How Sts. Constantine & Helena improved hotel operations and distribution with Clock

Keeping up with a changing hotel business

Sts. Constantine & Helena Holding operates hotels and hospitality businesses in one of Bulgaria's oldest seaside resorts, near Varna on the Black Sea coast.

The group's work goes beyond running individual hotels. It includes developing new properties, maintaining standards across the business and making sure each hotel can compete in a changing market.

For Lyubomir Stamboliyski, Commercial Director of Sts. Constantine & Helena Holding, that means keeping a close eye on revenue, hotel performance and guest satisfaction.

It also means looking ahead.

As the group develops new products and properties, the systems behind its hotels need to keep pace.

They have to support everyday operations while giving the commercial and management teams the information they need to make decisions.

The goal wasn't to introduce more technology. It was to give the business better ways to organise its work and pursue new opportunities.

When familiar processes start getting in the way

Sts. Constantine & Helena had already been using Clock Evolution, the earlier generation of Clock's property management software.

It had served the group well as a reservation system. But the business needed more from the tools it used every day.

Reports took time to prepare. Different departments had established processes that could be handled more efficiently. And the commercial team needed greater flexibility to manage distribution, products and offers.

Moving to the newer Clock platform offered an opportunity to reconsider those routines.

Instead of simply transferring the same work to different software, the group could look at which tasks still needed to be done manually and which could be handled in a better way.

But the change also meant asking employees to learn new processes after years of working with a familiar system.

Getting the people on board

Introducing new software across hotel operations isn't only a technical decision.

People have to learn it, trust it and use it while continuing to look after guests.

Vasilena Dzhukelova, General Manager of Primorski Hotel and Shopping Center, was particularly concerned about how the operational teams would respond.

They had become familiar with Clock Evolution. Moving to the newer system meant changing established habits and learning different ways of completing everyday tasks.

As Vasilena explains in the interview, some employees initially found the transition difficult because they naturally compared the new system with the one they already knew.

That took time to overcome.

But as the teams became familiar with Clock, they adjusted to the new processes and grew more comfortable with how it worked.

The technical changeover took around one to two days per property, according to Vasilena, although getting fully accustomed to the new system took longer.

It's an important distinction.

Installing software can happen quickly. Helping people change the way they work takes more attention.

Taking repetitive work off the team's hands

One of the most noticeable improvements came from automating work that employees had previously handled themselves.

Management reporting is a good example.

Instead of relying on people to prepare reports manually, the group could automate their production and make the information available for management.

That reduced the routine administration needed to keep track of the business.

But the benefit went beyond reporting.

Lyubomir saw how automation could change the way several departments organised their time.

Automation is what really helped us reorganize the time our Sales, Marketing, and Front Office teams spend every day — and focus more on activities that bring higher value.

The point wasn't to make employees work faster at the same repetitive tasks.

It was to remove some of those tasks altogether, so the teams could concentrate on revenue, guest service and the work that required their attention.

For a hotel group, those changes matter across several departments.

From a handful of channels to a much wider market

The change also supported a different approach to online distribution.

Previously, the group had relied on around six or seven online travel agency channels.

With Clock connected to distribution tools, it became possible to offer the hotels' products much more widely while managing availability and rates through connected systems.

At the time of the interview, Lyubomir reported that the group's hotels were present on 172 OTA and metasearch channels.

That was a substantial change in reach.

But the important part wasn't the number alone.

Managing a growing distribution network requires accurate information and a practical way to maintain it.

Without that, adding more channels can simply mean adding more work.

For Sts. Constantine & Helena, the connected setup allowed the commercial team to manage a wider online presence without treating every channel as an entirely separate operation.

That gave the group more ways to reach potential guests and more flexibility in how it offered its different hotel products.

Making guest communication part of the everyday process

The group also wanted to improve how its hotels communicated with guests.

Reservations, arrival information, offers and follow-up communication shouldn't have to be managed as unrelated activities.

With Clock, hotel teams could organise more of those interactions through the same system.

Information could be shared with guests before their arrival, helping them prepare for their stay and reducing the need for repeated manual communication.

For employees, having relevant information available in one place made everyday work easier to organise.

For the commercial department, guest communication and marketing tools created opportunities to prepare offers and plan activities around upcoming demand.

Instead of thinking only about individual reservations, the group could take a more coordinated approach to the relationship with each guest.

Giving the business room to develop

For Lyubomir, the move to the newer Clock platform was part of a bigger decision about the direction of the business.

Sts. Constantine & Helena wanted to continue developing its hotels, entering new markets and introducing products that respond to changing guest expectations.

Doing that requires more than attractive properties and good service.

It requires reliable information, well-organised teams and the ability to manage new opportunities without creating unnecessary work.

I personally knew we had to move to the cloud version because you either move forward, or you stand still. And in our company, standing still is not an option.

For Lyubomir, moving forward meant changing more than the software.

Routine reporting could be automated. Sales and marketing teams could focus on higher-value work. Distribution could reach a wider range of channels while remaining manageable.

And employees could spend less time on repetitive administration.

The transition required an adjustment period, but it gave the group a chance to improve how its hotels operated.

The real change wasn't moving from one generation of software to another. It was making everyday work easier to manage while creating more room for the business to develop.