Loews Hotels at Universal Orlando is proving the theme restaurant experience is just as exciting as Universal Studios’ and Islands of Adventure’s many thrill rides. In an effort to improve the dining experience for guests visiting its three hotels, the chain is adding components of an enterprise management system that streamlines reservations and seating plans across its three properties, as well as at partner restaurants within Universal’s CityWalk. Loews Hotels at Universal Orlando, is comprised of three properties: the 750-room Portofino Bay Hotel, the 650-room Hard Rock Hotel and the 1,000-room Royal Pacific Resort. The Orlando hotel chain has approximately 20 different restaurants and lounges, and each hotel offers a full-service restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. As the chain strives to give its guests the best dining experience throughout all dining venues, Loews is expanding the use of an enterprise management solution that centrally collects data from all restaurants, both internally and across all partnership locations, and then streamlines reservations and seating opportunities. The system also provides a detailed analysis of sales and operational indicators that helps to improve operations and decrease controllable costs.

This expansion is the priority of chief technology officer (CTO) Darrin Pinkham, who joined the company almost two years ago. As CTO, Pinkham is responsible for managing all technology projects related to the 2,400 guest rooms and operations across the chain’s three properties. Reservation and table management became a priority for the hotel chain four years ago.

“At that point, we just opened the Portofino Bay property and began testing a solution that helped each of our Orlando hotel restaurants independently manage their seating capacity and reservations,” he explains.

First, Loews added RSViP, a software tool for reservations management. The application enables restaurants to replace its paper reservation management system with software that can take reservations from multiple terminals simultaneously. Users can also take reservations for multiple restaurants from one location.

The second tool, ProHost, a table seating management application, takes over once guests arrive. Rather than relying on paper schedules, the application automates wait lists, table selection, server paging and available table notification. Both applications, which are built on an open Microsoft plat-form and feature robust, graphical displays, are linked to a centralized database that resides at Loews’ regional support center.

As guests make reservations through a hotel concierge or directly at the restaurant, the reservation is entered and saved within the RSViP application, then pushed into the database. When guests arrive for their dining reservation, the restaurant hostess uses a Fujitsu PC tablet to locate the customer data, which is pulled from the database and populates ProHost’s seating chart. ProHost displays a layout of the room and the status of the guest’s reserved table,” Pinkham explains.

ProHost is also integrated to the restaurant’s Aloha point-of-sale system. “Once the guest is checked in, ProHost tracks all activity, including when the party is seated, served and even when the check has been closed and the table is being cleaned for the next party,” he adds.

“This enables the hostess to see all workflow and server interaction with guests, and decreases estimated wait times for arriving guests. Prior to the system, we had no way to track visits or give accurate wait times to guests with reservations.” The system has also cut the time it takes to make a reservation in half. The solutions will be a critical strategy in Loews’ partnership with Universal’s CityWalk restaurants.

“Our goal was to integrate reservation and table management across all restaurants by centralizing data in one location,” Pinkham explains. “By expanding the solutions to partner restaurants, our guests can make dining reservations for any of these eateries, or our hotel restaurants, either at their respective locations or through the hotel concierges.”

All reservations will sit in the centralized database. Participating restaurants will use passwords to access the server and applications through a firewall, then view stored data. This will be especially helpful to provide guests with alternate dining reservations if their first choice is booked.

Currently, 100 workstations, including both concierge and restaurant hostess stations, are installed with RSViP. Since adding the solutions on a “universal” level, Loews is decreasing the time needed to make a reservation. “Global access enables users to look at all partnering locations, rather than limiting them to booking one independent location,”

Pinkham says. “By cutting this time out of the reservation booking process, and having the opportunity to suggest alternate cafes, we can save 20 minutes per reservation.”

Loews is preparing to install the newest versions of RSViP and ProHost in June 2003, which provides tools that could also be the foundation for a Web-based reservation system that will allow guests to book their own restaurant reservations online.