How do you manage a string of resort clubs with hundreds of guests running

tabs for a week or more?

With difficulty - unless you have the right systems in place. Keen to provide

good customer service and to avoid time-consuming questions about guest

bills, last spring Sunsail (www.sunsail.com) cast aside its aging in-house

systems and installed roomMaster and Aloha EPOS, two solutions from NFS

Hospitality. Sunsail is part of the activity sector of First Choice Holidays Group.

“We were migrating from a previous in-house system and needed a more

robust platform to get a higher level of reliability,” says Commercial

Director Andrew Bex. “We had tender responses from six vendors and

chose NFS as the ‘best fit’ for our design.”

Given Sunsail’s unique multi-property operation, with rooms booked from

company headquarters in Portsmouth but with each resort autonomous in

terms of billing, Andy knew that bespoke software would be required. NFS

solved the problem with a custom-made interface that links roomMaster to

Sunsail’s own property management system and all guest bar and restaurant

bills through Aloha to roomMaster.

“It was important to us to get the system right and to have the level of flexibility

that encourages staff to think more commercially,” Andy notes. “Once this

attitude is established, the benefits should flow automatically.”

To date Sunsail has installed the two systems at six of its resort clubs in Greece

and Turkey. Its newest club in Turkey, called Phokaia, will soon install the

systems, as will Sunsail’s club on the Caribbean island of Antigua. All of the

properties are run on a leased basis.

Simple to use but reliable systems benefit both staff and guests

Benefits from the core NFS systems include reliability and simplicity of use,

especially as the resorts tend to have seasonal staff turnover. To ensure

smooth operations, Commercial Director Andy Bex wants systems that

new staff can use with minimal training.

“Some are large 400-500 room resorts and our staff tend to be young and

fairly mobile. So we need reliable systems that people can use with ease,”

he says. “We’ve found NFS to be responsive to the issues that arose in the

first season and we all know they are there to help at all hours.”