With so many options available to customers for booking a hotel, it has become essentials for hotel owners and managers to keep pace with the changing demands and growing competition in the industry. If you own a hotel, it’s time to assess the capabilities of your hotel property management system.
Here are 10 signals that your hotel PMS system needs a replacement. #1. Declining hotel ROI Study the ROI by month, season, and year. If you see a constant decline in the hotel ROI, then it means something is rotten in the state of Denmark. The loopholes can lie with customer acquisition, hotel room occupancy, operational excellence, or guest experience management. Chances are high that your hotel PMS is not complementing the principles and goals of your business. For example, the above or below average pricing of a hotel room can lead to loss. When you ask for above the average, it kills the occupancy rate, but when it's otherwise, your profit takes a hit. Does your hotel PMS provide help with room pricing? If not, look for an alternative. #2. Lack of or poor automation From marketing campaigns to booking conversion, and from check-in to check-out and everything in between – Is your hotel property management system capable of handling everything? Is it substantially replacing people’s efforts? Is it contributing to your agility, accuracy, and security? If you doubt, it is time to rethink your hotel management software. It must streamline your hotel operations and make sure that information flow from one department to another uninterruptedly with little or no human interference. It must reduce or eliminate the latency and errors and give you a competitive edge. #3. Inability to track your business on the go Does your Hotel PMS System have features to help you monitor your business when you are not there? Can you see how your marketing, admin, front desk, pantry, housekeeping, engineering and maintenance, and security staff are working? Do you have a real-time dashboard to tell you about room occupancy, requests, and complaints of existing guests? If you said no, you must not delay in replacing your hotel property management system. #4. Limited third-party integrations Scalability is the need of the hour. By scalability, we mean, not just the capacity to support more users at a time, but also about supporting more features that can add value to the business. Enough support to third-party integrations or connectors allows you to expand the usability of your software. For example, if you want to sync Google Map with your marketing campaign or integrate the QuickBooks feature with your billing process, you should be able to do so without spending any extra bucks. #5. Lack of prompt software support In a business as dynamic as the hotel industry, you can’t wait for good to happen. For example, when you are unable to process credit card payments or view room status due to any software issues, you need immediate resolution. Does your software vendor provide real-time support? If you don’t get it, there is no point in paying for it. #6. Your people find it difficult to operate You can’t expect your sales and marketing staff or housekeeping people to be as tech-savvy as your IT? Alternatively, you can’t recruit IT, persons, to handle all operations. If your non-tech people spend more time understanding or exploring the software and less time in getting things done, it’s concerning. One way to counter the problem is to ask the software vendor to provide training on the usability of the software, but if it doesn’t prove worth it, then you must think of substituting your current hotel PMS software system with an easy-to-use one. #7. You find it challenging to handle multiple vendors You might need to coordinate with multiple vendors or suppliers like property owners, developers and real estate stakeholders, travel agents, interior design and furnishing companies, architects, management and training service providers, marketing companies, industry consultants, and information and computer technology (ICT) manufacturers to run your business. and finding it challenging to manage them all - it’s time to switch to the right hotel property management system. #8. It doesn’t add value to the guest experience Can travelers browse your inventory, navigate to the right categories to find the right room on a desktop or mobile? Can they customize their experience by adding or removing services and amenities as per their interest? Can they perform a booking using their preferred mode of payment, and make changes to their itineraries depending upon their needs? Can they do check-in and check-out in a fast and easy manner? How helpful is your self-service section to the users - log requests and get a resolution to their grievances? Are they able to request a cancellation or get a refund (if applicable) effortlessly? Many ways customers are engaging with your business, and every experience counts. Any failure on the guest experience front blemishes your brand reputation and impacts your revenue. While you invest in hotel PMS software, make sure the technology responds to the healthy and safety concerns of your guests. Make check-in and check-out or food ordering a touchless experience. It’s the demand of the hour and is to stay in the post-Covid world. The faster you adopt it, the better would be the outcomes. #9. It provides little or not-so-vital BI Change is the only constant and business intelligence (BI) helps you keep pace with the change by helping you understand what customers or guests are expecting. It helps you knowing what you have and where you are lagging. Engagement with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders in the business leads to the creation of a vast amount of data, but is your business PMS capable of turning those raw data into actionable insights? Does it have query and reporting analysis tools that can answer your questions and help you improve your business? Can you validate the answers if you get them? If not, it’s a sign that you must upgrade or replace your current hotel PMS software system. #10. The software fails to respond to compliances Finance, occupational health and safety, police, labor, bar, food, and tourism – there is a growing list of windows of compliance management in the sector. When is the renewal due date? What are the expenses involved? Who is responsible for what? What is done and what is yet to be done? Are you able to track how well your business meets the existing and recommended compliances? Your PMS must have an answer to each. If it doesn’t have it, you should think of moving to a better one.
