Tech firm with Perthshire roots turns focus on Pubs

Pub closures spark tech rethink

Challenges faced by Scotland’s publicans to keep the doors open has inspired a change of direction at the top of a hospitality tech business rooted in Perthshire.

Hop Software, co-owned by McKays Hotel boss Richard Drummond, ordinarily specialises in creating property management systems for hotels and guesthouses, something which has helped the hotelier-founded company to expand on four continents.

However, growing awareness of the plight of the country’s boozers has inspired a re-think at senior level, with new emphasis on building solutions for pubs with rooms.

Rooms ‘future-proofing’ bars

Quarter 1 figures for 2026 showed that 41 pubs closed in Scotland between January and March, with the Scottish Beer and Pub Association stating that Scottish closure rate is 50% higher than England's.

Accommodation letting has now emerged as a new revenue stream for a number of pubs seeking to futureproof their business in the face of costs, wage hikes and high taxation.

Hop Software executives led an engagement exercise across this growing sector segment to identify systems needs, with high costs and complexity emerging as key bugbears.

Leaders revealed those discussions led to the development of a cheaper, pub-specific model of its own system, which has seen swift adoption in the trade since its Spring launch.

Pub tech reduces costs

“When talking to people within the sector, we learned that quite a number of pubs, now, are booking out rooms to guests for extra income, which makes total sense. That is where we felt we could help,” said Hop Director, Richard Drummond, who also co-owns McKays Hotel Bar and Restaurant in Pitlochry.

“The challenges for pubs just now are clear. High costs, food inflation, energy prices, taxes and even steep prices for showing things like sports fixtures. From those we spoke to, they were looking at ways to cut, wherever possible. One of those areas was technology.

“The recurring theme was pubs with rooms paying a lot for systems they never fully use or are needlessly complex so that staff on different shifts, for example, struggle to use them without coaching.

“By taking away the lessons from those discussions and working back the way, we came up with HopLite and, part of that, was a recognition that our own property management system for hotels probably contained too much functionality for pubs that maybe only had a handful of rooms.

“Setting a fixed fee per month was also important, to take away the uncertainty people are feeling just now over costs.”

Change of direction

Shift patterns in the pub trade, it is acknowledged, make training for staff problematic.

Recognising this, Hop leaders trimmed down their property management system to make it more manageable.

The company says the next step, to help busy pub staff, is to enable the system to allow rooms to checked in from the till, whilst customers at the bar are still being served.

To ensure this, Hoplite has fully integrated its system with the main EPOS till systems used in most bars in Scotland, Clover and ICRTouch. “Part of our success in the hotels and accommodation sector has been through understanding what hoteliers need because the company Directors still own and work in hotels themselves,” added Richard.

“That is why we have been listening to individuals within the pub sector, who also want to introduce room bookings. By doing that we can try to make things easier for them and, most importantly, create efficiencies and reduce monthly costs.

“We are here to stay in this market, we are in listening mode and we’ve been encouraged by the take-up since we launched.”

Hop Software was short-listed for in the Tech for Good category and Small Tech Company of the Year in the Prolific North Champions awards – the leading showcase for creative and tech sectors in northern Britain.