WPH - CloudHotelier is now Whin

Leaving WPH CloudHotelier behind

WPH (webparahoteles.net) is an unattractive brand name, and forgetting about it is going to be easy. However, the decision to leave CloudHotelier behind was not so easy. The brand is relatively well known, especially among our partners and competitors, and the name is not all bad. However, the changes we have introduced in our company in recent times are so significant that it is justified to leave CloudHotelier and everything it has stood for behind.

CloudHotelier was never the disruptor we had dreamed of.

Our vision with CloudHotelier was to bet on open-source technology, hoping that the market would adopt it more or less massively and to position ourselves as a technical consulting firm. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get the market to adopt our solutions, nor have we been able to position ourselves as a prestigious technology provider. On the contrary, our open-source approach has exposed us to fierce attacks from our competitors, which some of our customers have had to stoically endure. We will never know whether it is the open-source model that has failed, or whether it is we ourselves as the driving force behind the project. In any case, what we had envisaged did not work.

However, although the open-source model has not worked, we have had the support of our clients, clients who have valued our work and have shown us the way forward. These clients, who have been able to value the quality of our work and have abstracted from marketing and market pressures. We would like to express our gratitude to all those who have placed their trust in us, but especially to Carema Hotels for their unconditional support, especially at key moments for us; to Alma Toursim Consulting for placing their trust in us and taking us (at last) out of our Menorcan bastion; and to Canabay Hotels for their firm commitment to us and their generosity in helping us to improve.

Whin is nothing new, it is simply something better.

In the last two years, and especially during 2018, we have entered the world of hotel management. We've gone from one "WTF" to an ever-increasing "WTF". In the age of the internet, some still insist on working over coaxial cable. There are no APIs, and when there are, they are not open and working with their XML is torture. The amount of manual work they unload on the end user is unacceptable, and, worst of all, customer data is worthless: databases are only used to count nights and cokes.

Coming from the online booking industry, a very competitive and constantly innovating sector, we have been stunned by the inoperability of current management platforms, such as some channel managers, and especially PMS.

Faced with the market opportunity, we decided to invest our technological muscle in developing the new platform, and put the Whin platform on the market, which does not claim to be anything new, simply a halfway decent product for current hotel management, in 2019, a product that we think simply does not exist right now.

The idea is simple: instead of having different solutions, each with its own database, we are committed to having a single central database from which all the solutions "suck". A modular platform in terms of functionality, but all built on a single API data interface. In short, a single system that can be used for various purposes.

The result of this development has been the Whin platform, an integrated environment, with everything the hotel needs, open and in the cloud. At the moment, not only do we have all the core solutions for the hotel business, but we have also designed them from scratch, taking the current operations as a reference. In addition, Whin is hyper-connected with the main channels and channel managers, with integrations that go far beyond rates and reservations.

In short, there is nothing new and yet there is nothing like it. Quite simply, a well thought out and well executed tool. Whether out of naivety or bravery, we took the plunge, and we have. And it looks like we're heading in the right direction.

Whin, a global startup

Another change we want to pick up with the new brand, Whin, is the adoption of the start-up model. In recent times, we have come into contact with a new ecosystem, first with the move to CentreBit Menorca, and then with the participation in the Menorca Millennials programme. Getting out of our comfort zone has allowed us to see another of the mistakes of our previous stage: thinking that the rest of the world was wrong, and that we could change that. We still want to change things, but now we know that we can't do it alone.

For this reason, we are in the process of building a model that will allow us to achieve explosive growth, we want to reach the maximum number of customers in the shortest possible time. We are not satisfied, we want to go out into the world. And we don't want to do it alone, because, as a wise man once said, 1 + 1 = 3.

Whin, our new brand

Thanks to Lagencia, who was determined to convince us of the need to relaunch the brand, and the success of the new naming, today we are giving birth to Whin.

We don't want to be confused, our name is WHIN, which stands for Web and Hotel, but also for Innovation.

With our new W we want to transmit power, simplicity and intelligence. The power can be found in the straight and parallel line of our logo, the simplicity in the obvious and clear of the W, and the intelligence in the game that is produced with the negative spaces of the design. Our colours are bright, our designs are clear and our typography is strong and clean.

We are now Whin.