Cloud-based hotel property management software is a great choice for hotels of all sizes as property owners can manage their properties from anywhere in the world. An on-premise software system often comes with several caveats that make operations difficult. Let’s take a look at some reasons why hotels should move from on-premise software to cloud-based hotel software.
Do you own or manage a hotel property and want to fortify your hotel management efforts with a cloud-based software? Take a look at mycloud Hospitality, an award-winning hotel software suite that is used by scores of hotels and properties around the globe. Find out more by browsing through www.mycloudhospitality.com or call +1-415-390-5039 to schedule an online demo of the software at the time you find convenient.
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Hotel operators are perpetually searching for better ways to improve guest loyalty and the quality of the guest experience. These new ways can come in numerous forms, including technology developments that provide specific guest features.
Such developments can deliver huge guest benefits and provide an accommodation property with competitive advantage — though, one that is commonly fleeting. Long haul, improving the guest experience is less about giving the most recent guest feature and progressively about setting up structures that make guests feel exceptional and acknowledged. It’s tied in with envisioning and taking into account their special needs and perceiving their separated worth. To the degree that it empowers various guest facing exercises while catching and storing guest profile information at all times, a next-generation hotel property management software (PMS) can play a critical role in upgrading the guest experience. Today, actually, there might be no preferred proportion of performance over how much the innovation helps raise the level of overall guest satisfaction. Such a system should serve as the soul of any accommodation property. It ought to be seen as the businesses central nervous system. In that it encourages a bi-directional progression of data, conveying real-time information and reports, a PMS ought to be seen as the order and-control center from which all mission-basic choices are made. There are many reasons for hotel operators to move from a legacy PMS to a best in class system designed to meet their present and future market needs. So what you should look for in a next generation PMS. Integrated Website Booking Engine — Online reservations are a significant part of revenue generation for the accommodation property. Having a cloud based PMS integrated with its own booking engine and payment gateway is an unquestionable requirement. Point of Sale — Point of Sale is again an advantage as it gets effectively incorporated with the PMS and room management, in this way, streamlining the billing and check-out process. Connection to Channel Manager — To have a fruitful sales and marketing strategy, hotels can’t ignore Channel Manager. Channel manager connection is imperative to interface with the OTAs and GDS for real-time distribution of room inventory and dynamic room pricing. Choosing a PMS that does not give this functionality is an immense loss of revenue. Social Media & Review Site Integration — The property management system ought to give a platform that will associate with your social media platforms and review sites like TripAdvisor effectively. Check if the PMS offers a social media engagement. Housekeeping — Housekeeping forms one of the fundamental tasks of a hotel. Having a property management system that likewise has the housekeeping module is an added advantage. Integrations — The cloud based property management system ought to have the option to integrate with the third party interfaces like key card access, smaller than mini bars and call accounting to give some examples. Reporting and Business Intelligence — Reporting is a significant part of your properties operations and strategic planning. While choosing a PMS, hotel operators must take a gander at the various reports it gives and whether it will help gain insights of revenue and performance of the hotel. Flexibility in Rate Management — Rate management is significant for an accommodation property. Hotel operators invest a lot of time strategizing the rates and rendering appealing packages and deals. A property management system ought to have the option to help these processes. After Sales Support and Security — Last however not the least, hotel operators should take a gander at the after sales support of the system and the security highlights offered. Ask inquiries like where the information is being stored and if credit card payments are being done through the system. Ensure that the essential guidelines are met. While picking a PMS, hotel operators need to look beyond the basic check-in, check-out and invoice features. They should ensure that picking the correct hotel management system would enable the hotel to not just perform a task as well as increment in overall effectiveness and help in revenue generation. Travel has become cheaper than ever. With lowering fuel prices and increasing competition among airlines, more people are now traveling to other countries than ever. This only spells good news for hotel and property owners that want to make the best of the increasing travel trends by giving their guests an experience of a lifetime. Hotel owners also need to enhance their operational capabilities to manage their bookings and make sure they are ready to cater to an increasing number of guests.
