Background
The Victoria Square Hotel at the heart of Bristol’s prestigious Clifton Village is an imposing Georgian property with 41 bedrooms, which frequently welcomes family groups for University graduations.
The hotel ran Avondata’s server-based system, Hotel Executive, for many years, and migrated to Rezcontrol at the start of 2024 as they wanted to modernise and update, and benefit from the advantages of a cloud-based PMS.
When Hotel Executive was due to be retired, the Victoria Square team investigated several PMS options and chose Avondata’s cloud-based replacement, Rezcontrol.
The problem
"We wanted a user-friendly, navigable system"
“We were looking for a user-friendly, more navigable system which would also be able to help us with group bookings, room rate changes and guest history reporting, which wasn’t as easy under the old system,” explained Elena Pecchenino, the hotel’s Assistant General Manager.
“We were anxious about migration – in the past I have found myself manually inputting reservations after moving systems – but this went extremely smoothly,” said John McKitterick, General Manager.
The solution
“It's much easier to access everything now"
Once installed, Victoria Square have found it much easier to use than the previous system, and especially appreciate the clear, colour-coded planner and customisable dashboards. “It’s much easier to navigate and get to what we need to do,” said Elena. “And it’s far quicker and simpler to apply rate changes as well.”
“Migration went so smoothly, and now we can adjust our rates more easily, and access everything from the main dashboard”
Areas like rate management, group reservations and record keeping have made a real difference to the Victoria Square team. They make use of our guest engagement tools for booking confirmations, but also access guest preferences from their reports, and use these when creating offers for returning guests.
The benefits of Rezcontrol
“It’s far easier to apply rate changes and access reports”
“We use SiteMinder for channel management and are connected to several other distribution channels,” said Elena, “which makes sure we are visible, especially at key times such as graduation when this area is extremely busy, as we are so close to the University of Bristol. This is also where the more intuitive rate management is useful, as we can be sure to be offering optimised pricing at key times.”
“The group booking system helps block off group reservations well in advance – and support is amazing!”
At graduation times – which happen three times a year – the Rezcontrol group booking system also makes reservation management easier, enabling the hotel to set aside block bookings well in advance. “Many of these bookings come direct via the booking engine,” said Elena, “which also reduces the commissions payable to online distribution channels.”
Above all, Victoria Square really rate the technical support they receive from Rezcontrol. “If we need to speak to someone, there is always a human being at the end of the phone ready to help,” said Elena.