Palmers Lodge customer story

Palmers Lodge embraces Mews Hospitality Cloud

London hostel chain cuts losses, improves revenue and boosts guest and staff happiness.

Up to £6,000 saved in lost revenue

every month

12% year on year RevPAB increase

above market average

16 hours per week saved

through payment automation

About Palmers Lodge

Palmers Lodge is an independent chain of two hostels in central London has been a Mews customers since 2018. With 40,000 guests and backpackers each year, the hostels' pride themselves on offering a boutique experience.

One of the hostels’ great strengths is the ability to react quickly and implement changes very rapidly. Amongst the most important factors for choosing Mews as their PMS was: effective payment processing, flexible revenue management, and more time to engage with guests.

A smooth set-up

Pain

Onboarding a new PMS can be difficult, time-consuming and expensive, with the potential impact on the team being massive.

Solution

Mews' dedicated deployment team seamlessly onboarded Palmers Lodge across multiple properties, backed up with Mews University to train new members.

Result

• Onboarding completed in weeks
• 24-hour support
• Mews University for instant team enablement

100% payment automation

Pain

Palmers Lodge had been manually taking non-refundable payments on the day of check-in because this meant no chargebacks. However, when non-refundable bookings no-showed and a card was charged, the payment would often be declined.

Solution

Payments are now taken instantly with Mews' integrated payment gateway. The system automatically detects whether the card doesn’t have enough funds or could be fraudulent – in such cases, if after 24 hours the payment card hasn’t been updated, Palmers Lodge simply cancels the reservations and resell them.

Result

• Saved between £4,000 and £6,000 of lost revenue per month
• Reduced no shows by up to 90%

"It used to be the big fish beats the small fish, but now it's the fast fish beats the slow fish. Mews enables us to move quicker than the big guy, it's become the brain of the organization: nothing else happens without it."

Charlie Delamare
Business Improvement Manager, Palmers Lodge

Automation frees up time to focus on guests

Pain

Receptionists at Palmers Lodge were struggling to provide good hospitality, not because they weren’t capable, but because too much of their time had to be spent on transactional questions and tasks.

Solution

Mews has enabled Palmers Lodge to automate many manual tasks and staff can now properly engage with guests and build a rapport. Genuine connections are created and team members often stay for drinks with guests at the end of shifts fostering a lively, positive culture for the hostel.

Result

• Faster for staff to make changes to reservations
• Increased face-to-face time with guests
• 16hrs per week saved thanks to payment automation
• 12% of guests check in online

Mews prompts business-wide culture change

Pain

Staff at Palmers Lodge had a mentality of 'that's just the way it is' when it came to using technology in each of the properties. Their hands felt tied about process improvements and manual tasks.

Solution

Across the Palmers Lodge team, they've adopted the Mews philosophy of looking at everything differently. The business no disregards existing methods and interrogates problems to find an effective solution, creating an environment of continuous improvement.

Result

• A complete culture change
• A feeling that the possibilities are endless
• Staff can focus on guests, not admin

"One thing I really like is how embedded Mews is within the community itself. Rather than being a provider for the industry you are part of the industry – part of hospitality. A large majority of your staff come from hostels or hotels and really understand us, having been in our shoes."

Charlie Delamare
Business Improvement Manager, Palmers Lodge

Integration spotlight

Palmers Lodge uses 15 integrations, from upselling to personalized guides for guests.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks is an accounting integration that sends real-time data from Mews to QuickBooks. This allows their Finance Controller to run financial reports and control accounting through a platform that’s already familiar to him, with no need to learn anything new.

View QuickBooks

Looking ahead

Through the use of Mews, Palmers Lodge has been able to maximize revenue across the entire business. In addition, removing manual and time-consuming tasks away from staff members has unlocked a renewed sense of energy and purpose to the team who now believe the possibilities are endless when it comes to optimizing both how they work, and how the business operates.

In the future, Palmers Lodge will look to leverage more integrations, understand how to streamline more processes to free up time, and become more insights-driven with the data they now have at their finger tips.

"There’s a misconception that Mews is going to automate everything, that it's going to take away from the customer experience. But I think it enhances it."

Charlie Delamare
Business Improvement Manager, Palmers Lodge

Be the next success

If you're impressed at what these properties have achieved, why not find out what Mews could do for you?

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Palmers Lodge customer story

Palmers Lodge embraces Mews Hospitality Cloud

About Palmers Lodge

A smooth set-up

Pain

Solution

Result

100% payment automation

Pain

Solution

Result

Automation frees up time to focus on guests

Pain

Solution

Result

Mews prompts business-wide culture change

Pain

Solution

Result

Integration spotlight

QuickBooks

Looking ahead

See more customers like this

Be the next success