Mews vs Hostaway: Which is a better fit?

Stephen: Hi, there. My name is Stephen. I'm the sales director of Samesun Hostels based in North America. We're a hostel chain with roughly 150 employees and we use the PMS service, Mews, and we'd give it a four out of five stars. Yeah, so we were using a different PMS system for all our operations. These were on-premise PMS systems that we controlled ourselves. The main weaknesses that we found with this, there was a lack of future-proofing, not cloud, the API connections weren't quite up to speed to what we were looking to do and to diversify the guest journey throughout our properties. So our main reason to change to Mews were for the open APIs and the consistent updates that they provide to their systems. Mews became one of the top candidates mostly for the open API and how they looked at what they wanted to do. They were always looking at the core of the PMS and thought that other companies could bolt on with their open API to make their products a better product as well. And that is the same philosophy that we were looking for as well, a company that could focus on the PMS itself and let other companies bolt on areas that we could customize our guest journey and improve our business and our revenues as well. And that's why we went for Mews. Being a highly customizable piece of software with open APIs, it is a bit more difficult than other PMS systems out there to get started because you can highly customize means there's a lot of variabilities to make it correctly for you. But once you make the decision to change and you've got the right team in place, it is a very good piece of software and the transition is made easier with the onboarding process that they have available as well. If you're looking to customize your guest journey, then Mews is a really great product. With open APIs, even if Mews is the PMS itself, it doesn't have what you want to achieve, then this is a great piece of software for you because they allow you to add on whatever you want and to really customize that journey. For us, it's been an eye-opener because we've been able to increase our auxiliary revenues on the side, and also control how many rates and how we sell our product to everybody. So what we think is, if you're looking for a new PMS, especially if you're on-premises, cloud is definitely the future. It gives you a lot more flexibilities and future-proofing in the future. And this is why we would recommend Mews or any other PMS that's cloud-first and that's what they were designed for. We also chose Mews because it doesn't have the legacy of on-premise demand, which comes with its own burdens. And that's why we like going for Mews and other cloud services.

Doug: Hi, I'm Doug. I'm the manager of The Pickleball Haven of Naples. I've been working with Hostaway now on the onboarding process, and I'd rate them a five on a scale of one to five. We're a brand new property that was just completed in Naples, Florida. The Pickleball Haven of Naples is a pickleball retreat that needs exposure, and we're brand new and we're just getting started, with Airbnb initially. And then we needed a channel manager to really work with Hostaway. That was the reason for working with the Hostaway company. So we did some research on the internet and looked at different companies, interviewed a few different companies for channel management. We'd actually been referenced to Lodgify, but we met with the Hostaway people, real impressed with the process, real impressed with the people, real impressed with the app. So we made the decision to go with them. So getting started with Hostaway was really quite simple. They do have an onboarding fee, which was quite reasonable compared to some of the other options we were looking at. The thing I'm most excited about with the onboarding process is we've got a wonderful leader that's taking us through the process, [inaudible 00:01:10]. And when you go through the process on these one-hour meetings, which are efficient, but they keep working with you until you get it right. So we've got a lot of complexity attached to what we're doing. We're building websites, we're doing payment processes for different sophisticated payment options for how we do the algorithms, and it takes a number of processes to go through that. So they just keep working with you on the onboarding process until you're satisfied with where you are, which is a huge advantage for us because if you try to rush this, you're going to miss stuff. So it's been a really good, healthy process so far. So I'd strongly recommend Hostaway to anybody that's in our situation of really trying to figure out the complexity of Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia, Google. I mean, it's complex. And the opportunity that we've had with working with Hostaway is really coordinating all of that and have a direct website as well. So you get challenges. It's not an easy process, but the support is fantastic. I just spent an hour with the support team yesterday on a particular problem I had with creating a new website, a new web domain that's integrated with the website Hostaway. And they just kept sticking with me. And I've just had so many calls with support teams in the past where they get frustrated, they throw their hands up. It's like, Booking.com is one of them, and they don't follow through on what they said they're going to do. And Hostaway, in their situation they just kept getting more people, frankly, to help with the complex situation I was in until we figured it out. So they stick with it, and it's a great app. The app does so much for you. It's almost limitless in terms of what it can do for you, but to take full advantage of it, you need the support to be able to get it right. And we're really trying to build a sophisticated process with the Pickleball Haven of Naples. It's a wonderful new property. It needs exposure, and it's getting us that exposure. And so far, so good. And we've already had two bookings before we're even fully onboarded with Hostaway. So Pickleball Haven of Naples is very happy with Hostaway at this point.