"I told my partners: if we can make people feel like they're coming to visit friends, we're going to win. And that's exactly what we're trying to do."
About Hotel Dylan
Hotel Dylan is a 22-room boutique property in Woodstock, New York. Originally built in 1968, it has been reimagined as a minimalistic, bohemian retreat in the foothills of the Catskills, including hotel rooms, a converted house, a restaurant and an oyster bar.
The property draws leisure guests from the New York metropolitan area, and its identity is built on the feeling of visiting friends. For that promise to hold, the operation behind it has to be invisible. Mews is now the system running that operation, with the goal of keeping the front desk focused on guests, not on admin.
Visibility into what the business was actually earning
Challenge
Before Mews, getting a clear picture of Hotel Dylan's financial performance meant manual work. Building reports took time the team didn't have. Visibility into net payouts after channel commissions was limited, which created friction for the property's management partners every time they needed to reconcile what had actually landed in the account.
Solution
Mews replaced the manual reporting routine. The automated Manager Report and Payout Report now run without intervention, giving management precise, real-time oversight of room and POS revenue. The Payout Report shows bank deposits line by line, after commissions, so management partners can see exactly what the property has earned without waiting for a manual reconciliation.
Result
- Automated Manager Report and Payout Report replace manual reporting builds
- Clear line-by-line visibility into net bank deposits after commissions, removing reconciliation friction for management partners
- General Manager time freed from reporting and redirected toward operations and guest experience
“It has actually made the reporting aspects much easier. I’m a little bit more behind the scenes than I used to be – that’s largely because I have a really solid staff doing the front desk work and reports that give me the visibility I need.”
Payments that close cleanly, every time
Challenge
Before Mews, the team had trialed alternative payment and booking engine setups that ultimately failed. Credit card data wasn't reliably making it into reservations, payment settings were locked and couldn't be adjusted, and getting clear monthly statements was a recurring problem. The result was manual workarounds, administrative overhead and uncertainty about whether every booking had a valid card attached.
Solution
Mews Payments, running through Stripe, replaced the previous stack with automated nightly reconciliation and secure credit card handling directly within the system. Every booking captures payment information at the point of reservation. Stripe’s monthly reporting is accessible without chasing statements. And because payments live inside Mews rather than in a separate tool, there’s no gap between a reservation being made and the card being on file. The SiteMinder integration, connected via Mews Marketplace, keeps inventory and rates synchronized across Expedia and Booking.com in real time.
Result
- Secure card capture on every reservation, removing the payment gap that existed with the previous setup
- Automated nightly Stripe reconciliation replaces manual statement retrieval
- Real-time OTA inventory sync via SiteMinder eliminates manual entry and the errors that came with it
An arrival that starts before guests get there
Challenge
Under the previous setup, the administrative work of a stay – registration, billing confirmation, guest preferences – happened at check-in. That meant the front desk was occupied with paperwork at the exact moment it should have been focused on the guest. The absence of structured guest information and pre-arrival communication meant less time for the connections that define the Hotel Dylan experience.
Solution
The Mews Guest Portal and pre-check-in feature moved the administrative work out of the lobby. Guests complete their registration before they arrive, so by the time they walk through the door, the paperwork is done. The built-in messaging feature added a direct communication channel with guests – for questions, billing and anything that would previously require a phone call or a note at the desk. Guest profiles now carry detailed notes and preferences, giving the team the context to personalize each stay.
Result
- Pre-check-in via the Mews Guest Portal completes registration before arrival, freeing the front desk for guest-facing work
- Built-in guest messaging replaces fragmented communication across separate tools
- Detailed guest profiles and notes give the team the context to personalize each stay
“The work is done before they get here. I like that we can have more detailed information for each guest – different notes that you can add. It helps keep the team organized.”
Integration spotlight
SiteMinder
SiteMinder connects to Mews via open APIs to keep Hotel Dylan’s rates and inventory synchronized across OTAs including Expedia and Booking.com in real time. Manual inventory updates – and the errors that come with them – no longer happen. Every booking flows directly into Mews.
Why Mews?
For a lean independent property competing on experience rather than scale, the operational foundation has to earn its keep. At Hotel Dylan, Mews removed the manual overhead from reporting, fixed the payment reliability issues that had dogged the previous stack, and moved the administrative work of a stay away from the lobby entirely. The team’s experience of onboarding reflected the same standard.
“The support team that did the onboarding was fantastic – they made it very easy for us. Any issues we had weren’t really issues with the system, they were our issues learning it. And they made that easy.”