A-STAY Antwerp
How A-STAY gives its front-desk team members 3 hours back every day
See how A-STAY handles Apaleo guest communication for all 190 rooms from one inbox, with just one person per shift.
- Up to 60% faster response times
- 8.1 → 8.5 Booking.com review score
- ~3 hours saved per front-desk team member per day
- Location
- Antwerp, Belgium
- Property type
- Hotel
- Live on Guestway since
- December 2023
About A-STAY
A-STAY Antwerp is an urban lifestyle hotel that combines the social spaces of a boutique hotel with the practical flexibility of a serviced apartment. The 190 rooms range from twins to king-size and XL doubles, each with a desk, and there is a 24-hour reception.
The problem: Four booking channels, six separate inboxes
A-STAY sells through Airbnb, Expedia, Booking.com and its own website. Guest messages then land in six separate inboxes: Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, WhatsApp, email and text messages.
Every inbox kept its own conversation
The questions barely change: can I check in early and leave my bags in a locker, can I get an invoice, where do I park, is there a baby bed. Those questions arrived all day, in every inbox. Airbnb and Expedia reservations were handled by hand.
"You have the OTAs, different inboxes, messages coming from every direction, so you can get very busy and disorganised." — Michael Oprinsen, hotel manager at A-STAY
An early check-in took three teams to arrange
When a guest asked to check in early, the front desk emailed housekeeping to find out which guest was in which room, and until when. Someone double-checked availability, worked out a price and entered it by hand in the PMS.
A cold room meant a trip upstairs
When a guest called reception to say the room was too cold, the team could not see or change a room's temperature remotely, so even a small adjustment meant someone taking the lift.
Apaleo guest communication in one inbox, whatever the channel
Guestway connects to Apaleo and brings every guest conversation into one inbox for every guest channel: Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, WhatsApp, email and text messages. Each thread sits next to the reservation it belongs to.
At shift handover, the next person reads one thread per guest instead of rebuilding a conversation from six inboxes.
"One central inbox completely changed our daily workflow. Instead of constantly switching between the OTA portals, WhatsApp and emails, everything now flows into one screen, alongside our Apaleo reservations. We respond much faster, and we never lose track of a conversation." — Michael Oprinsen
Every arrival now runs from booking to door in one flow
Booking → message → pre-check-in → housekeeping → room ready → access → stay → check-out
Booking and pre-check-in. A Booking.com reservation lands in Apaleo. Within minutes, Guestway sends the confirmation on WhatsApp and asks the guest to complete pre-check-in, so the hotel has everything it needs before arrival. Common questions are answered from a shared knowledge base instead of written from scratch.
Early arrival, sold digitally. In the guest portal, the guest picks an early check-in or late check-out time, sees the price and pays on the spot. No emails to housekeeping, no manual payments, and in Michael's words, no more mistakes.
Housekeeping and room ready. The supervisors get the day's rooms straight from Apaleo and assign them: five supervisors and twelve housekeepers cover all 190 rooms. When a room is marked clean, the supervisor inspects it. Once it passes, the room is assigned to the booking automatically and reception sees it as ready. That cleaning and inspection workflow replaces the calls and emails between desk and housekeeping.
Access. The guest gets the room number and door code on WhatsApp, then types the code or uses their phone as a key, with self check-in with Salto door codes. The same access opens the front and night doors, gym, garage and parking barriers.
During the stay. When a guest says the room is too cold, the team adjusts it on screen with remote room climate control. Guests can do the same from their phone.
Check-out. Guests check themselves out. If they forget, Guestway checks them out an hour after the scheduled time, and the room's motion sensor confirms it is empty before it is released.
Arrival became something the guest completes. The 24-hour reception is still there, one WhatsApp tap away, for guests who want a person.
Measurable results from implementing Guestway
- 45.4%% of arrivals completed pre-check-in: 6,939 of 7,022 between July and September 2026, about 76 arrivals a day
- 1 person per shift handles guest communication for all 190 rooms
- ~3 hours saved per front-desk team member per day, mainly on manual data entry and repetitive messaging
- Up to 60% faster response times, with most room-climate issues now resolved remotely
8.1 → 8.5 Booking.com review score after the Apaleo and Guestway rollout, with guests singling out check-in and room access
Before and after Guestway
| Before Guestway | With Guestway |
| Separate inbox per channel | One unified inbox, next to the Apaleo reservation |
| Airbnb and Expedia reservations handled by hand | Airbnb and Expedia connected, with the same automated messages as every other channel |
| Early check-in coordinated by email across three teams | Guest picks a time and pays in the guest portal |
| Manual room allocation by the front office | Room assigned automatically once inspected |
| A trip upstairs to adjust the temperature | Remote climate control from the desk |
| Handovers rebuilt from six inboxes | One thread per guest |
| Manual check-out follow-up | Self check-out, with automatic check-out as back-up |
Where the saved time goes
At A-STAY, automation was never meant to replace the personal welcome; it gives the team more time to offer it. Every guest has different needs. Tech-driven business travellers can handle much of their stay from their phone, while others value a quick answer from a person or a conversation at reception.
With routine admin off their plate, the front-desk team can spend more time in the lobby, welcoming guests at check-in and helping them when they need it. For Michael, that personal contact remains an important part of the guest experience, and it is something A-STAY wants to keep improving.
Free up your hotel team from repetitive tasks
Guestway is a guest experience platform with an operations layer underneath. It connects to your PMS and brings every guest channel, arrival, door code and room setting into one place, so a lean team can run a large building and keep hospitality effortless.
See how Guestway can give your hotel team time back.
FAQ
Which PMS does A-STAY use with Guestway?
A-STAY runs Apaleo as its PMS. Guestway connects to Apaleo and brings reservations and guest conversations from Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, WhatsApp, email and text messages into one inbox.
How many people handle guest communication at A-STAY?
One person per shift handles all guest communication for the 190-room building, working from one central inbox and automated messages.
How do A-STAY guests get into their rooms?
Guests complete pre-check-in on WhatsApp before arrival. Once housekeeping has inspected the room, Guestway sends the room number and door code on WhatsApp, and guests can also use their phone as a key.
How much time does Guestway save the A-STAY front desk?
Each front-desk team member saves around three hours a day, mainly on manual data entry and repetitive messaging.
"Apaleo is a clean and user-friendly PMS that handles our core rates and bookings. Guestway sits right on top of that and manages all our guest messaging. It's really automated, and it takes away a lot of the administrative load a small team can have."