Cloud hotel property management system provider Stayntouch has completed a full portfolio migration for Imperial London Hotels, culminating in the go-live of the 1,379-room Royal National Hotel — the largest hotel in Western Europe and the largest single property to deploy on the Stayntouch platform across the EMEA region to date.
The phased rollout touched seven distinct properties — Morton, Bedford, Tavistock, President, City Sleeper, Royal National, and The Imperial — each transitioned sequentially and on schedule. Imperial London Hotels, a family-run company welcoming guests to Bloomsbury since 1837 and now managed by its seventh generation, selected Stayntouch to modernize front-desk operations and unify technology across a portfolio that spans boutique, mid-size, and large-format hotels, plus restaurants, bars, and event spaces steps from the British Museum.
What the Migration Delivered
Beyond the core PMS cutover, the engagement included rapid delivery of single sign-on (SSO), invoicing, purchase order workflows, and financial reporting enhancements — all built out in coordination with Imperial's internal teams during the rollout. On the guest-facing side, Digital Registration Cards allow pre-arrival completion and digital signing of registration details, reducing front desk queues across all seven properties. Self-service kiosks add a check-in and check-out option at Imperial's highest-volume locations, freeing staff to focus on service rather than transactional tasks.
"Moving seven properties to a new PMS, including the 1,379-room Royal National Hotel, required careful coordination and a partner we could rely on throughout the process," said Neil Braude, COO at Imperial London Hotels. "The Stayntouch team worked closely with us at every stage, responded quickly when integrations or enhancements were needed, and helped us maintain momentum from one property to the next."
Why It Matters for Operators
The Imperial deployment is a useful case study for multi-property hospitality groups weighing cloud PMS consolidation. Phased migrations at this scale — spanning budget-adjacent and full-service tiers under one ownership group — carry significant operational risk, and the ability to maintain a live hotel while adjacent properties are in cutover demands careful sequencing. Stayntouch's claim of zero disruption across seven sequential go-lives, if it holds under scrutiny, sets a meaningful benchmark for EMEA hotel groups evaluating similar moves.
The project also reflects a broader shift in hospitality technology adoption toward mobile-first, cloud-native platforms that consolidate integrations rather than layer point solutions on legacy infrastructure. For operators managing mixed portfolios — boutique alongside high-volume — the ability to run a single PMS instance across property types reduces training overhead and simplifies reporting. The integration of self-service kiosks alongside staffed front desks, rather than replacing one with the other, also mirrors the hybrid service model gaining traction across hotel and restaurant operations as labor costs remain a persistent pressure point.
Jacob Messina, CEO of Stayntouch, described Imperial as "an exceptional partner" and pointed to the group's clarity of vision for how technology should serve both teams and guests as central to the rollout's success. Jeff Down, Head of Sales EMEA at Stayntouch, noted that hotel groups across Europe are actively seeking platforms that can "manage complexity without making their operations more complicated" — a framing that captures the core tension driving PMS replacement cycles across the region.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
