How AH Group Hotels boosts agility

AH Group Hotels is a hospitality group based in Vienna, offering a fresh perspective on urban accommodation. Instead of investing in new-build projects, the group revitalises existing properties in prime locations, transforming them into stylish hotels or thoughtfully designed (mini) apartments, often complete with kitchens. Each property is carefully selected, fully renovated, and given its own distinct identity.

At the heart of the business is a fully digital, yet deeply personal guest experience. What began with classic apartment stays has grown, shaped by hands-on operational experience and evolving local regulations, into a diverse portfolio of over 600 units, including hotels, aparthotels, and self-check-in apartments, all located in Vienna’s most sought-after neighbourhoods.

Daniel Schneider, Head of Customer Service Operations, played a key role in bringing Apaleo into the group and driving its digital transformation. With a strong focus on flexibility, automation, and guest-centricity, he helped embed a new way of working across the organisation. In our conversation, Daniel shared how switching to Apaleo enabled AH Group Hotels to eliminate manual processes, streamline guest communication, and achieve the operational agility they had long been aiming for.

“We wanted to be agile and able to adapt processes quickly. With our old PMS, changes could take a year or more. Apaleo just made sense. From the very beginning, we felt we could shape everything exactly how we needed it to be,” Daniel shared.

Challenge: Manual guest journey and fragmented communication

Before AH Group Hotels adopted Apaleo, much of the guest journey was handled manually. Key information, such as check-in details, had to be created for each reservation and sent out individually. At the same time, communication with guests took place across a wide range of channels, including Booking.com, Airbnb, SMS and email. Every message had to be handled individually and coordinated depending on where it came from, making the process hard to track and even harder to scale.

On top of that, AH Group Hotels wanted to take things a step further, their goal was to make communication not only more efficient, but also more modern and personal, ideally by engaging with guests through WhatsApp. However, their existing PMS couldn’t offer the flexibility to support that vision.

Solution: Smarter communication and one central inbox with chatlyn

To streamline the guest journey and reduce manual workload, AH Group Hotels integrated chatlyn, an AI communication hub, directly into Apaleo using the platform’s open APIs. It quickly became a core part of their tech stack.

Now, every guest receives a personalised check-in link before arrival, sent automatically via WhatsApp. If the link isn’t opened, a trained chatbot (currently in testing) steps in and handles questions proactively, with no need for the customer service team to get involved.

One of the biggest wins? All guest messages, whether from Booking.com, Airbnb, email, or WhatsApp, now flow into one central inbox. This gives the team complete visibility, saves time, and reduces the need for additional staffing.

And the digital experience doesn’t stop there. Access control has been fully automated as well. Instead of physical keys or cards, AH Group Hotels now uses TTLocks with digital keypads. Reservation data is pulled from Apaleo in real time, unique access codes are generated and securely sent to guests via chatlyn, instantly and without any manual effort.

Result: Greater efficiency, higher ratings, and happier guests

With key parts of the guest journey fully automated, AH Group Hotels has significantly reduced the pressure on its customer service team. Manual actions have become the exception, and guest enquiries are resolved faster and more effortlessly than ever.

This optimisation has had a clear and measurable impact on guest satisfaction. The George improved its Booking.com rating from 7.7 to 8.1, while The Art Hotel saw its score rise from 6.9 to 7.3.

Daniel is convinced these improvements didn’t happen by chance. He sees them as a direct result of smarter, more consistent digital processes and a guest communication experience that is faster, clearer and more personal.

Challenge: Time-consuming and manual room assignments

For AH Group Hotels, every new booking didn’t just increase guest communication, it also added manual workload behind the scenes. Their previous PMS often struggled to assign rooms efficiently within the occupancy calendar.

Even with sufficient availability in a given room category, the system would sometimes fail to allocate the reservation properly. As a result, bookings remained unassigned, while available rooms were left unmatched in the system. In the end, the front office team had to step in to manually close the gaps, day after day.

Solution: Automated room allocation with Make.com

By using Apaleo’s API-first platform and seamlessly integrating Make.com, AH Group Hotels was able to fully automate and optimise their room assignments.

This purpose-built automation evaluates each reservation and assigns it to the most suitable room within the booked category. It places bookings in the occupancy calendar in a way that maximises space usage and avoids unnecessary gaps. Even complex scenarios, such as multi-property allocations, are handled smoothly and reliably, without any manual intervention.

Result: 20 manual assignments eliminated daily

As a result, AH Group Hotels has achieved significant time savings in daily operations, especially when it comes to assigning rooms efficiently. On average, the team now avoids around 20 manual room placements every day. What once felt like a frustrating game of Tetris, constantly shifting bookings to close gaps, has been replaced by a seamless and fully automated process.

Looking ahead

In the months to come, AH Group Hotels will turn its focus to fine-tuning and strengthening its digital infrastructure. Current automations, including the chatbot still in testing, will be further enhanced to drive even more efficiency, smoother workflows and greater scalability.

At the same time, the team is already laying the groundwork for its next phase of growth in 2026. New opportunities will be explored, and the portfolio is expected to expand, potentially reaching beyond Vienna.

For Daniel, the path forward is full of potential: “We absolutely want to keep growing, and we’re confident that Apaleo gives us everything we need to do just that. The platform gives us the freedom to scale however we need. The possibilities are practically endless.”

To wrap things up, Daniel reflects on what impressed him most:

“I was genuinely surprised by how easy it was to onboard new properties. After the first time, it was basically click-and-go. And the Apaleo Store? That’s a game-changer. Being able to browse integrations and activate them with just one click is something I’ve never seen before. Apaleo covers the essentials, and the rest is up to us, with full flexibility through the open APIs.”