December 9, 2024 • 22 mins
How can a hotel brand leverage technology to enhance guest experience while maintaining a personal touch? In this episode, Stuart Godwin, Managing Director of Lamington Group, reveals the innovative strategies that have helped his company achieve over 50% direct bookings.
Key Takeaways:
- Discover how Lamington Group's unique Room 2 product combines the best features of serviced apartments, Airbnb, and traditional hotels to cater to a diverse range of guests.
- Learn about the importance of a user-friendly booking engine and how it can significantly reduce friction in the booking process, encouraging direct bookings over OTAs.
- Explore the newly launched Hometown Club loyalty program, designed to drive brand loyalty and enhance guest engagement through instant rewards and personalized perks.
Don’t miss out on future episodes filled with expert insights—subscribe today and share this episode with fellow hoteliers looking to elevate their technology game.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sometimes you can be on some websites and just get
frustrated. I wanna book directwith you guys, but you're making
me put in just too much detailson, like, page refresh, and
you've now dropped off all myinformation up in there. I'm
just gonna move on to the OTA.So you've gotta make those
things as easy as possible.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
On today's episode, we're talking with Stuart
Godwin, the Managing Director ofLamington Group. Stuart shares
some strategies his team hasimplemented to generate over 50%
of their bookings direct,including an exciting new
loyalty program and a userfriendly booking engine. If
you're curious about bringingtechnology into your hotel
(00:44):
without losing the personaltouch, you'll want to give this
one a listen. Thanks so much forjoining us, Stuart. Really great
to have you here on the podcast.
To get started, I would love tohear a bit about your company
and your role. If you could tellme about your group, properties
you oversee, and what your roleencompasses as well.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Great. Yeah. Very excited to be here. So my name's
Jake Gobin. I'm managingdirector of Lamington Group.
Lamington Group is a 60 year oldfamily business. We're based in
West London, Hammersmith. We'vesort of grown out of real estate
background and have moved intohospitality space in the last
sort of 20 years, growing out ofservice departments. So we have
a service department brandcalled Lamb Service Bumps. We
started that about 20 so 20years ago.
(01:30):
And then from that, we then grewour hometown products, so our
room 2 hotel product, which is asort of evolution from service
departments taking what we seeis that the best bits from
service departments, Airbnb, andhotels to make our room 2
product. And we have 3 fullhotels in Southampton, in
(01:53):
London, and in Northern Ireland,Belfast. And then we have a
guest service light smallerproduct with only 16 bedrooms
here in Hammersville as well. Sowe've got 5 main hotels at the
moment, totaling just short of400 keys. And we've got a
pipeline growing to 5,000 keysby 2030.
So really building ourselves forgrowth with the main thrust
(02:14):
being to our route 2 products.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Do you own the properties, or you work with an
ownership group and you justprovide the management?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So up until now, we've been previously owner
operator developer of all of oursites, except the Belfast, which
we're just the leaseholder onthat site. We own a couple more
sites, which we're we're in theground floor at the moment, and
we're working with otherlandlords in which to grow that
pipeline. So, yeah, we do thatfull life cycle, which gives us
a real advantage when it comesto really building products that
(02:43):
work for us and not happy toshoehorn ourselves into
buildings which don't quite workfor our product.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And are you focused on the UK market, or are you
looking to grow beyond that?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Predominantly, no, we're based in the UK. I think
there's potential opportunityfor our products in the UK. And
I think once we get up to a bitof a threshold, we can then
start looking further field. ButI think we need to get to a
certain threshold in the UKbefore we can operationally see
efficiencies or effectiveness ofactually moving. So then I think
that could be a bit of a vanityproject to keep out to our
country, so I think it can getquite expensive.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Tell me a bit about your typical guest. Is it mostly
corporate travelers or leisure?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah. To mention when I sort of said that there were 2
products. Well, the key facetsof that is where, effectively,
if you wanna go on a second, apark hotel, so that each each of
our bedrooms has its ownkitchenette there. Right? So
that underpinning the thefundamental aspect of our brand
is flexibility.
So the typical guest that we'llsee is can be anyone who's
looking to stay really morethan, like, 2 months. Right? I
(03:43):
guess the question is, at whatpoint are you uncomfortable
living out of a suitcase? And Ithink that would be different
for every person, but I think,normally, you see up, like, 2
days, you're probably startingto run out clean clothes, and
you might wanna use ourfacilities, like laundry
facilities, or you might wannacook in your own kitchen. Right?
Because if you're working withcolleagues, you might not wanna
eat out with them every morning.You might not wanna eat cook
(04:03):
food in the morning. You mightwanna run your own diet. Right?
So having that kitchen in yourroom really gives that
flexibility.
So you've got your corporateguests. You've got your leisure
guests who who, again, justwanna have that little bit more,
in a basic enhanced tea stationso they can sort of stay in,
cook their own food. But,equally, those leisure guests
don't actually know that we'vegot kitchens. They don't really
care about that because all ofour spaces are uniquely designed
to our our areas and that we'rebased in. So we pick up that
(04:26):
sort of leisure guest.
And then you've got, like, therelocation stuff, you know,
people who are deliberatelyrelocating to an area, and they
could be with us for any time ofthe month. So having that
kitchenette aspect of thebusiness really lends itself to
a really much wider segment orsegments to call from. It's not
just your typical one to 2 nightstay at the Etienne hotels.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So I would imagine your average length of stay is
probably quite a bit longer thana typical hotel. How long would
you say on average people arestaying with you?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's really seasonally dependent, and that
depends on our revenuemanagement strategy. Right? So,
like, typically, your leisureguests are gonna pay more than
your longer length of stays, soyou get discounts. So you'll see
in the summers, it will shortenright off to 2 to 3 nights. But
in the winter, you can see thatgoing, you know, 7 nights plus
if you get a big group in who,like, on project based.
