At the new Hotel Buddy in Munich, guests can manage everything, including booking a room, checking in and out, and paying, from a mobile device.
The brainchild of a Munich hotelier, Johannes Eckelmann, who already runs the Cocoon Hotel brand, Hotel Buddy at Stachus Square is a new concept, low-budget hotel that is completely staffless. It’s made possible largely thanks to the cloud-based hotel management platform from hetras.
“The benefits for guests are pretty obvious,” explains Eckelmann. “That is, they are staying in a modern, brand-new hotel right in the heart of Munich, and at an unbeatable and affordable price.”
The seventy-five hotel rooms are located inside a large office complex and distributed over several floors. Guests can check in early, even days in advance, and they just need to sign their name on the pad at the kiosk upon arrival. This signature is then saved together with their reservation. Once signed in, guests collect their key card from a machine. This code-based key card will then automatically transport them by elevator to the correct floor.
All of the technology behind these staffless systems – online booking, online payment, early check-in or kiosk-based check-in at the hotel, the interfaces to process guests’ credit cards and create key cards, the automatic check-out technology, not to mention the system for managing car parking spaces – is controlled with hetras hotel software.
“This technology is a perfect fit for the demands of young target groups that are used to organizing their travel on mobile devices and online,” explains Tanja Baier, hetras sales manager. “Just as urban travelers today just check in online for flights, they would also much rather be able to check into hotels the same way – quickly, without any fuss and without having to stand in a queue.”
As Eckelmann further explains, “One of the many advantages of using a cloud-based platform is that there is no need to invest in any hardware. All data are automatically saved and always available to hotel staff, no matter where they are.”
This centralized access to data means that jobs like distribution and revenue management, which are keys to success, can also be centralized. For this reason, Eckelmann’s two Cocoon Hotels at Stachus Square and Sendlinger Tor will now also be switched to the cloud-based hotel management software from hetras.
