Mystays Hotel Management is the 3rd largest hotel management company in Japan, overseeing 6,708 rooms at 51 properties in the Greater Tokyo Area, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Fukuoka.

Mystays is the only hotel management company in Japan with a business model that enables its guests to freely select the length of stay at its four brands’ properties. Their one-stop shop approach provides users with the information and resources they need to prepare them for their stay.

MyStays tripled their growth in 2017 and will continue to add 300 more hotels to their portfolio in 2018, with an estimated 400,000 customers booking via the online system. However, their previous online platform was beginning to show its age, being unable to cope with their growing popularity and hotel selection.

Mystays needed a website that felt more modern, functional and offered a premium online experience that reflected their brand positioning.

SITECORE
Sitecore 8.2 proved to be the best choice for MyStays’ needs, firstly due to its capability to handle a content-heavy website quickly and efficiently, while also accelerating management and administration in the backend.

The key Sitecore advantages as they relate to Mystays goals are:

• HTML caching for significantly improved load times
• Full site functionality in five different languages
• Enhanced analytics functionality
• Responsiveness across all devices

EXTENDING MARKETING AND USER EXPERIENCE
Integration with Trust You, the world’s largest guest feedback platform, allows Mystays’ customers to make informed decisions before making a booking. The hotel detail page is now integrated with the map service allowing customers to visualize the location and nearby attractions.
Gleam.io was integrated to enhance marketing capability, providing email capturing to help build up a database, giving users who sign up promotional codes for discounts on their next booking. Custom promotion campaign is also easily implemented with predefined promotion code is assigned for each campaign. The websites also uses three different booking solution services, Fastbooking, Travelclick and Rwith.

PERSONALIZATION
Using Sitecore’s powerful personalization capabilities, it was possible to create a unique experience for customers based on their past behavior onsite. A wish list was included on the website, and those in the list along with previously visited hotel also appear first in the search suggestion.

A ‘Featured Hotels’ section was also included on the homepage, which displays nearby hotels to customers as they access the website. Due to map service restriction in China, the system is configured to adapt with the customer’s language selection.

GOING FORWARD
In the next phase of the project, Mystays wants to properly integrate their Cendyn CRM into Sitecore to better manage and oversee customer relations. Their ultimate goal is to create a dedicated interface for each hotel brand, helping to segment the website and create a more relevant experience for each customer.