Case study Ayres del Champaquí: More than guests

Ayres del Champaquí is a boutique hotel located in Villa General Belgrano, Córdoba; it opened to the public in 2014 and, in less than eight years, it has enlarged its premises to offer more services and the number of people that are part of this community has increased too.  Its motto is to provide an integral and comfortable experience to its guests so that, in the future, Ayres becomes the first option for accommodation, relaxation, and disconnection from the outside world. 

Its privileged location makes people think of it as a cozy place that any traveler would want to visit to contemplate the natural landscape that surrounds it and breathe the fresh air of the countryside which will make their stay a unique sensory experience. Thanks to Ayres del Champaquí’s team, in this new case study, we will learn more about its history, the variety of services it offers, its distinguishing proposal, the difficulties and challenges it has faced, and its perspectives for the future.  Discover more about the case study of Ayres del Champaquí.

The story behind Ayres

The construction of the Ayres del Champaquí hotel lasted eight years. The owners of this project are Martin and Ana, a married couple that has two children: Candelaria and Lucas who was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was a toddler. Martin is a chemical engineer and used to work at Monsanto; Ana, on the other hand, is an accountant. As a result of the hardship they were living with their son’s condition, they thought of a way of developing a family business that could provide for their child when they were no longer present.

They already owned a house in Villa General Belgrano so they started to look for land that could use to build their hotel. They found a piece of land that was large enough and very well-located so they began building the hotel in 2008 and it was finished in 2014. At first, it had less than 12 employees but now, after its evolution throughout this time, there are 40 employees.

Panoramic view of the hotel from the golf course

The hotel now is made up of 12 suites of 42 square meters each in the main building. It also has a restaurant called “La Estaca” on the top floor while on the ground floor, there is the spa which offers several services to meet guests’ needs. 

In 2018, the guest's house was opened and it is located 50 meters away from the hotel. It is a large place mainly aimed at married couples with kids that want to have a more homely experience during their stay.  Recently, they have opened some lofts, on the same piece of land but outside the main building. These lofts are a different type of accommodation aimed at younger guests who prioritize tranquility and functionality over comfort and the services that the hotel offers.

These lofts were designed to live a private and intimate experience that merges with the landscape of Cordoban sierras and offers the essential services that visitors need to be comfortable.  They have staircases that lead to an upper floor where guests can find the bedroom; therefore, it is not an adequate choice for elderly people or families since the staircase could be a problem for people with mobility issues. Moreover, because of their small dimensions, lofts may not be adequate for married couples with kids either.  On the other hand, they are an excellent alternative for guests traveling alone, students, and childless couples since they will find a very quiet, cheaper option away from the noise in the main building.

Panoramic view of the hotel's "La Estaca" restaurant

As regards the lofts, Martin shared with us a meaningful story about the first time a guest was offered a loft. This guest was so disappointed because she was expecting something very different and said to one of the receptionists: “You have ruined my vacation”. The receptionist, together with Martin and other colleagues explained to her the different options they could offer her emphasizing the advantages of the lofts (among them, the fact that they are the cheapest option) so that the guest reconsidered her negative view about them.  At the end of the day, after this conversation, the guest had changed her mind completely and she no longer thought her vacation was ruined; instead, she decided to stay and enjoy the services of the hotel.

Every detail matters

El hotel conecta con diversas áreas: recepción de anfitriones, mantenimiento, sala de mozos y restaurante, y también el SPA. Una particularidad que tiene la forma de operar el hotel es que los distintos roles de los colaboradores no están definidos y todos están capacitados para desempeñar multitareas a lo largo del día. Esto se fundamenta en que para el equipo de Ayres del Champaquí la prioridad es el huésped, por lo que las tareas se adaptan a las necesidades del cliente, sea cual sea la situación que se presente.

A comprehensive journey through emotions

Something that shocked us while interviewing Martin was the fact that he and his wife do not consider themselves hoteliers, even though they own and run a hotel.  In fact, they assure us this is an advantage because they can focus on proving guests with added value all the time.  

“We do not want to become the best hotel in town but to be the first choice for guests” - Martín Gomez.

The first stage in the development of the hotel was to put into practice a new concept as regards customer experience to make it a more sustainable business.  This new concept that Martin and Ana introduced was the idea of “hosts”. In Martín’s words, nowhere else will people feel as comfortable as they feel in their homes. This is why they do not think the concept of the hotel industry is useful for them since, no matter how complete and comfortable it is, a hotel will never be as warm as our own home is.

They accept they cannot make guests feel exactly as they feel at their homes but it is in their hands to make guests have an unforgettable experience.

- Martín Gomez.

To try to solve this problem, they designed the team at Ayres as hosts that open up their homes to other people.  They know they cannot make guests feel as they feel at their homes, but they can make guests have unforgettable experiences, customizing guests’ stay according to what they like, not what the hosts like. 

“The customer is at the center and in every detail”  - Martín Gomez

When one wants to make other people comfortable and satisfied, the best idea is to know what they like.  At Ayres, Martin, Ana, and their team are in charge of being the hosts for each guest that visits their house and making them live a different (but familiar) experience.  The role of hosts allows them to understand people better from an emotional and holistic perspective since human beings are different and have different puzzles in their minds that are worth discovering.   

