The Young Street Hotel in the Carrington area of Newcastle, is a traditional Aussie pub with a great atmosphere and a long and interesting history. It started life as the Oriental Hotel in the 1800s, before the original building was demolished in 1918, to be replaced with the current building in 1922. By the time current owner Luke Tilse took it on in October, 2020, the pub had undergone a name change to the Young Street Hotel.
Tilse’s vision was to make the Young Street Hotel into a family-friendly pub with great food and accommodation.
Tilse consulted with security expert and friend Mark Bartrom, managing director of SSM Services in the Greater Newcastle, New South Wales area of Australia. Bartrom recommended Salto’s electronic access control (EAC) technology that included PIN-controlled locks. A large part of Salto’s appeal for Tilse was that Salto’s locks are wire-free, which significantly reduced the installation effort.
“In an old building like this, the disruption, cost, and time to wire in locks to every door would have been excessive,”said Tilse. “So, I loved Salto’s innovative wire-free approach.”
Tilse’s next step was to select a property management system and room-booking platform that integrated with Salto. He selected Cloudbeds as the PMS, with Operto as the PIN generator. The Young Street Hotel was Operto and Salto’s first joint integration in Australia, and Tilse and his team were very happy to lead the way.
Bartrom managed the installation of Salto XS4 Original Keypad escutcheons and the Salto KS cloud-based access control management system, and set up the integration with Cloudbeds and Operto. The system works seamlessly from end to end; guests book through Cloudbeds (or via their integrations with Air B&B, Booking.com, and Whatif.com), and Operto generates a PIN which is sent to the Salto lock. The guest receives a confirmation email that contains the PIN, and they can simply go straight to their room when they arrive.
“Using the Salto system has been amazing,” said Tilse. “It has done everything I wanted it to do. The installation was simple and the integrations make for a great experience for my guests and ease of management for me and my team. I can focus on my food and beverage business, but still offer good quality, and well-managed accommodations to my guests. It’s been a real win-win.”
- End to end automation – The booking and access system is completely automated from booking to check-in.
- Saving staff time – The bar staff was spending 10 minutes per check-in which was a real problem because the busiest time for accommodation – Friday and Saturday nights – is also the busiest time for the food and beverage side of the business. Now guests can check-in and access their rooms themselves, without the need for any assistance from staff.
- Last minute bookings management – The new system allows the property to accept last-minute bookings that can come through when the property is closed, increasing opportunity for revenue that might otherwise have been lost.
- Improved cleaning and laundry management – Management uses the system to see which rooms need to be cleaned each day and how many linens need to be replaced. Soon, the cleaning team will be able to manage this task themselves via the system, freeing up management to tend to other duties.
- Remote access – Tilse and staff can provide remote access for the different types of service and maintenance workers that need access to the property at varying times.
- Visibility – Young Street Hotel management can see when people have opened and closed a guestroom door, which is useful proof if there are complaints, for example, about noise.
- Rapid change of PIN codes – No more driving to the hotel in the middle of the night if a guest locks themself out of the room. The staff can simply reissue a PIN code remotely.
- Saved cost of keys – Replacing physical keys meant high costs and lost time. With Salto, it’s a simple PIN change, rather than having to issue a new key.
Remote operation – Hotel management can be hands off and run the entire accommodations operation remotely.
The Young Street Hotel in the Carrington area of Newcastle, is a traditional Aussie pub with a great atmosphere and a long and interesting history.
