As Europe’s leading multi-brand hotel cooperative group, SEH United Hoteliers is embarking on a digital transition to better meet clients’ needs and offer a unique experience in its 600 hotels.
Having embraced the deep-set changes currently shaking up the hospitality industry, the Group decided to revolutionise its practices in a very different way to the techniques currently used by other hospitality and travel professionals: working in total synergy and partnership with the Group’s independent hotel members.
This three-year transformation plan aims to simplify tools, improve everyday management efficiency and develop a loyalty scheme that rewards and acknowledges clients. The plan also aims to boost the number of hotel members from 600 to over 1,000.
Six working groups were set up and have produced six ambitious programmes that have been launched and designed for and by hotels. They were developed based on hotels’ on-the-ground experience and observations, drawing on how establishments have seen their clients’ demands and needs change on a daily basis.
In concrete terms, the six programmes focus on:
- Prioritising mobile: Consolidate SEH’s mobile presence, using mobile technology for bookings and all other aspects of the client experience (before, during and after a stay).
- Putting clients at the heart of hospitality: Getting to know clients better in order to provide better services, with improved data and behavioural analysis resulting in targeted, personalised solutions.
- ÊImproving the client journey: Going digital with the loyalty card, payment and bookings. – Transparency with owners and members: Setting up an internal platform that meets the needs of all involved, complete with daily reports.
- Overhauling IT structures: Agile development that gives our hotels new services.
- MICE and B-to-B: Because B-to-B business has to be included in the Group’s development and change strategy. This programme targets meeting/seminar bookings and other B-to-B services exclusively carried out online.
Pushing things ever further - For support in setting up and rolling out its new online procurement platform in Europe, SEH chose to work with Perfect¨ Commerce, a market leader in SRM on-demand solutions and Hub Mondial TBNtm operator (The Business Networksm). This initiative will enable SEH United Hoteliers’ procurement department to offer new digital services to its hotels and the entire independent hotel community. Setting up this hotel and catering procurement marketplace will be a 100% digital process rolled into a single order. A 100% transparent service designed for and by hotels.
SEH United Hoteliers chose to work with world leader TravelClick to provide its hotels with connectivity featuring over 400 channels, a high-performing online booking tool and a one-of-a-kind loyalty scheme. The solutions are also open to any other independent hotels interested in a full range of digital services complete with contemporary distribution solutions. Our commitment: making life easier for hotels via a single digital platform that brings together all the tools needed to efficiently run a hotel.
SEH United Hoteliers plans on shifting its loyalty scheme towards an Instant Reward model. No more catalogues and points to handle. Instead, instant rewards offered by each hotel during a stay (experiences or automatic discounts on the price of the client’s stay).The programme will be managed online.
“Combining the digital with the human is crucial for a group like SEH United Hoteliers, a collective made up of independent hotels that are all different yet all share the same solid rooting in a local and regional context, with a deeply embedded tradition of hospitality. This transition must reflect our Group’s message and philosophy: buying a hotel room for a night is buying an experience. Personalisation is key. It’s what makes us stand out from the rest and is what we do best on a daily basis,” explains David Esseryk, Digital and Marketing Director at SEH United Hoteliers.
For more information go to www.en.seh-hotels.com