Now, how does Ayres get to be necessary for travelers? The first time guests discover Ayres is through their initial search for a place to stay during their trip.  Even though Ayres has several means of communication, such as its website, and its Facebook and Instagram pages, among others, its main way of attracting customers is through word-of-mouth recommendations from customers that already stayed at the hotel.  

From there, potential customers that discover Ayres make a pre-booking just to make sure the requested date is available.  When guests make the reservation, they start their trip to the hotel and their stay begins.  This stage concludes when guests end their trip and come back home.  

"The work that the staff carries out is decisive to make people think of Ayres as their first choice for staying."

Their stay and return to their homes are very important moments that will determine how satisfied (or not) customers are, not just for coming back to Ayres but for recommending it to their families and friends as a place where they can live a customized experience. The work that the staff carries out is decisive to make people think of Ayres as their first choice for staying.

A bet on inclusion with Fundación Renacer

Ayres is not only thought to provide a unique experience for guests but also for encouraging a collaborative and inclusive culture among its employees since they provide persons with disabilities with working opportunities; this is a very important feature of Ayres since not all companies are willing to hire them. In this inclusive context, the HR area employs young people from Fundación Renacer; they enter the team and carry out different tasks such as the rest of the staff.

Fundación Renacer is an interdisciplinary medical center for the prevention and helps of addictions and eating disorders located in Santa Fe, Argentina. Its mission is to foster research programs and promote health. Professionals working in Renacer encourage the comprehensive growth of people, implementing specific actions to achieve a high degree of human development and helping people who suffer or have suffered some mental health problem integrate or reintegrate into society. 

At present, there are three people that belong to Renacer working at Ayres; they are not only grateful for being working there but also feel very comfortable and happy to be part of a team that has integrated them enthusiastically from the start. Moreover, the fact that Ayres is working with Renacer has inspired many guests who were experiencing a similar situation with their children; this was the case of a man who has a son with Down syndrome and when he saw Luis, one of the employees part of the Fundación Renacer, ran to hug him because he was like his son. Stories like this are very special for Martín and Ana since they remind themselves that there are many kids like Lucas who are still looking for their place in this world.

Challenges during the pandemic

The outbreak of the pandemic meant a severe setback for the hotel industry and many other companies and Ayres of the Campaquí was not the exception. As was expected, they had to close their doors because of the lack of tourism. However, the team kept on working behind closed doors making reservations without setting a date for the people that wanted to stay in the hotel when the lockdown was over. This decision allowed them to go through the hardest time of the pandemic which was about 9 months.

Its reopening was very positive thanks to the reservations made during the lockdown and everyone at the premises had to follow a strict health protocol to avoid the propagation of COVID-19. In fact, guests could ask for an antigen test if they had one or more symptoms.

The other side of customization

Martín, in his role of host of Ayres, has acknowledged that he is more focused on prioritizing hosts’ experiences instead of worrying about the profitability of his business.  This assessment comes from the creation of a very customized product that goes against its possibilities of growth.  Since the hotel has more employees than it needs and they do not use a CRM to manage its relationships with customers, the hotel has been delaying the scalability of its business according to the progressive increase in the number of customers as an inevitable result of the customized service they provide. 

In every company, as Martin states, customization has the side effect of needing more people at work and more dedication; in some cases, this can overload employees. In the particular case of Ayres, they manage all reservations through WhatsApp and work together with customers throughout their stay. From this perspective, these tasks can put too much pressure on the hotel’s structure and end up causing unhappiness in some employees.  An alternative to this could be implementing technology as an ally to automate the manual tasks that do not add enough value so that Ayres’ employees, who are the differential asset of the company, can devote their time to work with customers on their problems and improve their satisfaction. Martin explains that his team tries to increase the satisfaction of customers every time they visit the hotel.

However, sometimes this satisfaction can fluctuate so keeping this level of customization without using technological tools can make it difficult for employees to measure how happy customers really are with their experience at the hotel. We should also highlight that customization can still be achieved even using technology as an ally. In other words, customization benefits customers greatly, even though it can affect the structure of the hotel and employees negatively, since they may end up carrying out tasks that do not add value.

Of course, we understand that this customized work produces excellent results but if technology were also applied to automate repetitive tasks, Ayres could make processes more efficient and employees’ interaction with customers would improve, which would make the business more scalable.  

An enjoyable experience that makes people feel more than guests

To conclude, the case of Ayres del Champaquí is a clear example of promoting a culture of customization, creating services for each person’s needs so that no guest feels left out. By putting customers’ needs before Ayre’s commercial aspirations for growth, they have designed a revolutionary and risky proposal that has touched deeply every person that knows and chooses Ayres. 

In the near future, they would just need to improve the way in which they attract customers since the media they use to advertise their services do not reflect what they really offer; moreover, their website in Spanish only is not helpful to attract customers that speak other languages. On the other hand, the possibility of adding a technological tool that allows the staff to manage a bigger number of customers by automating manual tasks will boost and improve customers’ experiences even more. 

It is very common to think that technology and humans cannot work together; actually, a well-implemented tool should work for people and not the other way around. By understanding this concept, we can see that automated customization may add more value and efficiency to processes, which would help employees be present wherever and whenever guests need them.