A trio of Scottish hoteliers have launched a cloud-based system which could save struggling hospitality businesses.
Richard Drummond, Jon Erasmus and Ronald Tweedie say Hop is ‘market disrupting’ software which allows the operation of various hotel functions from any smart device or phone.
CEO and designer Jon Erasmus, was also behind the Inverness Brewery, explained why they began work on the system 18 months ago.
“We are market disrupters trying to help our own industry,” he said. “As hoteliers ourselves, we were becoming increasingly frustrated at lots of expensive legacy-based systems designed in the early 2000s, with bits bolted on and run by other companies.
“Our industry is having to deal with business rate rises, impacts of the Living Wage, Brexit and rising utility costs. There are pressures in many areas and people don’t want huge IT bills on top of that.
“We decided to develop software ourselves which could run a business.”
The three directors have invested £500,000 into Hop, which is already being used by the McKays Hotel in Pitlochry, The Boat Hotel in the Cairngorms National Park and the Glen Mhor Hotel in Inverness.
The start-up believes there are opportunities for the software in the South African market.
The firm says six full-time posts have already been created, including three UK-based developers, with plans to expand the workforce to 15-20 jobs in the next two years.