“Like many hotels, we were worried about needing to rely on an internet connection for a cloud-based service, but in fact it has never been an issue – especially as we can also use our phones when needed.”
“It’s also great not having to store data on a server. We love the fact that the automatic updates simply happen behind the scenes; we don’t have to do back-ups, and Rezcontrol is always improving.”
The benefits of Rezcontrol
"Rezcontrol does everything we need, with great support"
As long-time Avondata customers, Sherbrooke Castle still shopped around and took advice before migrating to Rezcontrol, but were quickly convinced that it would be the right system for the hotel.
“We soon realised Rezcontrol would do everything we need, especially helping us to manage events alongside our regular guests. And the tech support is so much better than you find with other systems.”
“The functionality is great and it’s so easy to learn and use,” explained Stuart. “It ticks all our boxes, and that, combined with the excellent service and overall value for money – it’s in the right price range for a hotel of our size – made it a natural choice.”
Sherbrooke Castle especially rates the planner, which they find especially intuitive, and the fact that it is customisable by the user is especially useful.
“The group bookings and events features are really sophisticated and save hours of admin”
“We also get a lot of group bookings, and this feature has seen some amazing enhancements,” said Stuart. “Now we can create a ‘group master’ with tariffs routed to the primary room in the group, while also creating allocations to different rooms in the group – it saves hours and avoids the potential for making mistakes with complex calculations as it is all automated now.”
Sherbrooke Castle also makes good use of Rezcontrol’s hotel-branded email engagement automations, and find the templates ensure the hotel’s communications always look professional. But most of all, they make extensive use of the event management system.
“With the numbers of events we host, Rezcontrol’s event management suite is perfect for logging all the details of a function, as well as deposits and payment plans,” said Stuart. “Again, this saves vast amounts of time and ensures accuracy.”
Real-time connectivity and derived rates in SiteMinder
The hotel is also very happy with the range of integrations on offer. “We particularly enjoy using SiteMinder,” said Stuart. “The rate plans can be set up on Rezcontrol to feed into SiteMinder, which means we can apply derived rates without having to enter them all manually – it’s really helpful and another great time-saver.”
Sherbrooke Castle also values the real-time connectivity to SiteMinder. “For example, if someone cancels a group booking of five rooms for next Friday, we used to have to go in and cancel them manually, and if one got forgotten, that could prove an expensive mistake,” explained Stuart. “Now it all updates automatically, releasing those rooms for rebooking.”
Resdiary is another integration which scores highly with the hotel. “Because Resdiary links directly to both POS and PMS, the guest can make one booking for both room and table, and receive one confirmation, which again saves five to ten minutes per booking – it all adds real value,” said Stuart. “And because they are connected, a cancelled room will also cancel the related table.”
Next steps for the hotel include making more use of Rezcontrol’s gift voucher system, and extending their use of the email automations to include pre-arrival and post-departure, for better guest engagement.
Technical issues resolved within an hour
“Overall it is just the best system for us,” said Stuart, “and made all the better by the fact that Rezcontrol’s customer service and tech support are so good.”
“If we ever do have an issue, there is always someone there at the end of the phone, and the problem is usually resolved within an hour.”