Case Study: Grupo Posadas
Latin America's Top Hotel Operator Takes Guest Service to the Next Level with StoneGate
StoneGate VPN Helps Grupo Posadas Flexibly to Connect and Communicate
Grupo Posadas, the largest hotel operator in both Mexico and the rest of Latin America, has been
in existence for more than 30 years and operates under the names Fiesta Americana Grand, Fiesta
Americana, Fiesta Inn, Caesar Park, Caesar Business and the Explorean.
Today, Grupo Posadas has 87 hotels in Mexico, the United States, Argentina and Brazil with additional developments underway. Posadas prides itself on being the hotel leader in Latin America due to its strong work ethic and dedication to guest satisfaction.
Their commitment to never rest on their laurels is exemplified by the motto "service that goes beyond lodging". During the company's rapid expansion, it has continued to focus on providing the ideal surroundings for relaxation and entertainment, as well as the appropriate infrastructure and technology to meet business needs.
In order to build on these efforts and support their rapid growth, Posadas realized that it needed an improved way of connecting their Mexico City headquarters, three data centers and individual hotels. In order to meet their growing needs for better management and greater guest services the company decided that it was time to look at an alternative solution to their current virtual private networks (VPN).
A Desire for Improved Services
Posadas realized that with their ambitions to grow rapidly and provide superior guest services, they needed a more flexible VPN solution to support connectivity and communication. Their existing firewall and VPN solution wasn't getting the job done.
Numerous problems occurred trying to connect all of Posadas' hotels as each had installed different solution, including Cisco routers and freeware Linux, Netscreen, and SonicWall firewalls. The simple act of making hotel reservations became a challenge because each hotel could only search its own individual database rather than checking availability across the Posadas hotel network.
With these goals for improved internal connectivity and additional guest services, Posadas began exploring VPN solutions that would best suit their needs.
Creating a VPN infrastuctrue for success
Eros Guillen, head of Posadas' IT group, was tasked with the search and evaluation of various firewall/VPN options. Ultimately, he chose the StoneGate Firewall and VPN from Stonesoft.
Mr. Guillen says Posadas chose StoneGate due to its VPN flexibility and the ability of the VPN client to access information from the corporate headquarters. "For us it was very important to have flexible VPN configurations. With 87 hotels, we needed to connect different VPNs across Latin America with each other. StoneGate was able to do this easily."
Additionally, Guillen was impressed with StoneGate's Multi-Link technology, which allowed Posadas to load-balance traffic across two Internet Service Providers (ISPs), as well as provide fail-over in the event one ISP became unavailable.
Compelling results
Posadas' IT personnel were pleased to find that StoneGate worked immediately, connecting the Posadas' Mexico City headquarters with data centers in Morelia, Mexico and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then hotels across Latin America. Reservation checking, availability and general corporate communications across the network were noticeably improved.
They also found that StoneGate's flexible VPN system allowed them to take a phased approach to implementation instead of a rip and- replace strategy. Although every new hotel will open with a StoneGate solution installed, firewall/VPN solutions at existing hotels will be replaced over a two-year timeframe, allowing the company to manage its resources and costs effectively.
The StoneGate Management Center, core to the StoneGate Firewall and VPN, also eases firewall/VPN administration allowing Posadas' Mexico City IT staff to easily manage its dispersed network, and rapidly deploy new locations. Implementation costs were cut as once a StoneGate firewall was installed it could then be maintained from corporate headquarters rather than requiring a visit by a technician every time a change needed to be done.
"For us it was very important to have flexible VPN configurations. With 87 hotels, we needed to connect different VPNs across Latin America with each other. StoneGate was able to do this easily." - Eros Guillen, Grupo Posadas
Grupo Posadas in Brief
GRUPO POSADAS is the largest hotel operator in Mexico and Latin America. It accounts for six proprietary hotel names: Fiesta Americana Grand, Fiesta Americana, Fiesta Inn, Caesar Park, Caesar Business and The Explorean. These chains operate in Mexico, the United States and South America. POSADAS, with more than thirty years of operations, accounts 87 hotels in beach resort destinations and cities in Mexico, the United States and South America.
GRUPO POSADAS has become a hotel leader for Latin America due to intense work and organization, its commitment to create value in its operations and ist quick response in decision making. Guest satisfaction is evaluated continually at each hotel. Company's services are comprehensive beyond lodging: design of sophisticated vacation and lodging plans that operate under the highest standards of quality, focusing on the frequent traveler.