The Garden City Hotel is a 151-year-old, 4-star Long Island getaway that caters to a wide range of travelers. With its convenient location and multiple event venues, guests come from all over to visit for both business and leisure. With such varied demographics, giving every guest a consistently excellent stay is a priority.
To bring their digital guest journey up to the level of their upscale, in-person experience, they turned to Canary. We sat down with Andrew Gee, Director of Front Office, to hear about the impact on guest engagement, operations and revenue.
Before adding Canary's F&B Mobile Ordering, the hotel ran a separate ordering platform for in-room dining, but it wasn’t intuitive for guests or staff. After just two months with Canary, the hotel made $14K in mobile orders — the same amount they saw in an entire year on their previous platform.
For Andrew, the payoff comes down to how little the process asks of the guest. "It's a one-step process versus a multi-step process. I think that's exactly why mobile ordering with Canary has been so successful with us."
Like many hotels, the property is no stranger to guests ordering from third-party delivery apps. With F&B Mobile Ordering, the team proactively reviewed menu items and prices to keep their program competitive with the local restaurant market. Since launching, they've seen a $20 increase in average check size.
"The return on investment has been incredible,” says Andrew. “We've not only recouped our initial investment but also started to make a profit.”
When designing the guest journey with Canary, the team accounted for the diverse range of travelers who stay at the hotel — from tech-savvy business travelers to wedding groups of all sizes — with a focus on communication and individual engagement. By streamlining front-desk procedures with Canary's Mobile Check-In, they cut average check-in time from 5 minutes to just 30 seconds.
"We want our lobby to be a welcoming environment," Andrew said. "With Canary, we’ve cut down on lobby lines and reduced the front desk workload, so we can focus on personalizing the ultimate guest experience."
As a high-occupancy hotel, the front desk used to field a constant stream of questions by phone. Now, Canary’s AI Guest Messaging lets guests text the property for instant answers, while the team fields fewer phone calls throughout the day.
"Our front desk used to field a lot of calls throughout the day," Andrew says. “Now guests can just text, and almost every single day, a guest comments on how easy it is to communicate with us.”
Because the property is located near many beachside resorts, maintaining the top spot on Tripadvisor was difficult during the high season. With Canary's Smart Checkout, guests who leave a positive internal review are immediately prompted to post on Tripadvisor, and any detracting reviews are immediately routed to the staff for service recovery.
"It's been a great help in terms of capturing feedback.” Andrew said. “We’re able to make sure that guests leave happy, and it’s been great for capturing more Tripadvisor reviews.”