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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/ According to the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute, accommodation and food services is the sector with the highest potential of automation. It’s followed by a distant manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and warehousing, and retail trade, to name a few. The report says that 73% of the activities of the hotel management system can be automated to gain operational excellence, reduce cost, and increase guest satisfaction.
The adoption and integration of the right hotel management software, also known as property management software (PMS), can be a game-changer. Here are the top reasons you can’t afford to ignore the technology. #1. Increase customer acquisition A centralized reservation center can drive customer acquisition and bring customer acquisition cost significantly down. Your sales team can see inventories, rates, operational details and reservation status for all properties on a single screen. The technology help you extend your customer acquisition strategy further by allowing your partner online travel agencies to use your hotel management software API to ease hotel reservations. All this helps you to maximize occupancy rates and increase revenue. #2. Optimize your online business Hotels generate up to 50 % of their reservations online, claims mycloud Hospitality. Are you ready to reap the benefit? Building a healthy global online visibility is not an option but a necessity. The latest hotel management software comes with an e-Distribution feature. It allows you to accept and manage bookings from all channels – website, 3rd-party, and walk-in. So, no more hop-on or hop-off across different digital properties. The challenges of remembering tedious credentials are over. Moreover, you can take advantage of dynamic availability and rate management functions to optimize occupancy and revenue. #3. Customize offerings Customization is now a key differentiator. However, it’s easier said than done. Learning the demands and consumption of your agents and customers is important to customize your offerings and build customer loyalty. Lower rental, quick transfer time, smart and fast check-in, morning coffee, cleanliness, complimentary breakfast – your agents or guests have different preferences. The use of mycloud Hotel Management Software helps you collect data across different engagement interfaces and endpoints. Check the historical preferences of your agents and customers. It’s effortless. View Repeat Guests History of the software and act wisely to provide custom hospitality to your guest. #4. Make front-desk responsive From answering queries to enabling check-in to explaining room or hotel plan to collecting balance to helping with check out – the front desk has all to take care of. The first impression could be the last impression. The kind of experience your front desk delivers is important. No error is admissible! Enhance your hotel management system to empower your people. mycloud Hospitality helps you sync your departmental silos - admin and billing, housekeeping, food and beverage, kitchen, engineering and maintenance, and security - and present all key information to the front-desk officers at one dashboard. It helps them provide contactless check-in and checkout, respond to their queries, collect a payment, and perform other tasks. Guests waive their ID to the camera that captures and validates it with the backend database. The automation saves time and reduces errors. #5. Get a 360 view of operations A faulty lamp or doorbell, an untidy room, a leakage in the toilet commode, so on, and so forth - if you have a few rooms, you can check them one after another, but what if you have fifty, hundred or more. It would be challenging. Digital management using hotel management software can help you monitor all from one dashboard. Your maintenance and housekeeping manager can act on time to fix the odds. The software along with the Internet of Things (IoT), can automatically notify them when there is a fault that needs attention and allow them to instantly update the system once it is fixed. #6. Stay future-ready Peak, shoulder, and low– it’s easy to predict the demand of different seasons, but you need to go beyond the obvious. You need more accurate projections on a weekly and monthly basis to stay prepared for the upcoming demand. Using the right BI and analytics-based hotel property management software, you can easily spot what’s in the store, and plan accordingly to capture opportunities and manage resources along with expenses. What is the importance of having a well-functioning cloud-based system for your small hotel? Here, there are various factors as to why most business managers are choosing to make full use of the web-based PMS. Some of these reasons include improved control over all affairs of activity, to tap into the larger market, better guest experience, efficiency in cost control and free user access.
