Modern hotel operators are facing challenges on an everyday basis, as running an independent hotel or a hotel chain puts a lot of obstacles in their way. Complexity in management due to large amounts of collected data and organizing bookings are just some of the challenges that hotels face every day.
Fortunately, with the proper use of cloud-based property management system, hotels can consolidate data and control information across brands to provide better customer services and user experience. In return, hotels get a chance to increase customer satisfaction and, of course, revenue.
One single hotel software offers an array of capabilities and features that make business management easier and allows for better productivity at the same time. Guests expect memorable experiences and services and it’s up to hoteliers to provide the expected.
The Inevitable Challenges
Every hotel faces some of the inevitable obstacles such as:
- Risking reputation
- Difficulties with increasing the scope of guest wallet shares
- Problems with building visibility and brand awareness
- The brand image alone isn’t enough to attract guests (this goes especially for independent hotels)
- Risks of revenue loss
- Problems with OTAs
These are just some of the most common challenges, but there are more where these came from.
The Benefits of Implementing a Comprehensive PMS
Fortunately for chains and independent hotels, implementing the best cloud based hotel PMS can help overcome these challenges in many different ways such as:
- The ability to establish real-time communication.
- Providing solutions to overbooking hassles.
- Ensuring that no reservation goes unchecked.
- Real-time connectivity between OTAs and PMS.
- PMS allows for centralized and transparent inter-departmental communication.
- Ensuring that each guest gets what they need and more.
- Improved guest satisfaction means improved hotel reputation.
- Staying ahead of hotel reviews on popular review sites by responding proactively to reviews.
- Opportunities to cross-sell and upsell with ease to cater to every need of modern guests.
- The best PMS allows for as many POS as needed, as these are excellent at increasing revenue.
- The chance to diversify revenue sources.
- Build visibility by being visible in as many OTAs as needed.
- The ability to drive more bookings at affordable prices by using metasearch engines.
- Engage guests by offering online reservations via emails.
- Using feedback from guests to improve hotel rating
- PMS allows every hotel to create guest-specific offerings to increase revenue.
- PMS allows hotels to make reviews visible on their websites which improves ranking.
- More reviews ensure more bookings.
Single ERP Platform
Every hotel chain needs a single ERP platform for numerous reasons. ERP helps integrate, streamline and standardize all hotel business processes across all hotel departments such as distribution, procurement, human resources, and finance. Put simply, both independent and hotel chains can improve their effectiveness and efficiency by using a single ERP platform. These platforms are used for:
- Integrate complete data at head office
- Consolidate accounting, purchase and guest data
- Central guest histories and corporate profiles
- Improve operational efficiency with central data access
- Manage better and efficient guest programs and rate
- Integrating orders
- Collecting guest information to provide valuable insight into guest needs and behavior
- Speeding and standardizing business processes to increase productivity, reduce cost and save time
- Increasing Internal efficiency
- Make better decisions by using a single data view
- Increased agility
- Enhanced security
- Real-time operations
- Creating a common database
Data Consolidation Helps in Better Business Management
Data consolidation helps hotels by allowing them to remain relative and competitive in an overcrowded business landscape. Since OTAs or online travel agencies are changing this landscape quite often in unforeseeable ways, hotels depend on modern business techniques and methods to survive.
One of these techniques is data consolidation which is especially important for large hotel chains that need all their business processes in one place to obtain maximum functionality and track their progression.
This also allows them to know their guests’ needs, behaviour, travel patterns, and so on in detail, which helps drive better quality service. In return, hotels get better feedback and increased interest from their guests and everybody wins. Data consolidation is also an excellent way to increase operational efficiency and achieve better cost savings. It helps hoteliers on cutting down on resources at properties and consolidates data at head office to improve on operations and centralize processes and SOP. It provides a better view of operations with a single view of data across the chain and helps to take a quick decision because of all analytics and reports availability at head office.
Having a Central Operations Platform Reduces Costs and Improves Revenue
A cloud-based property management system removes the need for hiring expensive IT experts and it’s a real time-saver, especially if it’s integrated with other similar systems. Since there’s no need for physical hardware, it’s also a cost-saver.
It also allows for real-time broadcasting of hotel rates and availability across numerous booking channels, which decreases all operational costs.
Still, the biggest benefit of such a platform is that it allows guests to book directly through the hotel website, meaning that a hotel avoids paying OTAs a commission for reaching their capacity.
Conclusion
Any modern hospitality property relies on hotel software to maintain its functionality. With the increasing importance of data collected, independent hotels and chains are always searching for better ways to understand guests and their needs.
By analyzing data for intelligence, hoteliers can use an enterprise resource planning platform to:
- Consolidate data
- Get a single data view across brands and chains
- Provide a central view of hotel timeline and reservations for guests
If you think that a proper cloud-based hotel PMS is exactly what your hotel needs for you to reap all the aforementioned benefits it brings, requesting a hotel management software demo is just the thing you need. Feel free to leave a comment about the benefits of using a PMS, as well as some ideas on how this software can help independent hotels and hotel chains increase their productivity.
About The Author
Deepak Chauhan
Deepak Chauhan is responsible for marketing and positioning of “mycloud” platform and is a veteran in the hotel software industry with over 25 years’ experience giving him a strong understanding of the product requirements in the industry. He has very rare mix of working in operations of various hotels and chains for over 10 years and then co-founding a software product and service company, servicing 5 star hotels and chains for 14 years.
Deepak has led the development and marketing of cloud based hospitality systems to meet the specific, business objectives of small and mid-size properties across the globe and has worked closely with a diverse group of hoteliers and hotel technology vendors.
