Jinjiang Inn Revolutionizes Hotel Management with HUAWEI CLOUD

About Jinjiang Inn

Jinjiang Inn, a fully owned subsidiary of Jin Jiang International, is a well-known hotel chain in China, founded in 1996. Since its inception, the total number of branches has grown to over 1,000, distributed across 31 provinces and municipalities including more than 200 cities. Altogether, the chain boasts over 100,000 rooms. Jinjiang Inn provides a convenient rapid reservation system, automated travelling directions, and special membership discounts. At present, the Jinjiang brand includes Jinjiang Inn Express, Goldmet Inn Express, Bestay Hotel Express, Magnotel, and Metropolo Hotel.

Challenges

The service sector is undergoing a massive transformation, especially the hotel industry. Although the industry has been aware that these changes were coming for some time, it has nevertheless put a tremendous amount of pressure on their core businesses. When we talk about the digital transformation of the hotel industry, big data, cloud services, and AI are all hot topics, but when the rubber hits the road, there is often very little effective guidance available.

Why HUAWEI CLOUD

Many hotel chains are actively trying to reduce their operating costs by using public clouds. In contrast to generic cloud services, HUAWEI CLOUD can provide custom solutions based on the requirements of large enterprises, solutions that are designed with the hotel industry in mind. Hotel chains need powerful data analysis as they place special importance on revenue management and on the ability to adjust to sudden spikes in occupancy during the holidays. It is not enough for them to just move to the cloud. They require a cloud with better databases, with better architecture, and with levels of security and stability unprecedented in the service sector. Migrating a product management system (PMS) is one of the most challenging migrations a hotel can attempt. Hundreds of changes are involved, changes in banking payment interfaces, hotel hardware devices, and public security interfaces. Once the migration starts, a rollback is not possible. After three years of researching solutions from many different software companies and cloud enterprises, Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel eventually settled on a new solution from HUAWEI CLOUD. The various steps involved with the migration were planned right down to minute, with emergency backup plans in place for hundreds of items. This was one of the most challenging cloud migrations the hotel industry had ever seen, but it delivered significant improvements in both system performance and reliability.

• 36x the Efficiency for Basic Hotel Services

After the migration to HUAWEI CLOUD, the system load for Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel dropped by approximately 75%. The system now runs at only about 20% capacity. Resources were no longer strained and system stability was no longer at risk. HUAWEI CLOUD noticeably improved the database based on the actual situation on the ground. Basic infrastructure was improved, but that was just the beginning. The connection between the database and the system was optimized as well, which massively improved the operational efficiency, stability, and response speed.

• Remote Active-Active DR for Twice the Security

The HUAWEI CLOUD database solution was a perfect match for the PMS of Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel. The enormous improvement in efficiency means that their hotels can handle just about anything without breaking a sweat. The HUAWEI CLOUD team fine-tuned the system, and now queries previously taking 26 seconds can be completed within just 0.1 seconds.

To maximize reliability, HUAWEI CLOUD deployed a remote active-active database disaster recovery (DR) solution. With this solution, if a data center goes down for some reason, there is a standby data center available to immediately take over services until the primary data center is repaired. Services will continue unaffected.

• Smooth, Triple-Speed Migration, and O&M Response Within Seconds, 24/7

After taking an in-depth look at the original system of Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel, HUAWEI CLOUD accurately identified requirements and quickly designed a solution with those specific requirements in mind, a solution that matched database specifications to server configurations for a wide range of scenarios. In the past, this type of database migration would have taken about five hours, but the HUAWEI CLOUD team completed the process in just one hour.

After the migration was completed, the HUAWEI CLOUD expert team provided follow-up support. They provided rapid response service 24/7. If the system of Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel did run into a problem, the HUAWEI CLOUD team was there in a flash to resolve the issue.

• An Efficient Reliable Cloud: a Foundation for Digital Innovation

Cloud computing makes big data possible. It massively reduces the time and cost of constructing an IT system. IT personnel are free to focus their efforts on developing AI applications, and on unlocking the power of big data. Cloud computing drives digital innovation.

In the offices of Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel, you can see the daily receipts and the sales volume for each region rolling in, in real time. Ling Chen, the IT director at the Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel information center, reported, "This wasn't always possible. We used to have to wait at least till the following day before we could see this data, and even then, it was only available to upper level management. Now, business intelligence (BI) and data analysis are available at the local level, which makes it easier to manage the hotel."

Revenue management is critical to maintaining competitiveness in the hotel industry. This involves a large amount of data analysis, including not just internal service data but third-party data sources as well. Weather, airport passenger traffic, exhibition, and even natural disasters all need to be taken into consideration. Today, Jinjiang Metropolo Hotel can combine and analyze massive volumes of data as part of a more comprehensive revenue analysis than was possible in the past, and better revenue analysis results in more revenue.