Hotel software helps property owners in boosting the room and staff management abilities of their front desk. With a capable cloud hotel management software, hotel staff can make sure they are on top of their booking schedule and rooms are available as soon as they get cleaned by the housekeeping staff. In all, a hotel software adds to all areas of hotel management and helps the hotel staff to focus on areas that need improvement in hotel operations. Let’s take a look at some ways in which cloud hotel management software is essential for all hotel properties in today’s times. Easy to Learn - Legacy property management software comes with a long learning curve and often it would take teams regular training sessions to become well-versed with the software. In case of cloud hotel management software, there is no learning curve. A simple session of half hour or so is enough to get team members up to speed with the software. The software is designed while keeping in mind the needs and requirements of the users which is why it is intuitive and easy to use. High Degree of Customization - Every hotel has its own way of managing the day to day operations in terms of the applications they use and how they divide the work responsibilities among different teams. With cloud- based software, customizing the software to suit the needs of the staff is as easy as choosing the options that you want in the software. Whether it is your choice of credit card processing firm or guest booking interface, you can make the software behave as you want. Security - Cloud-based hotel software is extremely secure and all data in the software is safe under military-grade encryption. To ensure additional safety, the data is also backed up in multiple locations. With used based access and IP based authorization, the software ensures unauthorized persons can’t access your data. Zero Investment - There is no need to buy or install any software as all operations are done in the cloud. Unlike other software, you don’t even need to install new hardware as cloud software can work on the most basic hardware that can connect to the internet. Dedicated Support - With cloud hotel software, you get access to dedicated support channels to handle your queries and questions. The support is provided by experts in the field of hotel management software and you can get any kind of software related assistance from them. The above mentioned points are only some of the features that make cloud hotel management software such a lucrative option for hotel management. Do you want to supercharge your hotel business with an award-winning software? Check out mycloud Hospitality, a complete cloud-based software suite that is ideal for small as well as large hotels. Please visit https://www.mycloudhospitality.com/ to schedule a free online demo. Touchless — this has become an integral element of the standard operating procedures of the hospitality industry across the world. The credit goes to none other than Covid-19. The recent development has pushed IT vendors focusing on the industry to evolve their hotel management software, also known as PMS (Property Management Software), with the inclusion of self-check-in feature.
Learn how hotel self-check-in software contribute to the business success: #1. Improves Guest confidence The high infectivity of Covid-19 has shattered the confidence of travelers, and they are highly sensitive about hygiene and personal safety, particularly, when traveling or staying away from their homes. Their hotel booking criteria now has cleanliness as an important factor. It’s evident from the guest review and rating parameter’s value. Take a look at the pic below, the cleanliness stands as one of the vital components in choosing a hotel room. Hotel self-check-in software shift the conventional check-in process from offline to online. The process that involved physical collection of identity and address proof documents by the hotel staff is becoming a thing of the past. Guests can seamlessly record their documents, fill details, make payment transactions through a human-less reception kiosk, and get keys to access their rooms. A positive review about their touchless experience can help you get more bookings. #2. Helps Meeting Covid-19 Guidelines Health regulators across the world have enforced health and safety measures for the safety of guests and staff from Covid-19. The investment in hotel self-check-in software technology helps you meet their guidelines. It reveals not just your seriousness in stopping the spread of infection but also care for your staff who work hard to ensure you reach your business objectives. #3. Reduces Operational Cost Replacement of the conventional reception counter with the digital contactless reception kiosk installed with a hotel self-check-in application as shown above is a great way to reduce the operational cost as businesses do not need to recruit professionals to handle check-in tasks. If they already have, they can make them focus on other important tasks or can invest that capital in improving the guest experience further. In the post Covid-19 era, cutting down operational cost is one of the key priorities of the hospitality businesses to contain the financial damage incurred by the pandemic. #4. Saves Time The touchless hospitality solution speeds up the check-in process as it works on automation. The documents and details provided by the guests are authenticated automatically with the back-end database. Besides, the automated self-check-in also helps with improving accuracy or checking any human-led error that may unnecessarily delay the process and affect the guest experience. #5. Gets Business Intelligence (BI) Improved digitalization with the best hotel management software helps with collecting the guest experience data from the guest’s 360-degree lifecycle — check-in to check-out. Your guests engage with front office, housekeeping, food and