NASHVILLE – A Southern California tribe that opened its first hotel resort earlier this year has been honored for its information technology capabilities, which span from the gaming floor to tribal homes and a new health clinic.
The Soboba Casino Resort in San Jacinto received the recognition Tuesday during industry awards at the TribalNet technology and leadership conference.
The tribe’s new property opened in February and features a 224,000 square-foot hotel with 200 rooms and a 90,000 square-foot casino with 2,000 slot machines. It replaced the tribe’s previous tented gaming venue, which had been in operation since 1995.
TribalNet marketing and communications manager Tracy Kinney said the small Soboba information technology team “has made its name by accomplishing substantial achievements with a lean but very talented group.”
Kinney said the IT Department played an integral role in the opening of the casino resort, which happened after a 12-year push by the tribe. The team implemented fiber computing infrastructure that allowed the tribe to open a new fire station to serve both the reservation of 1,200 residents and the city of San Jacinto. There’s also a commodities center and health clinic that serves several area tribes. High-speed Internet capability was also extended to 248 tribal residences to allow access to telemedicine, employment and business opportunities.
“The Soboba IT has met all of the tribal leadership’s initiatives with innovative technology that will continue to serve tribal members for years to come,” Kinney said. “The innovation that this small team of 30 members has been able to accomplish in a short time frame is astonishing.”
For the casino, Soboba leveraged two Playersoft applications, Group Management and Mobile Enrollment, to elevate customer service, enhance business processes with automation and enable comprehensive reporting.
The Group Manager platform helps manage bus programs, events and other groups. It streamlines the check-in process, tracking guests participating and pushes incentives or gifts to the guest player’s card, as well as providing real-time reporting on profitability analysis.
The resort also implemented InfoGenesis POS and Visual One PMS solutions from Agilysys to help optimize food and beverage operations. That allows the property to easily manage reservations at the hotel and help build customer loyalty by improving the guest experience.
Soboba CIO Steve Nino said the award shows the tribe is “doing things the right way” and that his team will continue to push what they do going forward.
“We built a brand-new data center and resort from the ground up,” Nino said. The team revamped the venue’s gaming and point-of-sale systems, integrating them with the resort’s golf course. This enabled the casino to function as an inclusive resort even while undergoing renovations.
Nino said Soboba has moved to technology focused more on mobile, which isn’t yet done in many other tribal properties. The new technology helps with drink orders and offers analytics for wireless to track areas with slot machines and see how long people are staying.
“The technology is driving revenue,” Nino said. “Our technology (now) has tools to capture an audience and create a portfolio of each person that is coming in.”
The previous casino consisted of two tents and a building with no hotel.
“We’re night and day from where we were,” Nino said. “It has become a destination property. We can extend play and extend people staying with us. We didn’t have that before.”
The expansion sets up the future of the tribe and its children well, Nino said.
“They’re now competing with the local market – Pechanga, Morongo, and others – and keeping up with the times.”