So we ultimately can use that asa tool to our advantage to the
(05:18):
legacy piece.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Let's dive right into the technology piece. Tell me a
bit about your tech stack. Whatwould you say is the most
critical vendor that you'reusing right now?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah. So when it comes to tech stacks, you can
break those down into, like,different areas. And I think,
like, fundamental as, like,hotels, it's all about care
taking care of our guests. Butthen, of course, alongside that,
you've got, like, operations tomake sure your buildings aren't
falling apart. You've got stufffor your HR to make sure your
teams are where they wanna be,and and you've got building
management systems for, like,sustainability.
But, like, if we just lookpurely, like, fundamentally,
(05:50):
it's, you know, the guests arekeep it running. It's gotta be
our PMS. Right? Because it's asort of hub and spoke type
model. Everything comes back tothe PMS to work.
We are now fortunate to live ina time where everything's cloud
based, so everything can beconnected together. And that
(06:10):
then really means that using ourPMS, we use Muse. We then get to
trial and plug and play loads ofdifferent tools as we grow and
we marry in agile to our needschange. Using a tool like Muse
means that we can just plug andplay new stuff in. Right?
There's no, like, need to getsomeone on-site to onboarding.
(06:33):
It's all just so easy now. Sothat's why I'd say that the
message is the most criticalpiece of tools we use.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Have you used Muse for a while? Did it replace a
legacy system? And how did yougo about choosing Muse over a
different vendor?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
We've been with Muse since around 2018, and I think
we were, like, in that top 100first customers. And we came
about them because we were justlooking at launching our first
room 2 site 2018, and we werelooking at the PMS's that are
out there. And I can't rememberwhich one we were at the time,
but we were looking at 1, and itwas all about there was a
(07:10):
particular function that wewanted to do with it, something
through the kiosks at the time.And then we found out it wasn't
quite what they were selling us.And so we then went back back to
the table and started lookingaround, and then we recommend
that we use the type for theforward thinking cloud based
solution they have.
So it was sort of a little bitfortuitous that we arrived at
Muse, and we'd be with them,yeah, sometime now. And we've
sort of really grown and seentheir growth with it. And when I
(07:32):
came back into the familybusiness, I'd not been in
hotels. I'm a chance accountantby background. So I came in, and
I haven't seen a differentsystem before.
Right? So it's usually the onlything I know. And, you know, so
I I can't reflect and say, youknow, how it does. Definitely,
all I can say is is it certainlymakes our life pretty easy.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Talk me through the different integrations that
you're using. What othersoftware are you plugging into
Muse, and what do you use thoseother pieces for?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yes. I guess, let's start, essentially, then with,
like, let's sell a room. Right?So in order to sell a room, we
need our channel manager. Sowe're using SiteMinder for that
pretty standard, good kit, youknow, pretty much that.
Duetto, we're using for ourrevenue management. Good piece
of kit with AI technology inthere. Then we've got our GDS
platforms, hotel res, open GDS,to then sub through those. We're
(08:22):
using Salesforce as a managementtool by res team to be able to
wrap up and collate the quotesthat come in, which is a good
bit kit for ensuring we stay ontop of that ability to sell
stuff. Alongside that, like,customer journey pieces, we've
got HiJiffy's a new tool, whichwe've onboarded, I said, in the
last year, which is pretty cool.
Automated tool to particularly,it was be focused around helping
(08:45):
our reservations team up justdeal with routine tasks, geo
parking, what you have on-site.And these are all just things
that chatbots can answer. Sowe're seeing great automation
being used through that piece ofkit. That works as well because
that then helps with our inhouse comms. So we then use that
to we upgraded that.
We were using just simplyWhatsApp for our guests to
(09:08):
communicate with us, But youcouldn't track it, and you
couldn't really do an awful lotwith that. So the upgrade to
Hijipi was cool because now wecan send out blasts to the whole
hotel and say, look. Live musicjust starting the bar. Come down
and see us. So that really helpswith sort of communication.
And guests also feeling enabledthat they can catch us at all
times. Even though we have 24hour receptions, like, it's easy
(09:30):
if you can just do that.Obviously, we we don't have
phones in the hotel rooms, buteveryone holds a mobile device
in their pocket now. Right? Sowe don't need to install that
hardware in the hotels and makethose efficiencies.
We recently installed mobilelocks, Go key locks, which are
pretty cool. We singled thoseguys out on them because they
specifically have PIN code entryentry into the rooms, which I
(09:51):
for me, we use that in ourservice department because
that's where we don't need tosee our guests. They can get
straight to their rooms, unlikeour hotels where, you know, the
brand really leans in the ideathat we wanna be meeting our
guests so that they're reallybuilding a relationship once
that they stay. But in our salesdepartment, they the length of
stay there is it's a very longterm. It can be months.
In some cases, you know, years.So, actually, those guys just
(10:12):
wanna live like they're locals.And so, yeah, using PIN code
entry there will be a help tothat.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Going back to your tech stack, any highlights of
back of house software, likeaccounting or HR?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Are are
Speaker 3 (10:26):
those integrated with Muse as well?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They are not integrated with Muse. So back
out, we use hotelkit for, like,housekeeping operations, and
that's good for housekeeping,organizing housekeeping, and
then using it for logging anymaintenance issues. So that
centralizes that. So that workswell there. HR wise, doesn't
integrate with Muse.