beverage, engineering and maintenance, accounts and credits, and security departments. A seamless integration of all these departments will help you collect a significant amount of actionable data. Understand the demands and expectations of guests. Use BI to improve your processes and make it more relevant to the guests. #6. Combats Frauds Touchless hotel check-in software equipped with AI, cryptography and QR code can help you to combat counterfeiting documents produced as identity or address proof. It’s important for the safety of your hotel to allow only legitimate guests to stay in your hotel rooms. Moreover, it’s your responsibility towards the community you operate in to not allow your property to be used for illegal affairs only. The adoption of best hotel software along with touchless check-in process should not be limited to Covid-19. In fact, it has become a key business differentiator and inseparable part of guest experience. If you are yet to decide on and adopt the right technology, get in touch with mycloud Hospitality Solution. If you are already using our solution, comment your experience or queries. We would be glad to respond to them at the earliest. Following the “lost year of travel,” many people are looking forward to new travel experiences in 2021. Many are hungrier than ever to leave their home, explore new destinations, and feel as if everything is finally back to normal.
The new vaccine rollout is a huge step towards making that happen. It has increased traveller confidence and caused a rise in travel demand and bookings that might help leisure travel rebound quicker than we thought. If everything goes well, OTAs and hoteliers should have their hands full this summer, with all of us enjoying plush robes and pools in hotels and relaxing on a beach somewhere. Before this daydreaming can turn into a reality, hoteliers should take certain steps to make the most of the growing traveller’s confidence. Whether you’re a hotel owner or manager, the latest industry insights and tips below will help you get more high-value bookings and maximize hotel revenue. Take a look. Understanding Traveller Behaviour and Preferences To make the most of the rising travel demand, you need to understand today’s travellers. They did a 180-degree turn, so you’ll need to dig into the latest industry insights to understand their behaviour and preferences. According to a global “The 2021 Upgrade” report, we’ll witness a spike in spontaneous travel this year, with 29% of respondents saying they would drop everything and leave the same day if an opportunity arises. The research also found that 32% of travellers want to make spontaneous decisions, with 89% of US travellers saying they’ll be more impulsive in 2021 regarding their bookings. What’s more, 28% of respondents say they want to avoid planning a trip, while 24% are looking to say “yes” to new experiences. Another global traveller study revealed that technology would help 84% of travellers be more confident to hit the road in 2021, with 42% preferring mobile apps that reduce physical touchpoints and provide real-time COVID-19 notifications regarding their destination city. The survey also found that 47% of baby boomers plan on taking longer trips of at least two weeks in 2021, as long as they can physically distance themselves. If there’s anything to learn from these findings, it’s that hoteliers should make strategies for seizing last-minute booking opportunities. They should also expect longer stays and embrace technologies for providing a seamless guest experience. Where to Promote Available Rooms to Get Higher-Value Bookings There are many ways to promote your hotel rooms and get more bookings. Your website is an obvious choice, but you should look beyond it as well. Promote your hotel on social media, but market the location, too. For instance, if there’s a popular festival in the city, use it as an incentive and showcase why your hotel is the best choice for festival adventures. Make marketing strategies with your OTA partners to promote available rooms on their blogs and social channels. Build relationships with travel bloggers and influencers who will also tell the world about the benefits of staying at your hotel. One of the best ways to get high-value bookings is to partner with local businesses to co-promote one another. You can also join forces in organizing contests to give travellers a free city tour, for example, if they book a room at your hotel. Another option is to use Instagram to build stories. You can also collaborate with influencers to spread these stories further, as they usually have a substantial following. How to Offer Maximum Value for Traveller Money Offering maximum value comes down to providing a seamless guest experience. What does that mean? On the one hand, it means ensuring your staff and guests’ health and safety, that is, regularly sanitizing the rooms and physical touchpoints. It also means embracing contactless tech to reduce or eliminate physical touchpoints and offer a safe hotel guest experience. On the other hand, it’s all about personalization and customer service. Offer incentives (e.g., discounts) for first-time guests and customer loyalty programs for returning guests. You can capture last-minute bookings with incentives like discounts, upgrades, and value-added items, such as event tickets or restaurant vouchers. Go above and beyond in customer service to meet every guest’s needs. Utilizing hotel management software can help you achieve that. With reliable software for hotels, you can provide excellent service before, during, and after their stay. You can reduce or eliminate physical touchpoints, boost staff efficiency, improve guest satisfaction, increase occupancy rates, and maximize revenue. Don’t just sell rooms! Rather, build packages that provide a safe and exclusive experience to your guests. People want some alone time, and hotels need to ensure