Hospitality Management Systems, Technology and Beyond….

By Garen Armstrong

Technology, especially hospitality technology, is constantly evolving so companies in this field must evolve with it. Companies like ours actually provide hotels with the tools they need to run all of their day-to-day operations and also how they can generate additional revenues and save significant dollars.

Companies like ours used to be called “Property Management Systems” rather than PMS, we market what we simply call “Hospitality Management Systems,” which incorporates all technology and Online marketing.  The hotel business even though a “brick and mortar” business it is very much a “Online business”.  If your hotel is not online driving traffic to your website and booking that business then you are loosing business.

The reason Hospitality technology is quickly adapting now as the preferable term to PMS is the shear scale of what the systems can do these days incorporating so many other systems.

PMS is the tree trunk of hospitality technology, and everything else, whether it’s other solutions like sales and catering or spa management or point of sale or quality management, are the branches on that tree.

The more we look at property management systems, the more apparent it is how much they’ve moved beyond their original focus on guest reservations, room availability, check-in/check-out and folio charges, i.e. the basic aspects of guests’ stays while they’re at the property.  Since they now cover so much more of the guest experience, often including multi-property reservations, sales and catering, spa/golf/activities management. Now interfacing with Online Central Reservations systems, GDS/IDS, mobile-booking sites.  It is a single point Hotel Management Suite (HMS) with one point of managing a entire hotel that used to take several systems, and duplicate re-entry of inventory and rates.

Some of the biggest misconceptions hoteliers have about technology is that most
everyone looks at hospitality technology as a cost of doing business. What they don’t realize is that using the latest in hospitality technology can not only make their jobs easier but also help them generate revenues and save significant dollars. Some hoteliers don’t realize the power of technology and how they can use things like activity bookings, gift cards, yielding tools or travel insurance to give them e-commerce tools.

Hoteliers need to be taking advantage of e-commerce through their technology platforms. Whether it is through booking engine or gift cards.

Take gift cards as an example. Research shows 55 percent of gift cardholders need more than one trip to deplete the value of their card and less than 86 percent of gift cardholders ever redeem the full value of their card, which means the money stays on the card and stays in the hotelier’s pocket.

I call it the one-percent advantage, and every additional tool can add one percent to a hotel’s revenues. The more tools you add, whether it be booking engine or loyalty points,  or other tools, can each be another one percent.

The most important way to use technology to build revenues with modern hospitality technology is to data mine the guest lists and clients so that you can market efficiently to.
One thing is to take advantage of their guest histories data and contact list.  It’s your lifeblood and if you’re not taking advantage of it you’re leaving money on the table. You need to be proactive rather than reactive. Are you sending customers targeted mailers? Are you giving them the opportunity to book directly from that mailer with coupon code for a special rate? If you don’t pay attention to guest history, you’ll lose out to hotels that are maximizing the use of technology and perhaps reaching the guests you’re not.

When one looks at the changes in the hospitality software market and what hoteliers can expect in the future from technology we see a lot!

We see Hospitality companies lead tech innovation. Three hospitality companies are in the Top 50 of InformationWeek’s annual listing of the best companies at using technology in innovative ways.

Hospitality companies recognized in the top 250 of the listing in InformationWeek below:
#2 – InterContinental Hotels Group
#41 – Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
#45 – Pegasus Solutions
#53 – Marriott International
#97 – Travelport
#127 – Sabre Holdings
#128 – Hyatt Hotels
#158 – Best Western International

We are in an exciting time with the industry with travel being one of the largest online segments. With Social media, and mobile capabilities being adapted rapidly, merging the technologies together is the next frontier.

However, the future of the hotel and travel industry landscape isn’t a easily navigated path and if you’re a hotelier and would to optimize your hotel(s) you can reach me at garen@mindspringsoftware.com

…. To be continued.