97% of guests at Privada Stays check in before they arrive. Here is what that means.

In March 2025, Hotel Online covered Privada Stays' deployment of Innspire's mobile platform at their Eagle Hotel property in Aruba. The headline figure: 97% of all guests opted for digital check-in prior to arrival. That number is worth looking at closely.

The property

Privada Stays opened the Eagle Hotel in December 2024. It is a 56-room boutique resort in Aruba, with plans to expand to 100 rooms by 2027. Each room has its own private pool. The concept sits between a vacation rental and a traditional hotel: independent and private, but with proper amenities and service. That positioning created a specific technology brief: guests who choose this kind of property expect to be left alone. A front desk queue does not fit the experience.

What 97% actually means

Mobile check-in adoption at most properties sits somewhere between 30% and 60%. Getting to 97% requires more than making the option available. It requires the whole process to work well enough that guests prefer it to the alternative. At Privada Stays, that means: check in via the app before arrival, go directly to your room, unlock it with your phone. No reception visit unless you want one.

Housekeeping updates room status in real time via their own mobile devices. Guests are notified when their room is ready and can access it themselves. Most guests were in their room by 1 or 2 p.m., well before the published check-in time.

The operational consequence

Before this deployment, Privada Stays could not accept same-day reservations. Manual check-in made the logistics unworkable. With the fully automated system in place, same-day bookings became available from the end of March 2025, opening a revenue channel that had not previously existed. That is a direct commercial outcome of changing the check-in process.

The platform also collects arrival and departure flight information, allowing the hotel to anticipate when guests will arrive and schedule housekeeping accordingly. The app includes an AI-powered concierge for guest queries, room service ordering, late checkout requests, and a local recommendations guide integrated with Privada's own website.

What Privada Stays said

Gillian Lejuez, COO of Privada Stays, was clear about the goal: "We wanted to create a truly digital-first, contactless experience for our guests, one that is efficient and seamless, while still maintaining the personal touches that make staying at Privada Stays unique. The app's AI-powered guest concierge and fully integrated tech-stack have allowed us to automate almost all of our back-office processes, creating an exceptional guest experience while greatly improving our operational efficiency."

Privada Stays plans to add F&B facilities by 2026, with in-app ordering to follow. The platform is already in place to support it.