It’s slowly becoming clear that the shift in customer’s booking online has changed how hotel management software used to work in the past. As such, small sized hotels can now compete with the larger brands, something that was termed to be impossible in the past. Now let us carefully explain the reasons why you should adopt a cloud PMS system for your small hotel! 1. Improved Control Through Web-Based PMS The best cloud based PMS are the latest in features and tech when it comes to technology, and they fit perfectly to online marketplaces for fast and easy distribution. Why so? Well, they have an added technological advantage as compared to the legacy performance management systems when it comes to online distribution of room inventories. Then there is the issue of increase in revenue! Revenue can be better controlled as online system can be accessed from anyplace and having a single dashboard and rate master to control the rate across number of OTA, gives added advantage to hotel to keep updating rates based on how quick they are selling out their inventories and systems also give alerts based on a rate type sell out and inventory thresholds. Also, your hotel would enjoy secure distribution of room inventories throughout the day. The various duties that small hotel managers have to go through include:
The above points need to be done during the day while following the proper Selling and revenue management techniques. Do you think it’s possible without the best cloud-based based PMS? NO! Cloud-based PMS enable you to control and manage room rates and availability. All this on real time basis! 2. Expand Market Reach While using a cloud PMS, inventories, room rates and reservations and other revenue and guest operations are all managed from a central location. If you have a mid-sized hotel which deals with a variety of online distribution services, there’s clearly a huge challenge. A web-based PMS makes interoperation between different departments secure and managing channels and rates becomes easy as system and at least technology keeps managers updated and provides alerts based on business rules. As a small hotel manager, it helps you concentrate on your customers and business as cloud-PMS carefully deals with issues touching on forms of technology and infrastructure. Do web-based PMS easily integrate with other online devices? Yes! And by doing so, they go on to provide unmatched convenience to you like the hotel manager. 3. Increased Guest Experience Well, larger hotels have the technology and process of managing guest expectations. Automating distribution and operations give such managers more time to concentrate on the well-being of your guests. For small to medium size hotels, losing clients to rival hotels is more of a nightmare! Giving your customers the best services makes sure that they visit your hotel whenever they take summer vacations or business trips. It’s more than just a good night’s sleep! With a cloud PMS, you can ease your duties as the hotel manager and engage with your customers on a more personal level. Here, it’s important to show them the full advantages a web-based management system. Systems offers a single feedback timeline and a quality index of rating and how each service is rated, so managers can easily decide on priorities and take up task that will affect guest services and easily improve on services and hotel operations. 4. Effective Cost Controls Once you decide to use the best cloud-based hotel PMS for your small hotel business, you go on to earn faster investment returns. Why so? Well, cloud based PMS minimize information technology, infrastructure and maintenance and other workforce costs. Besides, they reduce training and retraining costs. Like a small sized hotel manager, you can save enough time and avoid errors in providing services. Also, there is no capex and complete system is opex based meaning no upfront investment and pay as you earn. Conclusion The above reasons prove why small businesses today are choosing to use the best cloud-based hotel PMS. With these systems, all that you need is to conduct basic monitoring procedures as everything else is automatically made easier. So, if you’re a small business manager looking for ways to improve your hotel services, picking the best cloud PMS is a good starting point! Hotels are always looking to perfect and improve the experience of their guests. After all, this is a vital part of their business. Technology is a driving factor in many industries, and this includes hotels as well. However, as a hotel owner or manager, you need to understand that you can use technology in two ways.
