As one of Istanbul's busiest city hotels, Wyndham Grand İstanbul Kalamış Marina manages far more than lodging — restaurants, bars, spa services, and the Shape Club membership structure generate guest requests around the clock.
The hotel is led by General Manager Göksenin Kürkçü, who brings more than 34 years of experience across international and national brands including Marriott, Hilton, Crowne Plaza, Divan, and The Marmara.
But before Heyhotel AI entered the picture, the team's biggest concern was not operations.
"Would guests find it off-putting?"
That was the main hesitation about adopting artificial intelligence.
The Real Operational Challenge
Wyndham Grand İstanbul Kalamış Marina has a telephone infrastructure of roughly 100 lines.
Yet the switchboard team on duty at any given time is often only two or three people.
While one call was being answered, others waited — outbound reservation requests and in-room calls for housekeeping, engineering, room service, or spa all competed for the same team.
The problem was not just call volume.
Every call needed to reach the right person, requests could not be lost, and everything had to become trackable inside operations.
Why Heyhotel AI?
Before deciding, Wyndham Grand İstanbul Kalamış Marina evaluated several AI solutions.
Technology alone did not settle the decision.
Voice quality, natural conversation flow, and the feeling of speaking with a real person were among the most important criteria.
Before going live, the team ran a small internal naming contest.
That is how Heyhotel AI's voice assistant became "Arya" — the name everyone at the hotel uses today.
One Voice Layer for the Entire Operation
Today Arya is more than a system that answers switchboard calls at Wyndham Grand İstanbul Kalamış Marina.
It is the first point of contact across internal lines, outbound reservation requests, and the Shape Club membership line.
No matter which number a guest dials, Arya handles the first greeting.
It understands the need, collects the right information, and moves the process forward correctly.
In-Room Requests No Longer Stop at the Phone
When a guest calls from the room phone for towels, engineering support, or room service, the process no longer ends with the conversation.
Arya analyzes the request, categorizes it, and automatically creates a task for the right department in the hotel's existing operations system.
Housekeeping, engineering, and other teams can instantly see:
- Which room the request came from
- When it was created
- What the request is about
The phone call becomes a trackable operational record.
Concierge and Order Taker at Once
Arya does not operate like a switchboard agent that only shares information.
It also acts as a real concierge and order taker.
When a guest calls room service, Arya takes the order, asks the necessary questions, summarizes it, and after confirmation sends it directly into MICROS Simphony.
The process does not stop at "we took a note." Because the order is entered into the operations system, the team can continue without manual handoffs.
Guests looking for restaurant, spa, or hotel information also get the guidance they need in the first conversation.
People Step In When Needed
Arya's purpose is not to replace people.
It is to understand conversational context and bring in the right person at the right moment.
If a guest reports a room-service issue and asks to speak with a supervisor, the call is transferred directly to the relevant department.
A guest who wants detailed spa information is routed to the spa team — without having to explain everything again to an operator.
Multilingual Service
A significant share of Wyndham Grand İstanbul Kalamış Marina guests are international visitors.
Arya detects the caller's language and continues the conversation accordingly.
International guests receive support in their own language from the first moment, while the hotel needs far less extra staffing to offer multilingual service.
Operations Became Visible
Phone conversations are no longer just completed calls.
With the Heyhotel AI dashboard, the team can track all of the following from one screen:
- Which topics are called about most often
- Which departments receive the most requests
- Call volume patterns
- Tasks created
- Operational trends
This visibility does more than simplify day-to-day operations.
It also provides data for resource planning and process improvements.
The Outcome
For Wyndham Grand İstanbul Kalamış Marina, AI is positioned not as a replacement for the human team, but as a new working layer that supports operations.
While recurring calls and routine requests are handled automatically, the team can spend more time on high-value guest moments. Today the system means:
- A roughly 100-line phone operation can be handled without interruption.
- Internal requests are automatically turned into tasks for the right departments.
- Room-service orders can be processed directly through MICROS Simphony.
- Reservation and information requests can be handled at first contact.
- International guests can be served in their own languages.
- Calls are transferred to the right department based on context when needed.
- The full phone operation can be monitored from a single dashboard.
Göksenin Kürkçü's summary captures the transformation best:
"Calling it lifeless feels unfair — I really think of this friend as a digital assistant living with us."