P3 Launches Online Check-in With the Agile Innovation Fund

After years of experience delivering customised booking engine solutions for hotel groups, it was time to develop our latest technology - an online check-in system - designed exclusively for hotels.

Developing our Online Check-in

The idea behind the online check-in was to develop a scalable product that we could roll out to multiple customers. To have the significant resources to research, develop and test this new product, we got the support from Enterprise Ireland's Agile Innovation Fund.

The hotel online check-in went live in two properties of Dalata Hotel Group in July 2018, and has since been rolled out to another 24 hotels of the group. Phelim, our CEO, explains the launch of our new product:

"We came to Dalata Hotel Group with a design of how we thought the booking engine should really look. It was a fresh design for the user interface and we also pitched the idea of the online check-in. The response was really positive - they loved the online check-in and we won the contract".

"We were able to do the project properly; we didn't have to cut corners. We had six people involved in the project, we did user testing, we designed the screens, we talked to four hotels about how they did the check-in process."

The Investment

The Agile Innovation Fund support has been crucial for the success of this product and for our growth. Enterprise Ireland provided the resources with which we could develop a core software product that is scalable and can be rolled out to new customers. Our online check-in facility for hotels have to communicate with OPERA, which is owned by Oracle. We got the engineer from Oracle over to our office for two days and we went through all the APIs of how this works.

A total of €100,000 was alocated to build the online check-in project, €50,000 of it provided by the Agile Innovation Fund. This invesment in innovation helped us grow our revenue by 70% from 2016 to 2019.

"It's serendipitous, isn't it? The minute you let something go, your focus is different, and you allow new opportunities to come along. In the next two years we won five new hotel groups, doubling the number that we had."

Click here to read the original case study on how Enterprise Ireland's Agile Innovation Fund helped us to develop our online check-in solution.