(10:49):
We'd love it to integrate withMuse because so is Harry, and
it's it does all of ouronboarding. It does all of our
people management. And we'd likeit to create Muse because it
could then sort of work withforecasting staffing models, but
that's not there yet. But, yeah,they work well to just
streamline centralizing payrolland people management.
(11:14):
Historically, we've had thosein, like, several pieces of kit,
and you can have your teammembers before you know it, your
team have got to have their ownpersonal email addresses, you
know, 5 or 6 logins, you know,to do what they need to do.
To streamline that just makeseverything a lot easier.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Curious to hear if there's anything on the horizon
that you're planning toimplement or anything on your
wish list that you'd like toimplement, maybe with or without
Amius integration. Curious whatis in the future for you.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, not so much in the future, but what's the
current thing we're working onat the moment is our loyalty
program, and that's, of course,heavily integrated with Muse.
Bearing down until 2 years ago,we sort of decided that we
wanted to go down the route ofcreating of increasing our
loyalty, ultimately, with theend result of driving more
booked direct. Right? So we canhave that commercial impact to
(12:03):
the bottom line and also drivegreater brand awareness and
loyalty. So we see I startedabout 2 years ago, and that was
a big project for us and ourteam.
It really started with having toto move away and find a new
booking engine to better createa journey for our guests, which
reflected our brand and reducethe number of clicks and really
(12:26):
enhance that journey. And thenfrom there, we could then build
in login pages and areas for ourguests to interact more with our
brand. So we launched ourhometown club, months ago now,
and that's been reallysuccessful and cool for
engagement with our guests. It'swithin it, our guests can access
perks, which they couldn't dootherwise. So such as 24 hour
(12:50):
stays within our hotels.
So check-in at 2, check out at2. Maybe it's a free drink.
Maybe it's an upgradedbreakfast. We can tweak those
member perks and push differentthings in different seasons as
as it sort of fits the need ofthe business.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Is the member's program available to anyone who
stays at your property, or doyou need to book on your website
and go through your bookingengine?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yes. So you need to book through our website,
because, also, that's the bottomline of what we're gonna get to.
You're gonna get that directbooking with us. And, yeah, once
you go to that, you can sign upfor free. Right?
So with it, you get perks of,like, free at a 10% F and B
discount in our F and B outlets.You get a free stay on your
birthday, provided you stayresponsible. That's a cool perk,
but you gotta come with your IDthat's on the day of your
birthday. So anyone can put amember's free, and it's not a
(13:36):
point accumulating program.We're not big enough for that.
We get instant rewards, and,yeah, the inter rewards are the
discount codes to our productsuppliers and the discounts that
we can push and change as we go.But standard discounts sort of
standard perks will be mattressmenus. You can choose a soft
mattress or a firm mattress. Youcan choose to have a 24 hour
stay. And to say, you know, freemembers drink, you push your
(13:58):
breakfast discounts in there,free breakfast or free upgrades.
It becomes slightly versatiletool for us. And then it will
continue to develop and work forto enhance the customers'
journey through us to keepcommerce. And when we launch new
properties, of course, we canthen push exclusive discounts on
through that as well.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Can you share out some of the things that you're
doing to get so many directbookings already?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean, yeah, we do have a great product. And it's
not me telling you that. Like,we're the number 1 ranked hotel
in Triplebyte in Southampton.We're the number 2 ranked hotel
in Belfast. Like, it it is agreat product, and people do
really engage with the brand.
Because of it being a lifestyleproduct with the kitchens, it
does tend the people sort ofcome to pull up, and they then
go, oh, a Hong Kong Estate Boardcan get discounts. So I think,
(14:42):
like, that naturally lendsitself to that. I don't think
it's, like, secret sauce for it.And we see varying amounts from
different products and how longthey've been in the market for.
So, like, certainly, you launcha new product, like, you haven't
got that big percent that,wasn't it?
But as soon as you get yourcustom base in and, you know,
also means the corporates beinggood repeat bookers because our
product is unique. It's not atypical corporate hotel. People
(15:05):
can really genuinely feelrelaxed and have their stays
enhanced with us. So they comeback for it, and they tell their
colleagues, and we'll, ofcourse, look to give them a
corporate rate, and thatcorporate rate will then have
their own login to our websiteso that they can then see and
track their and have an ease ofbooking program through that. So
it's taking away those painpoints and making it as easy as
possible to get that bookeddirect and best prices direct.
(15:27):
You know? Like, you've gottareally fight against the OTAs
for that parity. That'll makethat difficult. So there is
something, I guess, on, like,hygiene issues to hygiene
factors of of being bookeddirect, and that's gonna be make
sure we parity having a greatproduct. And then it's behind
the scenes, it's making surethat it's as easy as possible
for someone to do it because theOTAs have just such great
(15:48):
platforms for booking.
Like, I know what it means. Soin terms of book direct, but
sometimes you can be on somewebsites and just get
frustrated. I wanna book directwith you guys, but you're making
me put in just too much detailson, like, page refresh, and
you've now dropped off all myinformation up in there. I'm
just gonna move on to the OTA.So you've gotta make those
things as easy as possible.
And I guess that's part of whatwe do with the booking engine.
(16:09):
There are lots of little stepsalong the way.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, shifting gears a little bit, you mentioned
growth is a big priority for thecompany right now. Can you talk
to me a bit about your biggestbusiness objectives right now
and how technology fits intothose goals?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah. So we know that we'll have proxies launching in
time. One of the ones for sureis, like, building that
blueprint of, like, what itlooks like for us to operate
multiple just blueprint whatwe've got now, the tech stack
we've got now, pick it up, andjust drop it down again so that
you don't have to start again.So making sure that we've got
that sort of pretty well tiedup. So we've got, like, a year
(16:46):
or so to really start to be,like, just, you know, kicking
the tires on what we've got andthe program, making sure it's
all slick as we can so that weknow that 3, 4, 5 months out, we
can then just start signing upone more site and just picking
it up and dropping it on.
