Trianon Bonita Bay Saves Hours Each Week With a Faster, More User-Friendly PMS

The Challenge: Moving Beyond a Legacy PMS

For years, Trianon Bonita Bay’s legacy PMS had served the hotel well. But as the platform evolved and moved to the cloud, the experience became increasingly cumbersome.

The property was also required to move to the provider’s payment processing solution, limiting the hotel’s flexibility and locking it into a three-year contract. Once that contract came to an end, the team was ready to reconsider its options.

“We had interviewed Stayntouch before, so we knew about it,” Robertshaw said. “We understood that it was built for the type of platform we wanted to move to, and it was way easier to use and more user-friendly than our old PMS.”

Payments were also an important factor in the decision. Of the PMS providers the hotel evaluated, Robertshaw said Stayntouch offered the most competitive payment fees they encountered, along with greater transparency into what they were paying.

“With Stayntouch, we could see everything,” she said. “With some of the other options, there were a lot of hidden fees. You really had to know what you were looking for to understand what you were being charged.”

The hotel ultimately selected Stayntouch PMS and Stayntouch Pay, with plans to take advantage of additional capabilities such as mobile check-in as the property continues to evolve its guest experience.

The Solution: A Smooth Transition for a Long-Tenured Team

With employees who had spent years, and in some cases decades, using the same PMS, Robertshaw expected the transition to require significant adjustment.

Instead, the team picked it up quickly.

“It’s very user-friendly. They didn’t have any problems at all,” Robertshaw said. “They were shown how everything worked, and they were working in it within that day. I was very surprised that it went so smoothly.”

Throughout implementation, the Stayntouch team held weekly calls with Trianon Bonita Bay, answered questions quickly, and adjusted when the property needed additional support.

When Robertshaw realized shortly before go-live that she had expected an onsite team member for the transition, Stayntouch quickly arranged it.

“They made it happen very easily,” she said. “If there was something I missed or they missed, they reacted very quickly. Everything was taken care of. I never felt like I wasn’t being taken care of.”

That responsiveness continued after launch as the hotel moved into its transition period and the team became more comfortable with the new platform.

The Results: Less Manual Work and Hours Back Each Week

Group bookings without the workarounds

For Robertshaw, one of the biggest improvements has been managing group business.

With the hotel’s previous PMS, group reservations required a manual workaround to allow guests to book online with a group code. Robertshaw had developed a process that worked, but it required extra steps and ongoing effort.

With Stayntouch, she can create the group and have the information flow into the hotel’s connected systems without recreating the work elsewhere.

“I did it the new way and then it went right into our channel manager,” she said. “I was like, ‘What? This is wonderful.’ Before, I had to do a workaround to make it work with our system, and it was a lot of work.”

Today, she describes the entire group process as more seamless, from entering guest names and reservation information to managing the booking itself.

“It’s way, way more seamless,” she said. “It’s just user-friendly.”

A couple of hours saved every week

Those easier workflows are adding up.

Robertshaw estimates that between group management, reporting, and other day-to-day tasks, Stayntouch is already saving her a couple of hours each week, and she expects those savings to grow as she becomes even more familiar with the system.

Reporting has also been easier than she anticipated.

“I thought the reports were not going to be as good because I was so used to what I was used to,” she said. “But they’ve been very usable and easy to work with and change.”

Reservations arriving in minutes, not hours

The hotel has also seen a dramatic improvement in how quickly online reservations reach the PMS.

With the previous system, Robertshaw said reservations coming through online channels could sometimes take two to three hours to appear. That lag created challenges for front desk employees when a guest booked online and arrived at the hotel before the reservation had reached the system.

With Stayntouch, she said those reservations are now typically arriving in about five minutes.

“We used to have lag times of maybe two to three hours,” she said. “We haven’t had that at all. It’s like five minutes.”

For a busy front desk, that means less waiting, fewer manual workarounds, and a cleaner reservation process on the back end.

“If You’re Thinking About It, Just Do It.”

Looking back, Robertshaw’s only regret is that Trianon Bonita Bay did not make the move sooner.

When the hotel’s previous provider first gave the property a short window to migrate to its new platform, the team chose to remain with the familiar system rather than take on a PMS change right before its busy season.

After experiencing the transition to Stayntouch, Robertshaw says she would make a different decision today.

“I really wish, looking back, that we would have done it then,” she said. “I think it would have been the right choice.”

Her advice to another hotel considering a PMS change is straightforward:

“If you’re thinking about it, just do it, because it’s going to make your life so much easier.”