The success of organic management by a young and enterprising team.
We have been working for nearly a year with the Brummell Projects team, a personal project of an entrepreneur who chose Barcelona to start an adventure in which technology is put at the service of the guest.
Christian Schallert, originally from Austria and based in Barcelona since 2003, is the founder and architect of Brummell Projects, much more than a hotel business, a lifestyle in which improving the guest experience is the most important thing.
Guest first
The Brummell experience is a true lifestyle for travellers who are looking for something different, who love design, appreciate the local and the authentic. Schallert has passed on his vision and family heritage to his entire team. In Austria his parents ran a café and there he learned how to treat and care for the customer, "to make them feel good and enjoy their visit".
We met at the Hotel Brummell in Barcelona, the first of the chain, to talk to Anne-Sophie Rosell, the group's Brand Director, who told us some anecdotes that perfectly reflect this special attention to customer care. She tells us about the repeat guests who stay at this hotel every month, including an English lady who has already made room 34 "her home in Barcelona". He also tells us how some Canadian clients told them about the very different treatment that some friends received at a well-known 5-star hotel on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona, "while at the Brummell we felt at home, at this great hotel you feel like just another number". All the staff at Brummell work to make guests feel at home.
A story of entrepreneurship
This is a project with its own name and surname, that of Christian Schallert. An Austrian entrepreneur who arrived in Barcelona in 2003 and 10 years later officially launched Brummell Projects, currently with properties in Barcelona, the Pyrenees and Marrakech. Although all the accommodations have their own distinct personality and culture, they all share the same values: small places, in special locations, focused on detail, with the right mix of design and tradition.
After 10 years living in Barcelona carrying out different activities, it is in 2013 when Schallert takes the big step and acquires an old building in Barcelona's Poble Sec. Two years later, Hotel Brummell opened its doors, a small and refined accommodation with 20 designer rooms, breakfast, sauna and swimming pool. Brummell Apartments joined the project, offering comfort and design in the best locations in the city: Eixample, Gràcia, Born and Poble Sec.
Three years later his dream of managing a mountain hotel in La Cerdanya, Mas Sant Marc, came true. A classic 13-room country house with garden and swimming pool, perfect for all kinds of outdoor activities.
The chain's third destination is the most exotic: Marrakech. In the red city just 2.5 hours from Barcelona, Brummell offers three types of accommodation: Maison Brummell Majorelle is a unique 8-room gem right next to Yves Saint Laurent's famous Majorelle Garden. Riad Brummell Medina which functions as a small hotel in the style of 1001 nights. And Appartements Brummell Gueliz, a home away from home in the exclusive neighbourhood of Gueliz.
Organic management where technology enhances the guest experience.
The Brummell Projects organisation is organically structured with the founder at the apex and three departments led by young professionals: business management, operations and branding/marketing. Each destination has a hotel and flat manager and, in addition, they have the collaboration of external revenue management for the global sales strategy.
After 8 years using the same PMS, it became obsolete, it was not adapted to their needs and had to be adapted to all the types of accommodation they currently have. The time had come to make a change, to have a tool that would adapt to the different cultures involved in the business, that was intuitive and that would help to optimise the management of all the properties.
GuestPro was the technology of choice. As Anne-Sophie Rosell tells us, in our PMS they have found a platform that allows them to optimise and, very important for the property, to integrate in a single provider most of the functionalities they need, a fact that also allows them to reduce costs.
One of the tools that Rosell is most grateful for in her branding and marketing department is the CRM integrated within the PMS, which allows her to automate communications with guests, as well as creating her marketing campaigns in the same environment.
The GuestPro experience
The change of PMS is a process that we know is complicated for a hotel business. Brummell Projects knew this and for this reason they are especially grateful for the support they have received from GuestPro staff: "the support has been central, the human side has worked perfectly and without it the change would have been impossible", says Rosell.
The adaptation to the new system has taken time for the hotel staff, as they had already integrated the previous system. In order to adapt in the most natural way, the integration has been done in a systematised way, step by step to adapt to the new technology. "Changes have this, they are not easy. That's why doing it smoothly and with good support from the technological partner has been fundamental to get through this trauma".
But the change has been worth it. For the reception, they tell us that the change is brutal: "now I can even do it myself, it's so easy", Anne-Sophie confesses. Tatiana, manager of Hotel Brummell Barcelona, highlights the speed that has been gained at reception, where until the changeover everything was done manually. "In reception, time is very important and now everything is much faster, so we have more time to dedicate to our clients; to recommend them and improve their experience. The effort has been worth it," he says.
Listening and being listened to
Another of the details that Brummell considers important is its relationship with the technological partner. We listen to their demands in order to incorporate improvements and carry them out and also find solutions when these cannot be done.
In this sense, facilitating integrations with third parties has been key to automating processes that until now had complicated their operations, such as, for example, integration with a key system for check-ins at their flats.
Conclusions:
In short, from Brummell Projects they value very positively the change of PMS:
- They have improved the service, they are much faster.
- They have optimised their internal management.
- They have gained in visualisation, being able to move from one property to another in a simple way.
- They have lowered costs by reducing the number of suppliers.
- They have increased automation.
- They have reduced the onboarding time for new staff, it is easier for them to learn with the new system.
- They have improved the customer experience by enhancing human contact.
- They have gained time to make customers feel at home.
Brummell Projects joins the family of hotels that trust GuestPro. We keep growing and learning from our clients.