So that's box ready to roll onto the next one. So I think
that's something which we'll belooking at in the next year to
pin those down for that futuredevelopment. I think, yeah,
(17:09):
developing that on hotel cluband that loyalty piece and
developing the brand throughthat is gonna be another one. It
helps them launch our futuresites when we drive that
membership program as well sothey can see it, they engage the
brand, and they they wanna comefor the weekend or they wanna
come stay in midweek and not onnew sites. So, yeah, I think
those are 2.
Developing and really honing inon that tech stack to make sure
it's doing what we want it to.It can be picked up and dropped
(17:30):
in, and then the home tail club.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
So thinking about the tech stack, talk me through how
you think about finding theideal tech stack, and at what
point do you take a step backand revisit all the vendors that
you have in place right now? Howdo you decide what's working,
what's not? When is it time toreplace a vendor or add
something new? How do you thinkabout that?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think, first of all, with the techs that we've
got, we've been working itpretty hard to get to where we
are. And I think there arealways grunts. Like, when we
mean to me is if I had a poundfor every time someone said, in
opera, this could happen, or inopera, this could happen. You
know? I've got a lot of changein my pocket.
But, you know, like,particularly if you back to,
like, a team and you can seethat they're gonna develop
things with you, it's worthstaying around for it. I think
(18:17):
changing tech status like, thegrass is always greener on the
other side. Right? Like, you'realways like, oh, I might go off
and and find that thing. Youmight might have solved that
problem, but you don't know whatyou're open yourself up to.
Because as much as you wanna dodue diligence in a way it you're
never gonna find out everythinguntil you've actually gone in
and tried setting up and, like,oh, that's not quite right. So
I've been, like, pretty hesitantto change the major tech stack
(18:38):
softwares we have. I think yousort of recognize when some
piece of kit aren't quite doingwhat they want when you get the
feedbacks from the teams thatuse them. It's a little bit
incumbent. Or you look atimplementing your processes, and
it becomes a bit manual.
And you're like, where can I fitthat? And then if you start to
recognize that you've gotseveral overlapping pieces of
kit, then you're probably at agood time to start seeing if
there's something that canamalgamate them. But certainly
(19:00):
when we're a younger company,there was a cost prohibitive
issue. Like, there were somesoftwares that just weren't for
us at the time because it'sgonna be too expensive to
onboard. And then we've moved upto them as we've got brewing
some of the other ones.
So I think they sort of becomeapparent in time.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
That sort of makes sense. Shifting gears a little
bit again. I'm curious to hear,based on your experience in the
industry over the last few yearscoming in from a different
industry. What would you say are1 or 2 skills that are necessary
for a hotelier to have intoday's dynamic environment?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So even in, like, the last sort of 7, 8 years, I've
been involved, like, being techsavvy or or at least you got to
be tech savvy. You just gottabe, like, open minded to it. I
think in the hotel world, like,there there are people who've
been in the business for a longperiod of time, and they've got
ways of working and be that likea paper sheet or doing
housekeeping, whatever. Right?Like, times are changing very
(19:57):
quickly.
And if you're not willing toengage in technology now, you
are gonna get left behind. But Istruggle to see how, like, any
hotel companies now can't befully engaged in it because no
one's onboarding old kit now. SoI think, like, the skills
particularly, it's just thatopen mindedness to technology.
If that's of your legacy. Ifyou're new in the game, then the
amount of tech that's out therethat can enable and do stuff at
(20:20):
your hotel is as much of itcould do everything and as much
as you want it to, provided thatties into what you wanna achieve
with your brand.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
And maybe along the same lines, I'd be curious if
there's anything that youbelieve about technology that
your peers or competitors mightdisagree with.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Hotels now are all tech enabled. And when you hear
tech companies saying they'retech enabled, it's a bit like
saying you're a lifestyle hotelnow. You know, like, every
hotel's basically you know,like, 5 years ago, you're
falling over yourself, but,like, you know, like, a
lifestyle hotel opens up onceit's upset. Now we're all tech
driven. Like, no one's gettingtheir abacus out.
No one's looking to go backwardsto pen and paper processes. We
are all now tech driven, andit's now just, like, constantly
(21:00):
refining that.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
For sure. Yeah. I like the analogy of lifestyle
hotels. Like, it's kind of abuzzword at this point.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
It's come and gone now. Right? Like, we're you
know, everyone's lifestyle techdriven forward hotel. Cool. But
what do you really?
You know? Like, how do youreally stand out from that? You
know? Like, because no one'sworking on a PMS, which is,
like, locked in a computeranymore. No one's using locking
key, you know, actual physicalkeys.
Like, we are all using the tech.So we are all enabled in that
way. And now it's just makingthe most of it. Now it's like,
(21:29):
what's our customer want fromus? What service do we wanna
provide to them?
And then how are we gonna dothat most effectively and
efficiently for them? What toolsdo we need for our efficiencies
and for our guests getting thebest journey that we want to
deliver them?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Great. Well, thanks so much, Stuart. Thanks for
taking the time to be on thepodcast and share all of your
experience and talk about howyou're using technology in your
company.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by hoteltechreport.com.
