SNÖ Hotels reduces check-in times and administrative costs using Microsoft 365 Business Central and Copilot Studio

SNÖ Liberty Hotels is one of the leading specialty hotel chains in Spain. True to its name, SNÖ Hotels operates in scenic, snow-capped mountain destinations, including premium locations such as the Pyrenees. With 17 hotels and over 400 employees, the company continues to expand into new destinations while remaining true to its core objective: to offer authentic skiing, mountaineering, hiking, and adventure experiences in the heart of nature.

When the company was founded in 2017, the management team was committed to building a modern, efficient, and fully digital hotel chain. However, the initial set of hotels that started the chain left them with a fragmented reality: multiple disconnected systems, manual processes, and limited overall business visibility.

Working with their technology partner, Suitech, SNÖ Hotels redefined key processes from the ground up—from reservation management to financial consolidation—turning them into simple, connected, and measurable workflows.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central was selected to sit at the heart of this infrastructure. “With Dynamics 365 Business Central, we have centralized all of our operations, providing us with a single source of truth and one real-time business view,” says Julio Arevalo, HR manager at SNÖ Hotels. “Business Central enables us to manage multiple properties as easily as one.”

Multiple systems, one unified platform 

As the hub of its hotel management system, Business Central centralizes all core business processes and securely stores all property-related data and transactions. It manages financial, procurement, HR, and inventory and integrates data from the other systems for property management, point of sale, and enterprise resource management. 

Suitech's property management system, Suitech PMS, covers reservations, housekeeping and other services and also integrates with other hotel systems. These systems include: Ágora POS for restaurant sales, SiteMinder channel manager for reservations, Redsys for payment processing, and Voxel by Amadeus for electronic invoicing. 

Power BI and Microsoft Fabric were used to build dashboards that consolidate data from all of these systems, providing real-time information to management. Telemetry includes production and occupancy rates, industry KPIs such as ADR and REVPAR, and revenue management metrics such as booking curves, pick-ups, and lead times. 

An app built using Power Apps makes it easier for employees to manage purchases and integrates directly with Business Central. “With Power Apps, we developed a simple, customized app that can be used by all employees to manage purchases, without requiring any technical knowledge or training on Business Central or other systems,” says Roberto Corella, Technical Manager at Suitech.

An AI-driven agent to support customers 

Once the core system was in place, SNÖ Hotels saw an opportunity to add advanced AI-driven capabilities, starting with an agent to support its customer service operations. The agent was built using Copilot Studio and connects directly to Business Central. 

The agent enables hotel customers to check in remotely, 24/7, and reduce wait times at reception. A customer can enter all the information needed, then simply arrive at the hotel with their reservation number to pick up their room key. The agent can also suggest personalized products and services such as ski passes and spa services. 

Additionally, with connectivity to internal knowledge sources, the agent acts as a virtual concierge and provides answers to a wide range of questions—from details on hotels services to local restaurant recommendations, even the latest weather report and snow conditions. 

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in Business Central functions as the integration hub. It manages and routes requests from the agent to the appropriate backend services. For example, when a guest requests a room check in through the agent, the MCP server validates data with the property management system and updates records back into Business Central. The MCP server ensures data consistency, business rule enforcement, and logging across all transactions. 

The built-in telemetry in Copilot Studio helped the team fine tune the agent. During early testing, for example, the team saw a lower rate of successful check-ins due to data input errors. To solve this problem, adaptive cards were added to the agent to better structure inputs. Results quickly improved. Also, custom entities in Copilot Studio were used to help the agent better recognize specific data such as a customer’s national ID number needed for check-in. 

Yet another advantage of Copilot Studio was that it enabled everyone on the team to participate in development of the agent. This was especially important to the company. “From day one, we promoted a participatory development approach. We involved reception, operations, and finance leads in the pilot tests,” says Arevalo. As he explains, “With Microsoft Copilot Studio, our business experts can make changes directly to our agent with minimal technical training. In this way, we were able to fine tune our agent faster and more efficiently.” 

Measurable business results 

The integrated management system has delivered a wide range of benefits for SNÖ Hotels since launch. 

For example, invoice approval and bank reconciliation are now fully automated. Previously, three people were dedicated to monthly closing. Today, with automated workflows, the same task takes less than half the time. “Business Central has saved us hours of manual work each day across our hotel network,” says Arevalo. With less manual tasks, the finance team now focuses more on analysis and planning rather than data entry.  

The benefits of the system are measured directly through system reports and operational feedback from the reception and administration teams. For example, by eliminating repetitive tasks and consolidating financial information in real time, the system has cut administrative costs by 20%. Stock shortages have been reduced by 25% through centralized inventory management. Check-in times have also been reduced by over 30%— thanks to digital workflows and the new agent. The agent has also contributed to a 10% increase in upselling revenue during the booking process. 

Greater efficiency, happier guests

Thanks to the flexibility of the system, SNÖ Hotels is already at work on new capabilities and extensions to its hotel management system.

Plans include additional agents to help manage back-office processes such as supplier invoice processing, purchase approval management, and automated cash flow forecasting. To help build the agents, Azure AI services will be used to add many of the advanced AI models and capabilities required.

With each new capability in the system, SNÖ Hotels is increasing operational efficiency across the network. As Arevalo says, “With Business Central and Power Platform, we are giving back time to both employees and guests, resulting in a smoother, more memorable hotel experience.”

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