You can provide on-site gadgets like smartphones and large smart TVs to improve the experience. But on the other hand, you can also use technology to enhance your operational processes. The whole guest experience starts when someone reaches out to you and until the end of their stay. There are so many ways that guests can start interacting with hotels before they’ve even made a decision. It’s up to hotel management to ensure that they provide the right experience at every possible touchpoint. Web Booking Experience A quality hotel PMS solution can improve your guest’s experience in many ways. Instead of having to hire a third-party agency to handle your booking or talk to people on the phone regularly, you can let guests do this online. When you set up a website connected to a hotel PMS, it makes things so much easier for guests and hotel management. Online booking is always available, and a website never goes down. This means that people can book rooms when it suits them. From the hotel’s perspective, this makes things easier as managing bookings becomes simpler. Potential guests can always see which rooms are available, when, and pay for their accommodation right away. Guests can also check out the pictures of rooms before they arrive. Some hotels even use virtual reality to bring their rooms closer to guests. Hotels can add chatbots to answer most frequently asked questions and also have an abandoned basket function to retarget guests. Modern Hotel Guests are Tech-Savvy The present and the future belong to the millennials and generations after them. All of these people are tech-savvy. They use phones and computers daily. They are used to doing things in the digital world. For example, a typical millennial will always prefer booking their stay online rather than calling on the phone. This is why hotels offer smartphones for their guests, digital consoles, IoT gadgets, and various software solutions. Tech-savvy generations like these things, and they make them feel even more comfortable. This is why web booking has become paramount in the modern hotel industry. Post Booking Contactless Experience Contactless check-ins allow guests to use mobile apps that are integrated with the hotel PMS. They can arrive without having to rely on anyone. Furthermore, these same apps let guests hold their digital keys through which they can always enter their rooms. In simplest terms, guests don’t even have to talk to anyone when they come for a check-in. All of the information they need is within their mobile device. This is what contactless experience is all about. Provide Personalization Through Technology Guests are more demanding than ever before. One of the best ways to provide a fantastic experience that they will remember is to offer personalization. Modern PMS store far more information today compared to their legacy counterparts and now can provide a 360-degree view of a guest profile, using hotel tech and software, you can keep track of everything from what kind of pillows guests like to their food and music preferences. It’s an opportunity to let your guests know that they are valued, and not simply just another entry in the booking ledger. The system provides deep insights in real-time and hotel staff gets to see guests' activities at a click. For example, if someone eats the same breakfast for a couple of days, you can surprise them with a complimentary breakfast with their favorite food. On the other hand, the same app that your guests are using lets them order service or book meals at the restaurant. They can even pay for their service through the app. Having guests on a single platform is also a good promotional opportunity. Hotels often suggest events, attractions, or special offers they don’t want to miss. Cloud or no Cloud? For many upper management leaders, the first issue concerning technology is whether they should get cloud solutions or install on-site software. I will say right away that you should go with cloud solutions. Apart from all standard cloud-based benefits, I feel the biggest advantage of Cloud software is that it is always connected and online. Legacy solutions have been great but one of the biggest drawbacks has been interfaces and communication failures that can result in a bad experience. Cloud being hot all the time means that guests do not have to wait or face failed attempts at establishing contact with hotel network or services, they have a far better and connected experience in real-time and this results in happy customers and better revenue, loyalty, and repeat business for hotels, here are some other benefits of cloud solutions. Cutting Down Costs When getting cloud software, you only have to pay for what you use. If you need three people using the software, you will only have to pay the subscription for them. On the other hand, you only pay based on the revenue you earn. No Maintenance Required The service provider does all of the server storage and software maintenance. Simply put, you don’t have to hire anyone to maintain your system or update it. You can leave all of this to the software provider. Quick Installation Cloud based hotel software is used online through a web browser. You only need to make an account, pay for your monthly package, and gain access. There is no need to install anything, allocate data space, or set up a dedicated computer for that software – it can be used from any device as long as you have the credentials. Bottom Line If you want to stay competitive, your hotel service needs to be modernized through technology. It can give you the advantage you need over your competition, help standardize service, improve response time, and retain your guests. |
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December 2021
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