Shediac, NB – The newest full service hotel with meeting rooms in south-east New Brunswick is shooting for the stars, and General Manager Michelle Boudreau is taking no chances on earning a 5-star rating for her facility.
Thanks to a custom-built standby generator, Hôtel Shediac is now the only full service hotel that can offer assured power to maintain its complete range of quality guest services through any power outage.
“As a coastal town, we are well aware of the potential for power outages,” Boudreau says. “High winds and lightning strikes in the summer can black out the power for a four-block area here. And this winter, we have seen ice storms take out the power, too.”
Boudreau explains that the principal owners of the hotel also own other properties in the region, and are accustomed to installing a standby generator to maintain essential powers. For their new hotel, though, they took the plans a step further.
Once the business decision was made to have a generator there to look after all amenities of the hotel, a Sommers representative worked with Hotel Management to have the right unit in place and ready to go.
“Most hotels have backup power only for their property management system: for the computers that manage hotel finances, reservations, and such. But we wanted standby power to maintain 100% service capability.”
The hotel’s “power assurance” plan was tested soon after opening in December last year, when an ice storm knocked out all power to the neighbourhood. The Hôtel Shediac’s kitchen and Irish pub, in-room climate control, pool and fitness centre all continued normal operation without missing a beat. “Our guests never even noticed!” says Boudreau.
The process for choosing the right generator system was as meticulous as the rest of the design plan. The contract was extended to the Atlantic office of Sommers Generator Systems in Dieppe, NB. The choice was based on a combination of system features and aftersale service.
“Having a one-stop point of contact was very important to us. Past experience with equipment purchases showed us that you often start with a sales person, who hands you off to a regional office, and then the contacts and the information keeps changing. With Sommers, we had one person, someone educated on the product who could tell us what we needed to know, all the way through the project.”
Pierre Gallant, the Manager of Sommers’ Dieppe location, knew the management staff of the Hôtel Shediac from previous projects and understands their service expectations. He took an active role in advising on the type of system and features the hotel would require to maintain their own service standard. As Boudreau recalls, “Pierre educated us on what the generator could do and made the purchase trouble-free. On the construction side, we had to ramp up with a new project manager half-way through the project. However, working with Pierre, all the answers to our questions were always the same; much simpler than with some of our past suppliers!”
Along with the power profile and control systems, sound attenuation was a key factor in specifying the Sommers system. While the hotel is located in an area zoned for commercial development, neighbours to its back are residential. Like many towns today, the local population is aging, and many seniors’ homes are in the same area. Sommers offers the industry’s most advanced sound attenuation packages, allowing them to operate under the most restrictive noise requirements, including senior care facilities and hospitals.
The staff at the Shediac were most impressed when the Sommers generator began a test cycle recently. According to Boudreau, “The system was 18-minutes into the test before anyone noticed that the generator was running – we had to look inside its enclosure to be sure!”
While the impact of the standby power system is unseen to guests, Boudreau is already seeing its effect on her marketing of the hotel. The decision to provide 100% power assurance was a strategic move by the management to ensure 100% quality service assurance to guests and event planners. “Once we bring it up, this system casts all other facilities in the region in a different light,” she reports. “The risk of a power outage is always there, but at the Hôtel Shediac, it doesn’t matter. Your plans can go ahead no matter what’s happening outside.”
About Sommers
With their head office located in Tavistock, Ontario, along with sales and service offices in Lucknow, Ontario and Dieppe, New Brunswick, Sommers Motor Generator Sales Ltd. has been a trusted name in generating, delivering and applying electrical power for over 75 years. Generator systems are Sommers’ only business. Today, Sommers is the leading Canadian manufacturer of packaged generator systems for residential, commercial and industrial applications and has the largest privately held inventory of generators for sale or rent from 3 kW to 2 MW.
Sommers offers a complete range of customized standby, PTO and off-grid generator power solutions. As a generator specialist backed by proven technical experience and the country’s most extensive aftermarket service and parts facilities, Sommers is the “Power House” to depend on in Canada.
For more information, contact Sommers at 1-800-690-2396 for the generator system specialist in your area or visit Sommers online at www.sommersgen.com.
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