Our goal with this podcast is toshow you how the best in the
business are leveragingtechnology to grow their
properties and outperform theconcept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our listeners
to go try at least one of thesestrategies or tools that you
(22:15):
learned from today's episode.Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, Sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Do you
Speaker 2 (22:26):
know a hotelier who would be great to feature on
this show, or do you think thatyour story would bring a lot of
value to our audience? Reach outto me directly on LinkedIn by
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
follow Hotel Tech Insider on allmajor streaming platforms like
Spotify and Apple Music.
Sometimes you can be on some websites and just get
frustrated. I wanna book directwith you guys, but you're making
me put in just too much detailson, like, page refresh, and
you've now dropped off all myinformation up in there. I'm
just gonna move on to the OTA.So you've gotta make those
things as easy as possible.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
On today's episode, we're talking with Stuart
Godwin, the Managing Director ofLamington Group. Stuart shares
some strategies his team hasimplemented to generate over 50%
of their bookings direct,including an exciting new
loyalty program and a userfriendly booking engine. If
you're curious about bringingtechnology into your hotel
(00:44):
without losing the personaltouch, you'll want to give this
one a listen. Thanks so much forjoining us, Stuart. Really great
to have you here on the podcast.
To get started, I would love tohear a bit about your company
and your role. If you could tellme about your group, properties
you oversee, and what your roleencompasses as well.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Great. Yeah. Very excited to be here. So my name's
Jake Gobin. I'm managingdirector of Lamington Group.
Lamington Group is a 60 year oldfamily business. We're based in
West London, Hammersmith. We'vesort of grown out of real estate
background and have moved intohospitality space in the last
sort of 20 years, growing out ofservice departments. So we have
a service department brandcalled Lamb Service Bumps. We
started that about 20 so 20years ago.
(01:30):
And then from that, we then grewour hometown products, so our
room 2 hotel product, which is asort of evolution from service
departments taking what we seeis that the best bits from
service departments, Airbnb, andhotels to make our room 2
product. And we have 3 fullhotels in Southampton, in
(01:53):
London, and in Northern Ireland,Belfast. And then we have a
guest service light smallerproduct with only 16 bedrooms
here in Hammersville as well. Sowe've got 5 main hotels at the
moment, totaling just short of400 keys. And we've got a
pipeline growing to 5,000 keysby 2030.
So really building ourselves forgrowth with the main thrust
(02:14):
being to our route 2 products.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Do you own the properties, or you work with an
ownership group and you justprovide the management?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So up until now, we've been previously owner
operator developer of all of oursites, except the Belfast, which
we're just the leaseholder onthat site. We own a couple more
sites, which we're we're in theground floor at the moment, and
we're working with otherlandlords in which to grow that
pipeline. So, yeah, we do thatfull life cycle, which gives us
a real advantage when it comesto really building products that
(02:43):
work for us and not happy toshoehorn ourselves into
buildings which don't quite workfor our product.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And are you focused on the UK market, or are you
looking to grow beyond that?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Predominantly, no, we're based in the UK. I think
there's potential opportunityfor our products in the UK. And
I think once we get up to a bitof a threshold, we can then
start looking further field. ButI think we need to get to a
certain threshold in the UKbefore we can operationally see
efficiencies or effectiveness ofactually moving. So then I think
that could be a bit of a vanityproject to keep out to our
country, so I think it can getquite expensive.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Tell me a bit about your typical guest. Is it mostly
corporate travelers or leisure?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah. To mention when I sort of said that there were 2
products. Well, the key facetsof that is where, effectively,
if you wanna go on a second, apark hotel, so that each each of
our bedrooms has its ownkitchenette there. Right? So
that underpinning the thefundamental aspect of our brand
is flexibility.
So the typical guest that we'llsee is can be anyone who's
looking to stay really morethan, like, 2 months. Right? I
(03:43):
guess the question is, at whatpoint are you uncomfortable
living out of a suitcase? And Ithink that would be different
for every person, but I think,normally, you see up, like, 2
days, you're probably startingto run out clean clothes, and
you might wanna use ourfacilities, like laundry
facilities, or you might wannacook in your own kitchen. Right?
Because if you're working withcolleagues, you might not wanna
eat out with them every morning.You might not wanna eat cook
(04:03):
food in the morning. You mightwanna run your own diet. Right?
So having that kitchen in yourroom really gives that
flexibility.
So you've got your corporateguests. You've got your leisure
guests who who, again, justwanna have that little bit more,
in a basic enhanced tea stationso they can sort of stay in,
cook their own food. But,equally, those leisure guests
don't actually know that we'vegot kitchens. They don't really
care about that because all ofour spaces are uniquely designed
to our our areas and that we'rebased in. So we pick up that
(04:26):
sort of leisure guest.
And then you've got, like, therelocation stuff, you know,
people who are deliberatelyrelocating to an area, and they
could be with us for any time ofthe month. So having that
kitchenette aspect of thebusiness really lends itself to
a really much wider segment orsegments to call from. It's not
just your typical one to 2 nightstay at the Etienne hotels.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So I would imagine your average length of stay is
probably quite a bit longer thana typical hotel. How long would
you say on average people arestaying with you?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's really seasonally dependent, and that
depends on our revenuemanagement strategy. Right? So,
like, typically, your leisureguests are gonna pay more than
your longer length of stays, soyou get discounts. So you'll see
in the summers, it will shortenright off to 2 to 3 nights. But
in the winter, you can see thatgoing, you know, 7 nights plus
if you get a big group in who,like, on project based.
