With Little Hotelier’s support, Istanaku Hotel & Guesthouse stays ahead of the game

For travellers making plans to visit Manado for business or pleasure, Istanaku Hotel & Guesthouse offers accommodation in the best location, only less than 12 km from Sam Ratulangi International Airport, in Indonesia. Prioritising visitor comfort and satisfaction; this accommodation, which opened its doors in 2011, offers the best quality service at affordable prices.

Chrisvandi, Hotel Manager of Istanaku Hotel & Guesthouse, explained that Istanaku was initially a stand-alone guesthouse. As the business blossomed, Istanaku added another guesthouse to the property.

After being hampered by the pandemic in 2020, the first Istanaku Guesthouse was developed into a hotel.

“We have upgraded the facilities and after re-opening in early 2022, the first Istanaku Guesthouse became Istanaku Hotel,” Chrisvandi said. “Meanwhile the second guesthouse consistently carries out the previous concept.”

Furthermore, Chrisvandi explained that in Manado, Istanaku is already well-known as foreign tourist’s go-to hotel, especially those hailing from Europe.

This fact doesn’t come as a surprise since Istanaku has quality facilities and high-quality service. Some of the facilities that guests can enjoy include a 24-hour front desk, restaurant, and Wi-Fi which is available in all public areas of the property.

Operations hindered by inferior former system

Before using Little Hotelier, Istanaku relied on a different system to manage its 28 hotel rooms and 17 guesthouse rooms.

Chrisvandi explained that the previous system was not free from errors or problems in general.

“This system’s developer doesn’t have a team, so sometimes when we had a problem, they were taking care of business somewhere else. It was very difficult,” Chrisvandi complained.

When Istanaku’s former system repeatedly showed signs of problems during the pandemic, Chrisvandi decided to look for a new solution to streamline the daily operations of his property.

“Apart from being difficult to contact, at that time the hotel system we used did not include a channel manager,” he continued. “This meant that if we wanted a channel manager, we would have to work with another third party which would include extra costs.”

All-in-one quick fix

Striving to stay ahead, Istanaku turned to Little Hotelier as a one-stop solution to all their problems.

Little Hotelier really helped Istanaku with their reservations and inventory management.

“There’s no need to check each online travel agent (OTA) one by one. With Little Hotelier’s channel manager, every time there is a booking, we no longer need to input it into the system manually because Little Hotelier’s feature automatically records incoming bookings from any OTA and updates our inventory.”

Apart from managing bookings, Little Hotelier’s features also aided Istanaku in terms of pricing and managing room availability.

Chrisvandi proudly states that Istanaku uses all of Little Hotelier’s features including the front desk, insights, direct booking engine, and the channel manager.

“The front desk makes it easier for us regarding the guest database, inputting guest data, and checking them in,” he continued. “With the previous system, I had to come to the hotel to monitor it manually, now I can easily do it from home.”

Significant advancement to stay ahead

Chrisvandi emphasised Istanaku is seeing major shifts after relying on Little Hotelier’s insights feature.

“Little Hotelier is very helpful in terms of insight, we can now see the prices set by our competitors,” he said.

To him this is essential in aiding Istanaku to implement the right pricing strategy for their market. Chrisvandi believes that nowadays, competition in the industry no longer solely focuses on services, but also highlights the importance of providing the best prices for guests.

“If we don’t have data regarding the prices set by competitors, it’s very troublesome to have to check them manually. Meanwhile, Little Hotelier summarises those insights, so we only need to check them and then decide whether our price position is already suitable, too high, or even too low,” Chrisvandi said.

Happy to be able to provide the best solution, we wish nothing but success for Istanaku Hotel & Guesthouse!