Encore Hotel #2-1

The Five Star Management Group streamlines operations for its boutique hotel, resort, and vacation rentals with Breezeway

Five Star Management Group is a growing hospitality brand that operates a boutique hotel, resort, and 70 cabins. The Berlin Encore Hotel & Suites is a brand-new hotel located in Berlin, Ohio, the heart of Ohio’s Amish Country, offering 81 luxurious accommodations. Five Star Management also runs Amish Country Lodging with 70 cabins, and recently acquired a 77-room hotel, the Berlin Resort.

 



We sat down with Michael Brindley, General Manager at Five Star Management Group, to understand how operations differ between these property types and how Breezeway is at the core of it all. 

 

The Situation:

 

Prior to Breezeway, operating 81 rooms at the Berlin Encore Hotel and 70 cabins was a never-ending paper trail. Five Star Management Group had a system in place that worked for guests booking reservations, but nothing to help them prepare for those reservations on the operations end. This left the team printing hundreds of pages per day to deliver housekeeping, maintenance, and inspection assignments, and no room for expansion.

The Solution:

 

Breezeway helped bring Five Star Management Group’s operations into the digital age and enabled their large-scale growth. Now their housekeeping teams use tablets with the Breezeway app to receive room assignments with digital checklists built in, and notify the front desk when a room is clean and ready for check-in. Everything works seamlessly with Cloudbeds and Track property management systems, so their team knows about any updates or changes in reservations. With the right systems in place that allow for checks and balances, their team has saved time and money and hasn’t missed a clean since adopting Breezeway. 

  •  90 Hours saved per month on scheduling tasks
  •  30%Savings by being able to track inventory
  • 5 Days or less average training period for staff 

 

Managing two hotels with Breezeway and Cloudbeds

 

Prior to Breezeway, the Berlin Encore Hotel printed paper task sheets every day to give housekeepers and inspectors their room assignments, wrote maintenance requests on pink slips, and filed those completed worksheets into a box. This manual process left a lot of room for error. Rooms would get missed if reservations were changed, and tasks would get backlogged or forgotten about.

This encouraged Encore to make the switch from their previous system to Cloudbeds in 2021 at their original property, the Berlin Encore Hotel. Michael says, “It was a hand-in-hand transition to switch to Breezeway and Cloudbeds at the same time. We knew we needed the intuitive reservation system from a guest standpoint with Cloudbeds and the robust housekeeping management tools that Breezeway provides.”

With Cloudbeds’ PMS, guests could still easily book their stays that were now seamlessly integrated into Breezeway’s dashboard where Encore staff could manage daily operations around reservations. Now all of their staff use tablets with the Breezeway app to complete their work in the hotel. These digital systems give Encore management visibility into what has been completed and track historical tasks, rather than rummaging through stacks of paper. This also gives them the flexibility to offer more services to guests, like early check-ins or room upgrades.

Encore Hotel #3

Managing 70 cabins with Breezeway + Track

 

Five Star Management Group heard about Breezeway because they were looking for a housekeeping solution for their 70 cabin rental properties to pair with their existing PMS software, Track. Breezeway was the perfect solution. Because Breezeway seamlessly integrates with Track, adding Breezeway was an easy transition that immediately streamlined their back-of-house operations, without changing the guest-facing features they enjoyed with Track.

Similar to the housekeeping set-up at the Berlin Encore Hotel, the staff at the cabins also use tablets with the Breezeway app to complete work in the field. The 70 cabins all have unique layouts, features, and amenities, and require processes in place to ensure consistency for every turnover. Knowing this, the cabins have more robust cleaning and inspection checklists built into Breezeway and even require housekeepers to upload photos to confirm that certain aspects have been cleaned sufficiently.  

“Breezeway is the only thing that has kept me sane through our busiest season. My executive housekeeper and I agreed that if it weren't for Breezeway we probably would not have any hair left by the end of the month. We’re operating three different locations and the fact that I can look in Breezeway and do everything in one place is life-saving. I wouldn't do it any other way going forward.” -Michael Brindley, General Manager at Five Star Management Group

Ease of use for staff in expanding operations

 

Not only did management love the efficiency and time savings they were seeing with Breezeway, but the housekeepers thrived with these new tools as well. Michael says, “The reason that we embraced the switch so quickly was because our housekeepers were able to pick up how to use the Breezeway app within a week of having it in their hands and do it entirely on their own.” These systems gave them the confidence to scale and expand their operations.

With Five Star Management Group’s acquisition of their new hotel, the Berlin Resort, they will also be absorbing the new hotel’s current staff and training them on how to use Breezeway. As a part of training, Michael and his team will use Breezeway to provide new housekeepers with even more detailed cleaning checklists and instructions on their brand standards. This includes photo checklists of how turns should be completed, for example, how pillows are laid out and where toiletries should be placed. 

Saving money with inventory tracking

 

Managing inventory is something that Michael takes very seriously and takes pride in offering luxurious amenities at their cabins and hotels. Five Star Management Group has 9 warehouse locations where they store products for their cabins and hotels. Prior to Breezeway, managing inventory levels, especially across these multiple locations, was very challenging. 

“Before Breezeway we were always ordering supplies just so we wouldn’t run out. For one location we were spending $3,000 every month just on guest supplies (i.e. toiletries), now we’re down to about $1,500. Overall, we’ve seen 30% cost savings just by being able to track all of our inventory.” -Michael Brindley, General Manager at Five Star Management Group

Breezeway’s inventory tracking allows Michael to manage levels of supplies in the warehouses, what’s being used at each turnover, get notified when items are low, and track costs month over month. Now he has peace of mind that he will never run out of supplies but is also not overspending on unnecessary materials. 

 
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