Background
The Star is a 29-bedroom luxury boutique hotel at the foot of the South Downs in the medieval Sussex village of Alfriston. It is one of three properties in The Polizzi Collection – a small, stylish group owned by Olga Polizzi and her two daughters, Alex and Charlie – alongside Hotel Tresanton in St Mawes and Hotel Endsleigh on the edge of Dartmoor. Olga comes from an illustrious hospitality lineage; her father, Lord Forte, built what became one of the largest hotel groups in the world, and the family’s eye for design and personal service runs through every one of the collection’s hotels.
For a group where reputation and seamless, individual service are everything, the PMS underpinning it all has to do far more than simply take a booking. We spoke to Callum O’Connor, Revenue and IT Manager at The Star, about the hotel’s move to Rezcontrol – and why the whole collection now runs on the same platform.
The problem
“We wanted to streamline everything across the group”
The Star opened five years ago on a large enterprise PMS built for global hotel groups. While powerful, it proved to be too complex for a boutique operation. “With our previous PMS, there were four million ways to do one thing,” Callum explained. “That’s ideal for a huge international group, but we’re not that.”
Sister hotels Tresanton and Endsleigh had already moved to Rezcontrol, and the appeal of a single, shared system was clear. When The Star migrated in February 2026, two things drove the decision: the chance to standardise operations across the collection, and Rezcontrol’s refreshing simplicity after years of a complex PMS.
The solution
“I really quite like the simplicity”
Rezcontrol offered exactly what a boutique group needs: a clean, fully cloud-based system built for independent hotels. Where the old PMS buried simple tasks under endless options, Rezcontrol made them straightforward – which counts for a great deal in a small team where everyone wears several hats.
Just as importantly, it was a chance to bring the whole collection onto a single platform. With Tresanton and Endsleigh already using Rezcontrol, moving The Star across meant all three hotels would finally work the same way while each retained its own distinct character.
The benefits of Rezcontrol
“Everything just looks like it's run the same”
The group dashboard has become invaluable as a shared guest CRM. “If a guest tells me they’ve been staying at Tresanton for 20 years,” Callum explains, “I can go straight into Tresanton’s Rezcontrol and see everything they’ve ever noted about them. If their favourite wine is a Pinot Noir, we can have a bottle waiting on the table. They say, “How did you know?” It’s invaluable.”
Because all three hotels share the same templates and system, guests enjoy an identical, on-brand booking experience whether they stay in Cornwall, Devon or Sussex. “They can book at Tresanton, then Endsleigh, then come to us, and everything is identical,” Callum said.
Having previously worked without any automation – every confirmation sent manually, no post-stay communication at all – the team has felt the difference immediately. Automated, branded confirmation emails, upsell opportunities and post-stay communication are all handled by the system.
The direct booking engine has been another step change. Jonathan Lawley, Brand Manager for The Polizzi Collection, said he was “delighted” when Rezcontrol introduced this feature. The booking engine brings room, restaurant and extra bookings together in one place, finishing with a single confirmation and invoice rather than a string of separate emails. “Updates from the PMS now sync seamlessly with our website, and the integration of live table reservations has been a significant improvement for us”, he added.
Callum also values the control the booking engine gives him over rates and offers: featured promotions and a dedicated offers page let him push seasonal packages to the top of the page, while the ability to open, close or adjust rates directly from within Rezcontrol means nothing is ever accidentally left live.
Migration and onboarding
“We’ve had new team members who’d never worked in a hotel before pick it up within two or three weeks.”
Coming from such a convoluted system, the team quickly rediscovered how straightforward a PMS could be. That simplicity ran right through onboarding and support, too.
Online training sessions led by Rezcontrol’s Onboarding Specialist, Iwona Majchrzak, got the team up to speed quickly, and adoption has been impressive. New team members with no prior hotel experience have picked up the system within two or three weeks – a testament, Callum feels, to how well Rezcontrol is built. “Iwona quickly became one of my best friends. She was just so helpful.”
The smaller, more responsive team was another major factor. “We like that if you’re stuck, you can just call and get through to somebody immediately.” Callum was especially complimentary about Rezcontrol’s support team, praising their hands-on approach as “just fantastic”.
The result
“It still feels family-run”
For Callum, the biggest win is a way of working that mirrors The Polizzi Collection’s own values. “The benefit of a smaller PMS provider is that they want their customers to be happy, the same way we want our guests to be happy. We made a silly little suggestion about room numbers on the task sheet the other day, and Stuart came straight back to say, ‘That’s a good idea, we’ll take care of it.’
“I’m looking forward to working more closely with Rezcontrol,” he added, “and to seeing what’s next.”
Testimonial
“Rezcontrol has proven to be a reliable and intuitive PMS – a valuable tool for managing operations with confidence and delivering a smoother and more consistent experience for both staff and guests.”
Callum O’Connor, Revenue and IT Manager at The Star