Challenges
Familux Resorts is one of the leading family hotel groups in the German-speaking region. The hotel group is comprised of three hotels: the Leading Family Hotel & Resort Alpenrose, the Kinderhotel Oberjoch and the Leading Family Hotel & Resort Dachsteinkönig. When launching the Dachsteinkönig, the Mayer family set new standards; not only was it the largest Austrian hotel construction project in 2016, it also had one of the most innovative concepts.
However, it was precisely this innovative approach that led to various challenges. This family of hoteliers wanted a knowledge management and communications concept which worked seamlessly in all their hotels. They specifically needed a way to manage challenges inherent between generations as well as coordinating the opening of a new hotel.
We are all really happy to use hotelkit, as it’s modern and really easy!
Implementation & pre-opening
The hotelkit launch kicked off in summer 2013 with a training session for all the members of the involved family, as well as the hotel directors of the Hotel Alpenrose and Hotel Oberjoch. The training was then gradually rolled out to other hotel employees.
During the first two months of implementation, there was no shortage of work for hotelkit’s functions, with around 660 activities being logged in the Hotel Oberjoch, and around 1,250 in the Hotel Alpenrose. When the Hotel Dachsteinkönig was added to the hotelkit network during its prepening phase in 2016, the new hotel’s usage in the first 2 months broke the record, with around 3,100 activities being logged. This directly reflects the large range of hotelkit functions available, as well as the hotel employees’ increasing familiarity with hotelkit.
For the pre-opening, a separate diary was created in the handbook, where detailed information and a list of all tasks were available to all employees at all times – advertising texts, timetables, floor plans of the individual rooms, a glossary and much more. During the construction and opening phases, hotelkit fulfilled two purposes simultaneously: firstly, it was the information hub enabling the smooth launch of the new hotel, and secondly, it was a means of communication internally and between hotels. Even before the hotel opened, hotelkit was part of the daily operations – 550 deadlines were set and an average 60 activities were logged per day.
Results
The goals set by the Mayer family were successfully achieved. Inter-hotel communications were successfully implemented, and the opening of the Dachsteinkönig went off without a hitch. The network has now collected around 200 ideas from 48 different employees. This translates to a new idea every six days. Over half of all these ideas have already been implemented, and all employees can see the results, as they are visibly documented in hotelkit.
According to Florian Mayer, Managing Director of Hotel Dachsteinkönig, hotelkit provides innovative internal communications opportunities for all three hotels. “Thanks to the hotelkit app, we are able to track events spontaneously from any location, and assign tasks, repairs and/or feedback directly, complete with smartphone photos,” he says enthusiastically.
Thanks to hotelkit, we were able to optimise communications between the 3 hotels in an innovative way.
Andreas Fischer, Assistant Manager at Hotel Alpenrose, adds: “The great advantage of hotelkit for us is that we collect and share information and workflows from all departments in all 3 hotels, so we are able to learn from each other. We managed to create a perfect basis for new hotel projects like the Dachsteinkönig”
In total, the three hotels currently have around 1,000 articles stored in the handbook. This excellent foundation is being actively used and improved, so far each article has been reworked an average of eleven times.
In addition, each hotel operates with eight different calendars. hotelkit runs the entire weekly program, as well as managing holidays, birthdays and anniversaries through the various calendars.
About the author
Julia Stiefsohn
Enjoys giving websites an attractive look, this blog also bears her creative handwriting, at least in part. Speaking of handwriting: every now and then, when she’s in the flow, she also writes.
