Las Vegas— One of the most luxurious hotels in New York City has experienced increased profitability and enhanced customer service capabilities as a direct result of installing Bartech’s automatic minibar products. The Pierre, A Taj Hotel, installed Bartech’s advanced automatic minibars in all of its 189 luxury guestrooms, following a $100 million top-to-bottom modernization of the iconic property overlooking Central Park.
Bartech—the Las Vegas-based leader in automatic profit-generating minibar solutions for the global hospitality industry—has installed customized versions of its CH41 Side Dry 9 automatic minibars at The Pierre. Bartech offers a wide selection of customizable automatic minibars that are designed to maximize revenue and save hoteliers time and money through increased efficiency, and that is exactly what has happened at The Pierre.
Prior to the installation of Bartech’s automatic minibars, The Pierre’s self-service food and drink offerings amounted to an honor bar and a basket of snacks; both were labor-intensive to monitor and restock. The analog setup resulted in guest-staff friction and unnecessarily undermined the hotel’s sterling service culture. It also meant that the hotel was leaving profit on the table in the form of lost inventory and an opportunity cost for work hours spent manually checking minibars each day and restocking items.
By converting to automatic minibars, The Pierre has been able to reduce the number of minibar attendants on staff from four to two, reassigning them to other guest service tasks and trimming the number of work hours required within the hotel’s food & beverage department. On top of the payroll cost savings, the hotel also is on pace to take in approximately 10% more revenue this year than had initially been projected.
The Bartech automatic minibars are installed as part of a revenue-sharing agreement with The Pierre, requiring no up-front or maintenance costs for the hotel. The revenue-sharing deal includes a monthly profit ceiling after which point the hotel keeps 100% of the profits, and that ceiling has been exceeded nearly every month since implementation.
But the budgetary gains are only part of the Bartech story, says Jeffrey Mihalakis, director of food & beverage for The Pierre. "It was very difficult to maintain product consistency both effectively and efficiently before installing Bartech’s automatic minibars—it was also very labor-intensive and tedious to check the stock in each guestroom everyday. We knew there had to be a better way," Mihalakis says. "We looked to Bartech because of its flexible and customizable design—they were the only vendor that was really willing to work with us to customize the product however we wanted it."
The automatic minibar as customized for The Pierre includes a special frosted glass door engraved with The Pierre’s logo. The minibars were installed inside bespoke credenzas at the hotel’s request.
Besides adapting the design of the automatic minibars to meet The Pierre’s specific requirements, Bartech also gave the hotel the ability to adjust the product’s sensors to be as strict or as forgiving as management deems appropriate. "We realize that sometimes guests may pick up an item and then put it back shortly after, and we don’t want to charge them for that, obviously. But when we looked at other minibar vendors, they had no flexibility—the sensor would record the charge after a certain number of seconds, and that’s it," Mihalakis says. "Bartech, on other hand, lets us set the sensor delay anywhere from five to 60 seconds. That freedom and flexibility to operate the product the way we see fit was a big selling point for us."
The only minibar provider to offer fully customizable design, Bartech offers a choice of five methods of server communication for its automatic minibars. At The Pierre, the automatic minibars run on a standalone Zigbee wireless network that was developed in house by Bartech. Hotels can also choose from WiFi, coax cable, twisted pair and Ethernet communication. Bartech is the only automatic minibar provider to offer reliable means of item detection via three different types of sensor technologies - infrared, magnetic and micro-switch - ensuring that all inventory is accounted for regardless of size, weight or type of packaging.
About Bartech:
Bartech has been a pioneer and a leader in the field of minibar design and technology for the global hospitality industry. Since launching the first automatic minibar in 1988, Bartech has developed a steller reputation as the provider of the industry's most powerful and sophisticated solutions to manage hotel minibar operations. With minibars installed in nearly 300,000 guestrooms worldwide, Bartech has been selected by many of the most prestigious hotel chains and independent properties worldwide. With an in-house R&D department and worldwide customer support, Bartech is dedicated to continuously enhancing product design, software and system integrationwith the latest technologies, in order to meet the growing needs of the industry for increased profit and efficiency.
For more information about Bartech and its comprehensive range of automatic minibar solutions, please contact:
Bartech at 702-369-5550,
or visit us on the web at www.bartech.com.
