Paramount Group Case Study

Tuesday 13 November 2007

Paramount Group of Hotels is a collection of 20 four-star hotels across the UK. The group includes the prestigious Lygon Arms in Broadway, the Paramount Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh and the Paramount Majestic Hotel in Harrogate. Now part of Barceló Hotels & Resorts, one of the world’s top 30 largest hotel groups, Paramount has ambitious plans to expand within the UK over the next few years and further develop its award-winning and innovative approach to online customer acquisition.

Paramount Group of Hotels has been using Protel PMS from Xn Hotels in a multi-property environment since 2002. The group recently built upon these foundations by completing a 9-month project with Xn Hotels to implement 2-way integration from Protel to multiple distribution channels, using Xn globalRES, the company’s next generation seamless connectivity solution.

Key objectives for the project included:

• Implement and certify a private “PM” Chain Code to all 4 GDS’
• End-to-End Integration from Hotel to Channel
      o Eliminate Manual Update of Rates
      o Eliminate Manual Input of Bookings
• Total Redesign of Web Booking Engine
• Integration of key third party web sites
      o Expedia.com
      o Booking.com
      o Others to follow
• Reduce Costs
• Achieve Greater control
• Increase Volumes through all Channels
• Drive Revenue Growth

The first phase of the project incorporated GDS connectivity and the launch of the Xn globalRES Web Booking System on paramount-hotels.co.uk. Completion of this phase was completed on schedule and within budget in August 2007. Early indicators are extremely encouraging across all channels:

• 8% increase in GDS revenues
• 3% increase in GDS Room Nights
• £3.43 increase in GDS Average Room Rate
• Up to 116% increase in revenues through the Paramount Web Booking Engine
• Look-to-book ratio increased from less than 1% to greater than 2%

Sally Holme, Distribution Manager for Paramount Group of Hotels commented “Like most hotel chains, we are trying to eliminate the many stages of manual intervention we have with our reservation handling process. The work completed with Xn globalRES will really help. We are able to guarantee rate parity, have seamless availability for our customers as well as reduce the workload in our reservations offices.”