PELICAN BAY RESORT’S PROFILE
Located on beautiful Aransas Bay in Rockport-Fulton, TX, Pelican Bay Resort is very popular with its guests because of its New England-style cottages, poolside mini-suites and accommodations in the Lodge, nestled among mature, shady oaks. Families in particular, enjoy the safe, quiet atmosphere, the property’s fishing pier and other local amenities near the Gulf of Mexico.
Jessee Pilgrim and her husband, Jordan, are the resort’s co-owners. It’s been a family run resort since its inception, as Jessee took over the business when her parents decided to retire.
They and the staff also welcome families seeking the perfect setting for weddings and reunions and businesses for meetings and retreats. Due to their many years in the area, the staff knows the best local attractions and waterborne activities and can book any of the many packages for guests.
Property Management Challenges
The owners originally chose InnQuest’s roomMaster hotel PMS because they wanted to partner with a proactive company that was continually developing new features and modules to enable independent hoteliers to leverage new technology to remain competitive. When Jessee took over the company, she decided to keep using roomMaster for its user-friendliness.
The Pilgrims and their entire staff rely on roomMaster to help manage the property’s day-to-day operations, store important business data and ensure guests receive the best customer service.
One of the property’s main issues was the fact that Pelican Bay had no online presence.
“We were not bookable online at all,” Jessee recalls.
The foresight of partnering with InnQuest was clear when Hurricane Harvey swept across southeastern Texas, requiring an unexpected and rapid evacuation of the property and the physical removal of office equipment, paper reservations and all other business records in order to preserve them.
The damage from the hurricane was such that extensive rebuilding of the property was necessary, forcing Mrs. Pilgrim to work temporarily off-premise for 2 to 3 months.
“Being hit by the Hurricane made us realize how vulnerable our data was and how critical that data is to the success of our business. Migrating to the roomMaster cloud solution was the logical decision as part of the rebuilding of our property, so we’re able to protect our entire business operations, including our valuable data.”
Jessee Pilgrim, co-owner.
InnQuest Solutions
Rebuilding the property after Hurricane Harvey was a wake-up call for the Pilgrims. They realized their entire business was vulnerable to natural and other potential disasters. Having their roomMaster PMS on-premise meant that critical customer data was also at risk, which led them to migrate to InnQuest’s cloud-based roomMaster PMS solution.
They had previously added InnQuest’s WebBook online booking module and InnQuest Payments credit card system just prior to Hurricane Harvey. Moving to the cloud-based version of roomMaster meant they’d no longer have to worry about managing software updates, as they now had access to the latest roomMaster’s PMS features.
SOLUTIONS AND BEST-PRACTICES OUTCOMES
As an independent hotelier, Mrs. Pilgrim must wear many hats, so having a cloud-based PMS system allows her to work from anywhere, anytime. In addition, roomMaster and its other features are upgraded automatically, saving Mrs. Pilgrim and her staff from having to perform manual upgrades freeing up more time to focus on enhancing the guest experience.
InnQuest also provided Pelican Bay with other hospitality centric applications. Previously, the booking engines were not included and each booking engine they used charged a monthly fee plus an additional fee per booking.
By taking advantage of the Stayfull Channel manager, it gave Pelican Bay Resort a direct connection to Online Travel Agents (OTAs) helping to boost their occupancy rate and save money on third party booking fees.
“I was having trouble managing my rates on all the different platforms,” she said. “Since we’ve added Stayfull it’s made my job much easier.”
Friendly Support
Jessee’s favorite part about working with InnQuest is the personable support team. With her speaking to familiar voices when she has an issue, she feels she gets better service, due to InnQuest’s tight-knit team.
“They already kind of know what challenges I’m facing, and they’re always listening to what my problem is and trying to help me solve it, whether it be a technical issue or just helping me use the program better.”
Jessee says above all in what sets InnQuest apart from the rest is their dedicated customer service.
“From my sales rep to tech support, I never have to worry about getting the support I need. If they say they’ll call me, they’ll keep their word.“
Being on roomMaster Cloud has simplified the entire process for Jessee to keep her property running smoothly, with streamlined support from her reps at InnQuest.
“My favorite part of working with the technical support experts at InnQuest is their ability to access my system remotely, so I can receive help almost immediately and 99% of the time, they resolve the problem.”
Jessee Pilgrim, co-owner
About InnQuest
InnQuest Software was founded in 1994 with a belief that guests deserve an excellent hospitality experience and hoteliers deserve a management system that would allow them to maximize the guest experience and property operations. InnQuest and its many hotel management products, including roomMaster, have evolved with guests’ expectations and the available technologies to serve them better. Today, InnQuest provides first-class hospitality technology to more than 5,500 properties in 100 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.