So we ultimately can use that asa tool to our advantage to the
(05:18):
legacy piece.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Let's dive right into the technology piece. Tell me a
bit about your tech stack. Whatwould you say is the most
critical vendor that you'reusing right now?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah. So when it comes to tech stacks, you can
break those down into, like,different areas. And I think,
like, fundamental as, like,hotels, it's all about care
taking care of our guests. Butthen, of course, alongside that,
you've got, like, operations tomake sure your buildings aren't
falling apart. You've got stufffor your HR to make sure your
teams are where they wanna be,and and you've got building
management systems for, like,sustainability.
But, like, if we just lookpurely, like, fundamentally,
(05:50):
it's, you know, the guests arekeep it running. It's gotta be
our PMS. Right? Because it's asort of hub and spoke type
model. Everything comes back tothe PMS to work.
We are now fortunate to live ina time where everything's cloud
based, so everything can beconnected together. And that
(06:10):
then really means that using ourPMS, we use Muse. We then get to
trial and plug and play loads ofdifferent tools as we grow and
we marry in agile to our needschange. Using a tool like Muse
means that we can just plug andplay new stuff in. Right?
There's no, like, need to getsomeone on-site to onboarding.
(06:33):
It's all just so easy now. Sothat's why I'd say that the
message is the most criticalpiece of tools we use.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Have you used Muse for a while? Did it replace a
legacy system? And how did yougo about choosing Muse over a
different vendor?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
We've been with Muse since around 2018, and I think
we were, like, in that top 100first customers. And we came
about them because we were justlooking at launching our first
room 2 site 2018, and we werelooking at the PMS's that are
out there. And I can't rememberwhich one we were at the time,
but we were looking at 1, and itwas all about there was a
(07:10):
particular function that wewanted to do with it, something
through the kiosks at the time.And then we found out it wasn't
quite what they were selling us.And so we then went back back to
the table and started lookingaround, and then we recommend
that we use the type for theforward thinking cloud based
solution they have.
So it was sort of a little bitfortuitous that we arrived at
Muse, and we'd be with them,yeah, sometime now. And we've
sort of really grown and seentheir growth with it. And when I
(07:32):
came back into the familybusiness, I'd not been in
hotels. I'm a chance accountantby background. So I came in, and
I haven't seen a differentsystem before.
Right? So it's usually the onlything I know. And, you know, so
I I can't reflect and say, youknow, how it does. Definitely,
all I can say is is it certainlymakes our life pretty easy.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Talk me through the different integrations that
you're using. What othersoftware are you plugging into
Muse, and what do you use thoseother pieces for?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yes. I guess, let's start, essentially, then with,
like, let's sell a room. Right?So in order to sell a room, we
need our channel manager. Sowe're using SiteMinder for that
pretty standard, good kit, youknow, pretty much that.
Duetto, we're using for ourrevenue management. Good piece
of kit with AI technology inthere. Then we've got our GDS
platforms, hotel res, open GDS,to then sub through those. We're
(08:22):
using Salesforce as a managementtool by res team to be able to
wrap up and collate the quotesthat come in, which is a good
bit kit for ensuring we stay ontop of that ability to sell
stuff. Alongside that, like,customer journey pieces, we've
got HiJiffy's a new tool, whichwe've onboarded, I said, in the
last year, which is pretty cool.
Automated tool to particularly,it was be focused around helping
(08:45):
our reservations team up justdeal with routine tasks, geo
parking, what you have on-site.And these are all just things
that chatbots can answer. Sowe're seeing great automation
being used through that piece ofkit. That works as well because
that then helps with our inhouse comms. So we then use that
to we upgraded that.
We were using just simplyWhatsApp for our guests to
(09:08):
communicate with us, But youcouldn't track it, and you
couldn't really do an awful lotwith that. So the upgrade to
Hijipi was cool because now wecan send out blasts to the whole
hotel and say, look. Live musicjust starting the bar. Come down
and see us. So that really helpswith sort of communication.
And guests also feeling enabledthat they can catch us at all
times. Even though we have 24hour receptions, like, it's easy
(09:30):
if you can just do that.Obviously, we we don't have
phones in the hotel rooms, buteveryone holds a mobile device
in their pocket now. Right? Sowe don't need to install that
hardware in the hotels and makethose efficiencies.
We recently installed mobilelocks, Go key locks, which are
pretty cool. We singled thoseguys out on them because they
specifically have PIN code entryentry into the rooms, which I
(09:51):
for me, we use that in ourservice department because
that's where we don't need tosee our guests. They can get
straight to their rooms, unlikeour hotels where, you know, the
brand really leans in the ideathat we wanna be meeting our
guests so that they're reallybuilding a relationship once
that they stay. But in our salesdepartment, they the length of
stay there is it's a very longterm. It can be months.
In some cases, you know, years.So, actually, those guys just
(10:12):
wanna live like they're locals.And so, yeah, using PIN code
entry there will be a help tothat.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Going back to your tech stack, any highlights of
back of house software, likeaccounting or HR?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Are are
Speaker 3 (10:26):
those integrated with Muse as well?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They are not integrated with Muse. So back
out, we use hotelkit for, like,housekeeping operations, and
that's good for housekeeping,organizing housekeeping, and
then using it for logging anymaintenance issues. So that
centralizes that. So that workswell there. HR wise, doesn't
integrate with Muse.
(10:49):
We'd love it to integrate withMuse because so is Harry, and
it's it does all of ouronboarding. It does all of our
people management. And we'd likeit to create Muse because it
could then sort of work withforecasting staffing models, but
that's not there yet. But, yeah,they work well to just
streamline centralizing payrolland people management.
(11:14):
Historically, we've had thosein, like, several pieces of kit,
and you can have your teammembers before you know it, your
team have got to have their ownpersonal email addresses, you
know, 5 or 6 logins, you know,to do what they need to do.