that they offer some relaxing services, site seeing options, as well as destination-based packages. They need to offer an exclusive cultural experience. Final Words Strategies for making the most of the growing traveller confidence aren’t much different than what you’ve already been doing before the pandemic. The only difference is meeting the new needs and preferences of travel-hungry consumers and ensuring their safe and comfortable stay. You need to have as many services as possible (mentioned above) if you want to stand out. If you want to find out more about the benefits of contactless hotel management software, schedule a free online demo of our award-winning hotel PMS today. Source: https://www.mycloudhospitality.com/blog/travel-insights-and-tips-for-getting-high-value-bookings The best practices of the customer-centric approach have a strong impact on the hotel industry. You’ve probably noticed that your competition is forcing a “unique experience” marketing message across the channels.
Do you want to know why? Because it helps them build brand value and motivate people to book directly from them. However, OTA’s still dominate the booking landscape. So, how do you balance the booking inventory distribution? There is a way, of course. Through the smart use of hotel channel manager software, you can appear in the top searches on the best hotel booking engine. Let us help you learn how to do it. Here are the five effective distribution channels to keep your hotel alive and competitive. Hotel Channel Manager Software These solutions come in all shapes and colors. They are a hotel’s primary booking inventory distribution channels. Every other platform outside of the hotel system takes the data from it and delivers it to the potential guests. With the hotel channel management system in place, you will be able to seamlessly distribute your room inventory and rates across all targeted channels, including OTAs. These solutions are built to make hotel distribution easy, no matter how complex the ecosystem is. These systems work semi-automatically. A hotel channel manager software will keep track of all your room inventory and rates, and automatically update every distribution channel it is connected to on its own. That leaves staff and hotel managers with a lot of free time to focus on core business processes. Not to mention the significant reduction of errors, since the system automates repetitive tasks that often cause humans to make oversights. Connect with Best Players in the Metasearch Field Metasearch engine indexes your hotel needs and offers in real-time. When looking for accommodations, people will put in search queries. The metasearch booking engine then returns the most relevant results for the query. Guess where it gets data from? From your hotel distribution software. When you provide accurate information to ota and metasearch engines, you will avoid overbooking and deliver a great experience to your potential guests. Meaning that metasearch engines are the first effective distribution channel you should focus on. But to leverage the benefits of popular metasearch engines, you will have to use a hotel channel manager software. By doing so, you will keep your booking inventory updated in real-time. Revisit Your Official Website Your website can be turned into one of the most efficient booking inventory distribution channels there is. When was the last time you revisited it? Website design trends are constantly emerging. If you want to stun your visitors and deliver them top-notch experience, you have to incorporate these trends into your website design. Make sure that it is optimized for mobile and ultra-fast loading speeds. Once you get done with technicalities, make sure that your value proposition is more than enough to make visitors want to book with you. Hire a pro-photographer to take shots of your hotel and provide a relevant detailed description. Leverage the blog section to offer a quick recap of nearby landmarks or “things to do” guides to your visitors. Social Media Marketing Hoteliers use social media marketing a lot. Why? Because it provides access to more than 2 billion active users and countless opportunities to increase your brand recognition. Use your own brand hotel booking engine to target potential guests and prepare your social media marketing strategy in advance. All popular social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, have built-in advertising platforms. These platforms will help you custom-tailor your ad campaign, a target very specific demographics. Some hotel distribution software easily integrates with social media to help you make this channel of distribution even more efficient. Search Engines Search engines are the 5th effective distribution channels on our list. Hoteliers quite often forget them, as their focus is primarily on OTAs. Once you discover that 3.5 billion Google searches are made every day, and the volume of Google searches grows by 10% every year, it becomes clear that search engine marketing is a no brainer. Investing in SEO is always a smart decision, especially if you want to see long-term results. But there is also a PPC marketing search engines offer to hoteliers. Keep in mind that PPC is good for fast and short-term results. Every hotel is unique because, in its core, it’s still a business with its own goals and strategies. Always consider this when choosing a hotel distribution channel. With the right hotel channel manager software in your hands, we are confident that you will keep your hotel alive and competitive no matter what channel you choose. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken all business industries to their core. Still, some have felt the adverse effects more than others. Hospitality businesses like hotels and restaurants have lost a large portion of their customers, and some have even been forced to close down completely due to restrictions.
