Booming Banff Maximizes Tour Group Revenue and Occupancy for Eight Hotels with Integrated PMS

Banff Lodging Company owns and operates eight independent properties, five restaurants, a spa, ski school, and rental shop that meet the needs of every guest segment from budget travelers at its Driftwood Inn, to well heeled families looking for a luxury condo at the Hidden Ridge Resort. All the company's hotels are automated by one Maestro Multi-Property System running front office, sales and catering, spa and activities management, and retail point of sale hotel software systems provided by NORTHWIND-Maestro PMS. Banff Lodging Company hosts the system from its corporate offices; and since all its properties share one single-image Maestro database, the company can access any guest record at any property and cross-sell its hotels with confidence to maximize revenue and occupancy.

"We are a year-round resort with a busy summer tour season, so running our operation as efficiently as possible is essential," says Cathy Geisler, reservations manager for Banff Lodging Company. "We installed the Maestro Multi-Property Suite to streamline reservations, group sales, accounting, guest CRM and other operating processes on one system. This enables stronger management controls, consolidated reporting, and faster training because staff has only one system to learn, so they are more productive when they move between our properties."

Fully-integrated sales and catering system
Geisler also notes another Maestro Multi-Property advantage for Banff Lodging Company's operation is its fully-integrated sales and catering system. "When groups arrive, our front office teams are very busy checking in hundreds of guests at multiple properties," says Geisler."Our group sales system and PMSes are all one system, so we can create a tour group, block, move rooms, and check-in group members easily. We can also duplicate the process with a minimum of effort for our tour operators who send multiple groups in the same season." Since all our tour-group contracts are generated and held in the Maestro system, we can access them from any workstation to verify terms and simplify communications with group leaders.

Banff Lodging Company receives reservations daily from travelers touring Alberta and British Columbia on the Rocky Mountaineer passenger train. "Summer is our busiest season but all our properties are skier-friendly and we have plenty of outdoor sports enthusiasts throughout the year," says Geisler. "Maestro's resort software enables us to check-in guests more smoothly than if we used separate systems for our properties. If a guest wants to upgrade to another of our hotels, we quickly handle it, and the guest's folio follows them regardless of where they stay." Banff Lodging Company is also noted for its Red Earth Spa, a full service spa with six treatment rooms including one dedicated to hydrotherapy which the company manages with the Maestro Spa and Activities Management System.

The beginning point for making reservations is the Maestro reservation software multi-property Space Chart Screen that displays all Banff Lodging Company's properties' inventories. "If we sell out one property, we can instantly place guests in our other hotels, which is ideal for a high-volume companies like ours," says Geisler who oversees the company's central reservation office in Banff. "Although our hotels are flagged independent, they share a central reservations call center where any reservations agent can see availability for all properties on one screen and all rates are optimized with Maestro Yield Management. We expect to also install Maestro's ResWave online booking engine in the near future to capture more online business."