To streamline that just makeseverything a lot easier.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Curious to hear if there's anything on the horizon
that you're planning toimplement or anything on your
wish list that you'd like toimplement, maybe with or without
Amius integration. Curious whatis in the future for you.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, not so much in the future, but what's the
current thing we're working onat the moment is our loyalty
program, and that's, of course,heavily integrated with Muse.
Bearing down until 2 years ago,we sort of decided that we
wanted to go down the route ofcreating of increasing our
loyalty, ultimately, with theend result of driving more
booked direct. Right? So we canhave that commercial impact to
(12:03):
the bottom line and also drivegreater brand awareness and
loyalty. So we see I startedabout 2 years ago, and that was
a big project for us and ourteam.
It really started with having toto move away and find a new
booking engine to better createa journey for our guests, which
reflected our brand and reducethe number of clicks and really
(12:26):
enhance that journey. And thenfrom there, we could then build
in login pages and areas for ourguests to interact more with our
brand. So we launched ourhometown club, months ago now,
and that's been reallysuccessful and cool for
engagement with our guests. It'swithin it, our guests can access
perks, which they couldn't dootherwise. So such as 24 hour
(12:50):
stays within our hotels.
So check-in at 2, check out at2. Maybe it's a free drink.
Maybe it's an upgradedbreakfast. We can tweak those
member perks and push differentthings in different seasons as
as it sort of fits the need ofthe business.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Is the member's program available to anyone who
stays at your property, or doyou need to book on your website
and go through your bookingengine?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yes. So you need to book through our website,
because, also, that's the bottomline of what we're gonna get to.
You're gonna get that directbooking with us. And, yeah, once
you go to that, you can sign upfor free. Right?
So with it, you get perks of,like, free at a 10% F and B
discount in our F and B outlets.You get a free stay on your
birthday, provided you stayresponsible. That's a cool perk,
but you gotta come with your IDthat's on the day of your
birthday. So anyone can put amember's free, and it's not a
(13:36):
point accumulating program.We're not big enough for that.
We get instant rewards, and,yeah, the inter rewards are the
discount codes to our productsuppliers and the discounts that
we can push and change as we go.But standard discounts sort of
standard perks will be mattressmenus. You can choose a soft
mattress or a firm mattress. Youcan choose to have a 24 hour
stay. And to say, you know, freemembers drink, you push your
(13:58):
breakfast discounts in there,free breakfast or free upgrades.
It becomes slightly versatiletool for us. And then it will
continue to develop and work forto enhance the customers'
journey through us to keepcommerce. And when we launch new
properties, of course, we canthen push exclusive discounts on
through that as well.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Can you share out some of the things that you're
doing to get so many directbookings already?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean, yeah, we do have a great product. And it's
not me telling you that. Like,we're the number 1 ranked hotel
in Triplebyte in Southampton.We're the number 2 ranked hotel
in Belfast. Like, it it is agreat product, and people do
really engage with the brand.
Because of it being a lifestyleproduct with the kitchens, it
does tend the people sort ofcome to pull up, and they then
go, oh, a Hong Kong Estate Boardcan get discounts. So I think,
(14:42):
like, that naturally lendsitself to that. I don't think
it's, like, secret sauce for it.And we see varying amounts from
different products and how longthey've been in the market for.
So, like, certainly, you launcha new product, like, you haven't
got that big percent that,wasn't it?
But as soon as you get yourcustom base in and, you know,
also means the corporates beinggood repeat bookers because our
product is unique. It's not atypical corporate hotel. People
(15:05):
can really genuinely feelrelaxed and have their stays
enhanced with us. So they comeback for it, and they tell their
colleagues, and we'll, ofcourse, look to give them a
corporate rate, and thatcorporate rate will then have
their own login to our websiteso that they can then see and
track their and have an ease ofbooking program through that. So
it's taking away those painpoints and making it as easy as
possible to get that bookeddirect and best prices direct.
(15:27):
You know? Like, you've gottareally fight against the OTAs
for that parity. That'll makethat difficult. So there is
something, I guess, on, like,hygiene issues to hygiene
factors of of being bookeddirect, and that's gonna be make
sure we parity having a greatproduct. And then it's behind
the scenes, it's making surethat it's as easy as possible
for someone to do it because theOTAs have just such great
(15:48):
platforms for booking.
Like, I know what it means. Soin terms of book direct, but
sometimes you can be on somewebsites and just get
frustrated. I wanna book directwith you guys, but you're making
me put in just too much detailson, like, page refresh, and
you've now dropped off all myinformation up in there. I'm
just gonna move on to the OTA.So you've gotta make those
things as easy as possible.
And I guess that's part of whatwe do with the booking engine.
(16:09):
There are lots of little stepsalong the way.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, shifting gears a little bit, you mentioned
growth is a big priority for thecompany right now. Can you talk
to me a bit about your biggestbusiness objectives right now
and how technology fits intothose goals?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah. So we know that we'll have proxies launching in
time. One of the ones for sureis, like, building that
blueprint of, like, what itlooks like for us to operate
multiple just blueprint whatwe've got now, the tech stack
we've got now, pick it up, andjust drop it down again so that
you don't have to start again.So making sure that we've got
that sort of pretty well tiedup. So we've got, like, a year
(16:46):
or so to really start to be,like, just, you know, kicking
the tires on what we've got andthe program, making sure it's
all slick as we can so that weknow that 3, 4, 5 months out, we
can then just start signing upone more site and just picking
it up and dropping it on.
