Web-based System Powers Company’s Dream Maker Program

GoConcierge Makes it Easy for Joie de Vivre Hotels to Create Special Experiences

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. October 14, 2008

LOS ANGELES, CA, June 13, 2007. Since its creation 20 years ago, Joie de Vivre Hotels, the largest boutique hotel company in California, has developed a reputation for creating unique, memorable experiences for its guests. In fact, the aim of its Dream Maker program is to capture guest information-anniversary dates, birthdays, etc.- to help associates create special experiences.

GoConcierge, the lodging industry's leading Web-based guest service operations system, is the tool Joie de Vivre Hotels uses at many of its hotels to track guest information and tasks. In a separate department within GoConcierge, anyone from a reservations agent to a concierge can enter specific guest preference and personal information- a favorite wine, for example.

"GoConcierge assists us in compiling guest preferences," says Jennifer Moss-Clay, general manager at the Harvest Inn, a Joie de Vivre Hotels property in St. Helena, Calif. that has been using GoConcierge for more than a year. "We try to fulfill our guest's wishes and make them feel incredibly special."

"GoConcierge helps our staff to fulfill our mission of creating opportunities to celebrate the joy of life," adds Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hotels.

Associates at the Harvest Inn, Hotel Vitale, Hotel Adagio, Hotel Rex and Hotel Angeleno all use GoConcierge's Guest Task Calendar instead of paper-based processes to track guest requests such as restaurant reservations. The calendar is color coded, which makes it easy to highlight open, pending and closed tasks. Instead of taking minutes to locate a reservation or note, it takes just seconds.

Log Books Eliminated

GoConcierge enables Moss-Clay and her staff at the Harvest Inn to quickly see the evolution of a task-something that was very difficult to do when they used log books.

"There is no having to read hieroglyphics-someone else's handwriting in a log book," she says. "It helps to build great historical information. I can quickly tell a repeat guest what restaurant they visited during a previous stay."

Once a reservation has been made for a guest, GoConcierge makes it easy to print out or e-mail a personalized confirmation letter that includes the hotel's logo, the guest's itinerary, as well as point-to-point driving directions. Moss-Clay says it is the Harvest Inn's goal to prepare as much of the guest experience prior to arrival.

"By doing that, we are better able to anticipate a guest's needs," she says. "There is more of a sense of arrival and being welcomed."

At the Harvest Inn, a 74-room property surrounded by redwoods and Napa Valley's scenic vineyards, GoConcierge has become a one-stop shop for inn activity.

"If I know that I have a client meeting me, I will put it in GoConcierge," Moss-Clay says. "It is a great communication tool for our staff. We also use it to track lost and found items and packages. With GoConcierge, I have the piece of mind that a package is indeed where it is supposed to be."

Personnel at Joie de Vivre Hotels' properties also use GoConcierge's customized location database to quickly generate restaurant and other area attraction information. Hot buttons on the GoConcierge screen link to websites used most often-movies showing at area theaters, for example.

Helpful Reports Easily Generated

Joie de Vivre Hotels managers use GoConcierge to produce different types of reports, one of which is the Dream Maker log that is sent to the corporate office. They can easily generate a custom report based on any data in GoConcierge. Reports can be run by guest, vendor, task, concierge, status and more. Any date range can be selected.

"It is a wonderful tool that was created by those who know our industry," Moss-Clay says. "The centralization of the information is great. I like the fact that it is customizable because every property is unique."

In addition to the five Joie de Vivre Hotels properties currently using GoConcierge, three additional ones are in the pipeline-the Galleria Park Hotel, the Miyako Hotel and Hotel Kabuki.

"We are proud that Joie de Vivre has chosen to work with GoConcierge and that they are achieving such positive results," says Adam Isrow, executive vice president of Los Angeles-based GoConcierge.net, maker of GoConcierge. "The Joie de Vivre team is quite visionary and we are pleased to be working with them."