The Challenge of Managing Multiple Sites

The management of hotels is increasingly being split into regional clusters, groups of sites with the same management team responsible for ensuring everything runs smoothly.

With the sector still in recovery after the pandemic and facing a major squeeze on operational costs, hotels need to be doing all they can to be efficient while maximising their revenue potential.

But with so much already on their plate, how do you find time to manage multiple car parks?

Finding the right car park management partner can help, providing internal teams with the support that gives them back time to focus on other areas of the business while also providing peace of mind when it comes to your parking being taken care of.

When it comes to managing multiple hotel car parks there are several important points to keep in mind.

Explore more

Provide consistency in line with a brand

The brand a hotel represents is important, it’s one of the recognisable markers of quality for potential guests and creates a sense of expectation.

Regardless of each hotel’s individual location or facilities if they are part of a group, particularly a recognisable brand, there will be elements of the service visitors would expect as standard. Car parks can help to establish that sense of consistency and familiarity that help a customer feel welcome.

This is delivered through the same rules being in place, similar payment options and services. For example, if one hotel in a group protects its priority bays using Bay Enforcement guests that benefit from that service will expect that same level of increased service at other hotels within that chain as it helps make their stay more pleasant and removes stress and parking concerns from their trip.

Having the same rules or at least similar solutions in place on all your sites also makes life easier for staff moving from one to the other, such as covering shifts or if they transfer. It’s one less thing to get up to speed on, and the processes for dealing with queries from guests remain the same.

Understand that no two car parks are the same

Your car park management provider should be able to help you create that consistency across your sites, but they should also understand that not all car parks are the same.

Some sites will have different issues to contend with, which means the solutions needed to establish consistency, or to help that car park to perform better, might be different.

For example, there might be a hotel near a popular tourist destination, which means that its busy periods fluctuate and possibly fall in line with school holidays, which means the site is a lot quieter at other times.

The data that can be gathered from ANPR can help identify this issue, and gauge how much space could be allocated for a service like pre-booking. If there is a demand for parking in the area the hotel can begin to use that surplus space to its advantage, generating additional revenue without increasing the workload of your staff.

Or you might look at the vehicle usage across your hotels and identify that some car parks see more electric vehicles than others. If you’re planning to roll out EV charging facilities across your estate this sort of information can help you plan where to prioritise first. This is a much more sensible approach that allows you to capitalise on user need instead of installing chargers that won’t be as beneficial.

It’s important that solutions, even if there are utilised across an entire estate, are still tailored to suit the specific needs of the site they are on. A one size fits all approach doesn’t work. Much like having different types of rooms to suit different requirements and adapt to changing needs, your car park management needs to be flexible.

Putting customer experience at the heart of your parking

Whatever a hotel needs the focus is always on the experience that guests have. From the moment someone arrives to the moment they leave they should feel like the services they are using are geared toward maximising the quality of their stay.

Even something as simple as being able to find a parking space quickly can add to this.

At Parkingeye we work alongside many of the biggest names in hospitality, helping them to take control of their parking, boost revenue and increase customer satisfaction using a variety of innovative and cost-effective solutions.

To learn more about Parkingeye and how we can help transform hotel parking you can download our new hotel brochure.