So that's box ready to roll onto the next one. So I think
that's something which we'll belooking at in the next year to
pin those down for that futuredevelopment. I think, yeah,
(17:09):
developing that on hotel cluband that loyalty piece and
developing the brand throughthat is gonna be another one. It
helps them launch our futuresites when we drive that
membership program as well sothey can see it, they engage the
brand, and they they wanna comefor the weekend or they wanna
come stay in midweek and not onnew sites. So, yeah, I think
those are 2.
Developing and really honing inon that tech stack to make sure
it's doing what we want it to.It can be picked up and dropped
(17:30):
in, and then the home tail club.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
So thinking about the tech stack, talk me through how
you think about finding theideal tech stack, and at what
point do you take a step backand revisit all the vendors that
you have in place right now? Howdo you decide what's working,
what's not? When is it time toreplace a vendor or add
something new? How do you thinkabout that?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think, first of all, with the techs that we've
got, we've been working itpretty hard to get to where we
are. And I think there arealways grunts. Like, when we
mean to me is if I had a poundfor every time someone said, in
opera, this could happen, or inopera, this could happen. You
know? I've got a lot of changein my pocket.
But, you know, like,particularly if you back to,
like, a team and you can seethat they're gonna develop
things with you, it's worthstaying around for it. I think
(18:17):
changing tech status like, thegrass is always greener on the
other side. Right? Like, you'realways like, oh, I might go off
and and find that thing. Youmight might have solved that
problem, but you don't know whatyou're open yourself up to.
Because as much as you wanna dodue diligence in a way it you're
never gonna find out everythinguntil you've actually gone in
and tried setting up and, like,oh, that's not quite right. So
I've been, like, pretty hesitantto change the major tech stack
(18:38):
softwares we have. I think yousort of recognize when some
piece of kit aren't quite doingwhat they want when you get the
feedbacks from the teams thatuse them. It's a little bit
incumbent. Or you look atimplementing your processes, and
it becomes a bit manual.
And you're like, where can I fitthat? And then if you start to
recognize that you've gotseveral overlapping pieces of
kit, then you're probably at agood time to start seeing if
there's something that canamalgamate them. But certainly
(19:00):
when we're a younger company,there was a cost prohibitive
issue. Like, there were somesoftwares that just weren't for
us at the time because it'sgonna be too expensive to
onboard. And then we've moved upto them as we've got brewing
some of the other ones.
So I think they sort of becomeapparent in time.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
That sort of makes sense. Shifting gears a little
bit again. I'm curious to hear,based on your experience in the
industry over the last few yearscoming in from a different
industry. What would you say are1 or 2 skills that are necessary
for a hotelier to have intoday's dynamic environment?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So even in, like, the last sort of 7, 8 years, I've
been involved, like, being techsavvy or or at least you got to
be tech savvy. You just gottabe, like, open minded to it. I
think in the hotel world, like,there there are people who've
been in the business for a longperiod of time, and they've got
ways of working and be that likea paper sheet or doing
housekeeping, whatever. Right?Like, times are changing very
(19:57):
quickly.
And if you're not willing toengage in technology now, you
are gonna get left behind. But Istruggle to see how, like, any
hotel companies now can't befully engaged in it because no
one's onboarding old kit now. SoI think, like, the skills
particularly, it's just thatopen mindedness to technology.
If that's of your legacy. Ifyou're new in the game, then the
amount of tech that's out therethat can enable and do stuff at
(20:20):
your hotel is as much of itcould do everything and as much
as you want it to, provided thatties into what you wanna achieve
with your brand.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
And maybe along the same lines, I'd be curious if
there's anything that youbelieve about technology that
your peers or competitors mightdisagree with.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Hotels now are all tech enabled. And when you hear
tech companies saying they'retech enabled, it's a bit like
saying you're a lifestyle hotelnow. You know, like, every
hotel's basically you know,like, 5 years ago, you're
falling over yourself, but,like, you know, like, a
lifestyle hotel opens up onceit's upset. Now we're all tech
driven. Like, no one's gettingtheir abacus out.
No one's looking to go backwardsto pen and paper processes. We
are all now tech driven, andit's now just, like, constantly
(21:00):
refining that.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
For sure. Yeah. I like the analogy of lifestyle
hotels. Like, it's kind of abuzzword at this point.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
It's come and gone now. Right? Like, we're you
know, everyone's lifestyle techdriven forward hotel. Cool. But
what do you really?
You know? Like, how do youreally stand out from that? You
know? Like, because no one'sworking on a PMS, which is,
like, locked in a computeranymore. No one's using locking
key, you know, actual physicalkeys.
Like, we are all using the tech.So we are all enabled in that
way. And now it's just makingthe most of it. Now it's like,
(21:29):
what's our customer want fromus? What service do we wanna
provide to them?
And then how are we gonna dothat most effectively and
efficiently for them? What toolsdo we need for our efficiencies
and for our guests getting thebest journey that we want to
deliver them?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Great. Well, thanks so much, Stuart. Thanks for
taking the time to be on thepodcast and share all of your
experience and talk about howyou're using technology in your
company.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by hoteltechreport.com.
Our goal with this podcast is toshow you how the best in the
business are leveragingtechnology to grow their
properties and outperform theconcept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our listeners
to go try at least one of thesestrategies or tools that you
(22:15):
learned from today's episode.Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, Sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Do you
Speaker 2 (22:26):
know a hotelier who would be great to feature on
this show, or do you think thatyour story would bring a lot of
value to our audience? Reach outto me directly on LinkedIn by
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
follow Hotel Tech Insider on allmajor streaming platforms like
Spotify and Apple Music.
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