Before the whole pandemic started and shut down international travel completely, the hotel industry was booming. In 2019, the room revenue alone reached $550 B, which was 2.5% more than in 2018. But instead of continuing along with future growth and fulfilling optimistic estimates, the industry plunged into one of the most challenging periods. But hoteliers are looking to salvage what they can and adapt in every way possible to the current situation. One of the critical points of these readjustments is the adoption and development of new hospitality technologies. Hospitality & Technology Trends The whole hospitality industry has been adopting new tech solutions at an accelerated pace before the pandemic. But the health crisis has accelerated this trend even further. Before Coronavirus, cloud solutions, mobility, big data, and AI-based guest services were considered as a great add-on to the whole service. But now these technologies are a must. Everything is becoming reliant on the online environment, and people are looking for contactless service that keeps them safe. This has forced hoteliers to take immediate steps to leverage and invest in digital solutions. But through these safety and contactless service expectations, the industry has elevated its service to the next level and brought a whole new experience for its guests. So, let’s see which technologies have become a must for the hospitality industry. 5 Hospitality Technologies That are Being Adopted During the COVID-19 Pandemic 1. Contactless Technologies Contactless technologies let hotels fulfil all the needs of their guests while achieving compliance with health protocols. A cloud-based PMS that offers contactless services to both guests and the service staff lets the staff communicate with guests in real-time through the web app, which can be accessed with a QR code scan. This means that guests don’t have to download anything or use another platform to communicate. Guests can access all the services they need from making hotel bookings, pre-check-ins, check-ins, digital payments, ordering services during their stay, checking bills, providing feedback, and finally, checking out. At the same time, the hotel staff and management also have internet communication and information-sharing capabilities. 2. Internet of Things IoT solutions aren’t new in the hospitality industry. But the pandemic has introduced new applications in terms of smart sensors. This technology is used to help guests reserve parking around the hotel before their visit. They can arrive knowing that they will have a spot waiting for them. On the other hand, various cloud IoT solutions help improve back-end processes. They are used to verify health and safety requirements, organizing housekeeping, and assigning duties to the staff. 3. Cryptocurrencies & Blockchain All hospitality establishments can benefit from having a traceable and decentralized platform for all their data. At the same time, using blockchain allows you to accept cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and many others. Blockchain platforms eliminate the need for any mediator as guests can communicate directly with hotels in a secure manner and book their rooms. Hotel rooms are migrating to blockchain to boost security as well. There is no room for scams on either side. At the same time, all the transactions are carried out without any additional fees. 4. Artificial Intelligence AI has exploded onto the scene in many industries. However, when it comes to hotels, the implementation has been relatively slow. However, now we are witnessing a lot of different AI solutions in hospitality. Since it’s all about contactless service, hotels are using AI-powered face checks to give access to their guests. Simultaneously, these systems also check guests’ temperature, making sure that they don’t have COVID-19 symptoms. Hotels now need to rely on revenue management services driven by AI. They need to look at global markets to attract guests. Simple competition mapping is just not enough. Now, they need to understand travel trends, booking patterns, traffic sources and manage their rates accordingly. 5. 5G networks The pandemic is accelerating the growth of digital solutions used by hotels to prevent risks and allow employees to work from anywhere. All of this puts a demand on faster networks that will help both internally and externally. 5G is the fifth generation of cellular networks that offers far greater download speeds and bandwidth. The large number of mobile devices being used and IoT technologies make stable networks a must. New Technologies are Here to Stay The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t only changed the whole hospitality industry; it has also impacted customers. Consumer behaviour is certainly different now, but as the pandemic draws to a close, things should go back to normal. Currently, guests are expecting an emphasis on hygiene, safety, and ease of access. Hoteliers need to adapt now and implement new technologies, but we need to see if they will have to keep them in the post-covid era. The tech industry is keeping up and providing unique solutions to tackle all these issues with ease. In need of contactless hotel management software? Check out this free demo. Most of the people never imagined that 2020 would face a worst pandemic health crises in the modern history bring the whole world to halt. Many governments had to close down most of their economics to limit the spread of coronavirus. The result has been unprecedented in terms GDP and Unemployment levels.
