Strategic decisions that contribute to the success of Bastion Hotels

Bastion Hotels has been an established name in the hotel industry for more than 30 years. Marianne van der Sterren, HR & ICT Manager, spoke at the 'Hotel of the Future' event about the importance of guest profiles, personal attention and automation for quality and guest satisfaction.   

Success through guest profiles and additional services 

"Bastion Hotels is for everyone, but explicitly focuses on the business guest and in addition the leisure guest. What helps with this is thinking in guest profiles. We conduct data analysis to discover patterns and establish facts. Still, emotion and experience prevail in customising hotel services," Marianne said. "We want to conduct a personal approach. By staying in conversation with guests, we can develop our own potential. Not only our staff at the venues, but also our management asks what our guests need. The business guests, for example, are mostly regulars who use our entire national chain. By creating a homely atmosphere or organising themed evenings (Mexican or German), we are distinctive from a guest perspective. And this yields Bastion a higher average spend and higher guest frequency." 

Efficient operations from headquarters 

The 34 Bastion Hotels are spread across the Netherlands but are centrally managed from the head office in Utrecht. "Whether you sleep in Groningen, Amsterdam or Maastricht, the same way of working is applied everywhere. By focusing on the basic needs of the guest and efficient work processes around this, Bastion is able to keep quality high and be competitive. Automation plays an important role in our operations for two main reasons: 1) efficiencies to make tasks easier and less time-intensive, and 2) cost benefits; we tie software together to eliminate repetitive, human actions."  

"Eijsink is one of the partners with whom we have been making strides in automation since 2015. It started with the realisation of new POS systems linked to the hotel PMS. Meanwhile, all hotel locations also work with the online staff scheduling software booq Staff Planner and the implementation of digital kitchen screens is in full swing."

The throughput of automation in the hotel chain is a constant effort to ensure Bastion maintains its signature guest experience can offer. New projects are driven from the head office so that the locations can fully focus on the guest. How does Bastion decide which automation projects to launch? "We take a pragmatic approach where we rationally weigh up the positive and negative effects on costs, productivity, time savings or enjoyment. In other words, what does the investment deliver Bastion in extra attention to the guest." 

Automation partner Eijsink has almost 40 years of experience in hotel automation. From a user-friendly cash register system that integrates with your PMS system, to online staff planning, digital receipt screens in the kitchen to QR codes or an ordering site for room service. Choose to work more efficiently. Discover the possibilities at eijsink.nl/hotel.