Hospitality Case Study: Harbour Hotels Group

About Harbour Hotels

Harbour Hotels Group is a collection of luxury lifestyle hotels across the UK, known for exceptional guest experiences in city and coastal destinations such as Brighton, Bristol, and Southampton. Each property is unique, ranging from modern new builds to heritage conversions, all unified by a commitment to high design, comfort, and service standards.

With such a diverse portfolio, maintaining consistent brand standards and operational visibility across every location presented an ongoing challenge. Each hotel operates with different layouts, teams, and day-to-day priorities, making it difficult to keep communication seamless and standards aligned.

For the operations team, the goal wasn’t just to fix issues; it was to ensure that every Harbour guest, no matter where they stayed, experienced the same level of quality and attention to detail.
“Every hotel is different,” said Group Operations Director Ben Bridgeman. “But Snapfix helps bring consistency. It standardises how we record, share, and fix issues.”

Before Snapfix

Group Operations Director Ben Bridgeman oversees 15 General Managers and ensures each hotel maintains Harbour’s luxury brand standards. With occupancy reaching up to 98% in peak months, maintenance and presentation are critical to sustaining five-star guest reviews.

With properties spread across the UK, Ben spends much of his week travelling between hotels. Snapfix now allows him to stay connected to each team remotely, monitor activity in real time, and maintain oversight across the group even when he isn’t physically on-site.

“I might not be at a property for a week or two but Snapfix makes it feel like I’m there.”

Why Snapfix

As part of Harbour’s group-wide brand standards project, Snapfix offered a simple yet powerful photo-based platform that allowed Ben and his team to capture and communicate issues instantly across all properties. Instead of relying on fragmented WhatsApp threads or email chains, every task could be logged, assigned, and tracked in real time, complete with visual proof of completion.

“It’s quick, visual, and everyone can see what I see,” said Bridgeman. “Before, it was emails and WhatsApp groups. Now it’s one shared system.”

The intuitive interface and mobile accessibility made it easy for everyone. Everyone from general managers to housekeeping teams have their phone in their pocket at all times.It quickly became an essential tool for maintaining consistency and accountability across the portfolio.

It’s visual, it’s simple, and it works,” Ben added. “Everyone from GMs to housekeepers can use it without training.

“With hundreds of room attendants and different GMs, every hotel presents things slightly differently. Snapfix helps us align that,” Ben explained. “It gives everyone a common language for quality.”

For Ben, one of the biggest advantages was visibility across all 15 properties. He can now review progress remotely, compare activity between hotels, and ensure standards are being met everywhere. Snapfix effectively gives him a “window” into each site, allowing him to support and guide teams no matter where he is in the country.

When I walk into a hotel, I see things fresh,” Ben said. “Snapfix lets me capture that instantly and share it with the team.”

Implementation

Snapfix was rolled out portfolio-wide, replacing a previous maintenance system that was less fluid and harder to use. The transition required minimal setup, with all 15 hotels live within days and following the same standardised workflow.

General managers, housekeepers, and maintenance teams were onboarded through short demonstrations and began using Snapfix immediately to log maintenance issues, housekeeping tasks, and brand-standard observations.
“Even our new general managers love it,” said Ben. “They say it’s the best system they’ve ever used. It helps them learn the property faster and stay on top of standards.”

Since the rollout, Snapfix has become fully embedded in Harbour Hotels’ daily operations. It’s now used for property walkarounds, departmental meetings, and management reviews, giving Ben and his leadership team full visibility into ongoing work across all hotels. Every site follows the same visual process, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.

The system has also enabled best-practice sharing across the group. When one property finds a smarter way to maintain guest rooms or schedule checks, those learnings are turned into templates that can be instantly shared across all 15 hotels. This has created a continuous improvement loop, helping every team benefit from each other’s successes.

This culture of shared learning has strengthened collaboration between properties. A small operational improvement in one hotel — such as how to streamline housekeeping checks or log spa maintenance tasks — can now be replicated across the group within hours. Snapfix has effectively turned Harbour Hotels’ collective experience into a live, evolving playbook that keeps every property improving together.

The Impact: Streamlined SOPs

The Brownwood Hotel & Spa transformed SOP management with Snapfix.

Previously stored in bulky binders, SOPs are now instantly accessible in the app. Staff across security, housekeeping, and maintenance follow consistent, step-by-step procedures—like operating equipment or responding to incidents.

For the security team, quick access to SOPs ensures proper protocols during emergencies, enhancing guest safety and reducing liability. This shift has streamlined operations, saved time, and improved consistency across all departments.

The Impact: Work-Life Balance and Team Morale

For a group operating across multiple locations, Snapfix has created a unified operational rhythm and real-time visibility across every site.

Standardization: Every property now follows the same reporting and maintenance workflow, ensuring uniform quality across a diverse estate.

Accountability: Issues are visible to all, no task is overlooked or forgotten, and team members take pride in resolving items quickly.

Efficiency: Ben and his team can log, assign, and monitor maintenance items across 15 hotels in seconds, saving hours of manual coordination each week.

Across the group, the average time to close a task has been cut in half. Each manager now saves about 10 to 12 hours of admin work every week. What used to take several follow-ups can now be done in one step, allowing leaders to focus on improving standards instead of chasing updates.

Empowerment: Teams act faster, new GMs settle into their roles sooner, and on-site staff can communicate issues clearly and confidently.

New general managers are getting up to speed twice as fast. Most reach full confidence within three to four weeks instead of two months by using the shared templates and checklists in Snapfix..

Brand Consistency: With Snapfix’s visual documentation, Harbour Hotels maintains consistent presentation and brand standards across every property, regardless of age, location, or design style.

“Snapfix has become part of our DNA,” said Ben. “It’s how we maintain our standards and ensure every hotel looks its best.”

Since introducing Snapfix, Harbour Hotels has seen a 25% drop in repeat maintenance issues and internal audits show that planned checks are completed on time 100% of the time, compared with 75% before the rollout.

Snapfix has also reduced the need for Ben to travel between hotels by around 20%. He can now see live updates remotely, which saves both time and travel costs while keeping communication fast and clear.

Conclusion

By introducing Snapfix, Harbour Hotels transformed its multi-site operations from reactive to proactive management. What once depended on scattered emails, spreadsheets, and follow-up messages is now unified in one visual, real-time system.

The result is a portfolio that operates more efficiently, maintains brand consistency, and empowers every manager and department to uphold five-star standards.

For group and cluster managers like Ben Bridgeman, Snapfix delivers what manual systems never could; a clear, centralised view of operations across every property, every day. It provides the oversight needed to manage at scale while empowering on-site teams to deliver consistent excellence across the brand.

CASE STUDY

Consistency at Scale: Driving Standards Across 15 Hotels with Snapfix