Already in business for more than 20 years, City Lodge today is a leading South African hotel chain. 950 employees work for the four different City Lodge brands. 90 % of the business derives from South Africa. City Lodge sells an average of one million room nights per year resulting in a revenue of 390 million South African Rand (ZAR; approx. 42,96 million EUR) and a profit of 120 million ZAR (approx. 13,236 million EUR).

Easy update processes enable cost and time savings
After an evaluation period of one year, City Lodge opted for Amadeus Hospitality as its new chain-wide IT solution. Looking back, Stuart Mattinson, IT Manager at City Lodge, explains: “We are coming from a DOS-based system and had several systems out there at our different properties. Now we have Amadeus Multiproperty as a centralised system for all our hotels. Thus we improved our controlling. We now have a clear standard and use seven reports that have been tailored according to the City Lodge needs for the entire chain. Thanks to the centralised solution all our hotel managers use the same reports. This makes the controlling and planning process much easier. We obtain transparency, do not compare apples and oranges, and increase efficiency throughout the City Lodge world.”

The centralised solution is easier to foster. “In the past someone had to travel from one hotel to the next in order to do the updates. That can take up to one month”, recalls Stuart Mattinson. “Now a software update is centrally done since all properties access the same central server. We save a lot of time and money like this and our daily operations will not be disturbed by update routines.”

Single image inventory: Quicker handling of reservations in all City Lodge hotels
“The benefit of Amadeus Hotel Multiproperty is that it provides all guest data on a single central database. Since all City Lodge hotels access the same central guest file information, all customer-relevant data is transparent at all customer touch points”, explains Warren Loots, Managing Director of HISA, the Amadeus Hospitality certified distribution partner for South Africa.

City Lodge has a high percentage of return guests and can now improve guest satisfaction even if the guest’s favourite hotel is fully booked. The front office manager suggests a different hotel matching the guest’s special wishes straight away - be it sea view or Table Mountain view. Stuart Mattinson says: “The shared guest information among all City Lodge hotels enables a real caring business relationship that matches the City Lodge credo: ‘People caring for people’. With the transparency gained through the Amadeus Multiproperty solution, we make sure that a return guest is treated as a special guest in every single City Lodge hotel - even if it is his first stay in that respective property.” All employees have access to the central guest information on each individual guest at any time and in any City Lodge hotel. So from the classic feather pillow to the New York Times every morning for breakfast or the allergy against nuts or apples - everybody in the City Lodge team is familiar with individual guest preferences. City Lodge can keep track of everything a guest has ever requested in order to anticipate every wish during future stays. And the Amadeus Multiproperty system also makes sure that very special guests - for instance at their 15th stay at a City Lodge hotel - will be recognised and treated accordingly. Of course the application also provides the necessary tools for specially designed one-to-one marketing initiatives responding to specific guests’ wants and needs.

Multiproperty solution used like a Central Reservation System (CRS)
Thanks to the single image inventory the availability of all City Lodge hotels can be checked on one screen, without switching between systems let alone calling up sister hotels. Due to the centralised solution every employee knows exactly how many rooms with a sea view City Lodge can offer in its different hotels in Capetown for instance - just at the push of a button. So no matter who answers the phone, potential guests will get quality information, and the room reservation process has been improved significantly.

So far City Lodge has not operated its own call centre but provides a central phone number that guests can call. The unified view of all City Lodge properties allows for optimising occupancy throughout the hotel chain because City Lodge uses Amadeus Multiproperty like its own Central Reservation System (CRS). And single image inventory enables a quicker and clearer handling of reservations. Stuart Mattinson says: “All our employees have certain key performance indicators and targets, for instance processing an amount of “n” bookings per month for other City Lodge hotels. With the system in place, the cross reservation processes become much easier from a speed perspective.”

Quick implementation process, caring service
Stuart Mattinson is very pleased with the implementation process: “Originally we had planned for a short time of overlapping between our old system and the Amadeus Hotel Multiproperty solution. But since the existing system was unstable we had to install the new PMS immediately. And Amadeus Hospitality’s IT partner HISA was just great! They showed maximum flexibility and really cared for us during our learning curve which was challenging because we had changes in plans at least once a week. So to tell you the truth, I would even put the people above the system. Our vision at City Lodge is ‘People caring for people’ and it seems that with HISA and Amadeus Hospitality we found a technology partner who knows what it takes to be in the people business.”

All set for the Fifa Football World Cup in South Africa in 2010
For the first time ever, four years from now the Fifa Football World Cup is goin to take place in Africa. Stuart Mattinson describes that to date almost 90% of City Lodge’s business is generated with guests from Africa and paid in the local currency, South African Rand. “But we are already ready for the World Cup”, he says, winking, “because the Amadeus Multiproperty solution allows for multiple currency handling.“