Over the past decades, travel saw consistent growth even when financial crises and other pandemics affected the global economy. But today’s situation is different with international tourist industry seeing a 58-78% of decline. The hospitality sector saw a four time greater than two crisis combined. Hotel demand may not reach pre-COVID levels until 2023 and hotels operating in post-COVID scenario will be completely different. But few things never change such as customer service and amenities offered. Customers these days expect more such as cleanliness, safety and what Hotel technology is offered to its guest. New emerging hotel software technology in the industry will help hoteliers to stay competitive in the industry and convince traveller to stay at your hotel property. In this testing times such as Coronavirus, It is important to understand these hotel technology trends to meet customer expectations as market demands are constantly changing. Customer no longer look for traditional amenities or service delivery, the future of hotel booking depends on offering more personalized and customized service along with safety. Here are few upcoming hotel technology to prepare your hotel to cater to the rising travellers demand post COVID. Cloud Technology Since Corona Virus pandemic has shown us way to work remotely and this trend is going to continue for long. It implies to hospitality industry too and hotel operators are looking for cloud based hotel technology which will allow all their hotel staff to connect with property for 24/7. Investing in Cloud Based Hotel technology will be extreme priority for the hotel industry post COVID-19. Upgrading your traditional hotel technology to cloud-based hotel technology will save large amount CapEx and OpEx charges like software maintenance. Contactless Check-in & Checkout The COVID-19 pandemic has limited the interaction between a hotel employee and guests. In future, guest’s willing to travel to a hotel property wants to limit interaction with staff and they want to do all check-in formalities using their own Mobile devices. Using their own device to complete hotel registration will minimize staff interaction and improve guest safety and convenience. Also contactless registration using their own mobile devices saves time and eliminates the need for standing in a queue at front desk. Contactless Payments Contactless payment method trend was getting famous even before COVID-19, but the pandemic shifted gears of contactless technology and it is one of fastest-growing hotel technology in the hospitality industry right now. Payment method is evolved from net banking, online payment gateway and mobile wallets. This payment method is safe, fast and more reliable and prevents loss or theft. Automate Service Automation is the most important and unavoidable trend in the hotel industry. COVID-19 situation had put restriction on employees and most properties operates with low staff. Hotel operators need to use this staff and focus on providing guest superior experience. Hotel operators need to use a hotel technology and automate operational tasks like email confirmations and amendments, Performa Invoices, managing rates etc. will free up more time to your resources and ask them to concentrate on more important tasks, concentrate on guest service. Conclusion Post Covid-19 hotel operators should make use of all the possible technologies from Cloud-based Hotel software technology to contactless solutions. It might seem to be reduced occupancy now but once the restrictions are lifted and coronavirus is under control the demand for travel will definitely increase. Hotel operators need to be prepared for this future. Hotel technology will be ever evolving and hotel operators need to be updated to stay competitive. |
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December 2021
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