How to Choose a New Hotel PMS

The hospitality industry has entered a new era. Hotel PMS software is still a fundamental system that touches on nearly every area of a hospitality organization’s business. Yet now, the need for unity and scalability for hotel organizations is even greater than before. During this disruptive era, leading hotel organizations have taken a good look at their essential systems including their hotel property management solution. Maybe you’re on that very same journey today.

If so, what are some of the key points to concentrate on as you choose a new hotel PMS? How do those factors help your organization create better experiences for guests as well as for operational teams? How do they increase intelligence and provide the basis for a competitive edge? Here’s a selected list of 5 essential factors for you to consider as you choose a scalable solution to serve you now, and in the coming era.

1. Strong guest interaction capabilities

Your hotel PMS should help your organization create experiences for your guest that go beyond hotel room and package reservations. It should provide the basis for a modern, complete, globally adaptive, and tailored journey for the guest geared to their personal preferences. This is all with a focus on guest service to drive loyalty, retention, and to drive profitability, too.

A big part of that is about data and intelligence around who your ideal guest really is. When you know what they’re is looking for based on their history and behaviors, that helps to inform how you best serve those guests and others like them more effectively in general. That is a powerful prospect that helps you to encourage more return visits and increase guest lifetime value, too.

2. Guest self-service Interaction tools

Guests nowadays prefer to use their personal devices like mobile phones and tablets to interact with all service elements before and during their stay. Hotels cannot expect all guests to wait in line to check in and check out at the front desk. Optimizing and reducing operational workload with guest self service solutions is of utmost importance.

Any hotel property management system you’re considering must reflect real-time actions that offer web-based and mobile-friendly functionality. This also includes options for convenient and personalized options to enhance the guest stay, including things like contactless check-ins, room preferences, add-ons like breakfast service, and room upgrade options, too. This is all about creating flexibility and seamlessness that is a hallmark of the modern hotel experience.

3. Seamless integrations across multiple hotel sub systems

All hospitality software systems should be aligned and work in harmony in real time across all touch points with the PMS as the hub. Integrations across multiple systems is a necessity in this new hospitality industry era. Without seamless and resilient system connectivity, a business operation can come to a grinding halt. That can result in guest service issues which negatively impact brand loyalty and may cause major revenue loss.

With good integrations and vendor partners who work together, operations are smoother as the systems handle the load behind the scenes. That vital and integrated approach helps to create continuous, organic experiences that modern consumers expect. That helps to instill confidence and to help assure guests that they have made the right choice, driving loyalty to keep them coming back.

4. Staff-empowering mobile and web-based operations modules

Guests rely more and more on their personal devices to get what they want in their daily lives. Operational personnel such as front desk and housekeeping staff should also be empowered to do the same as they manage day-to-say operational tasks in support of the guest experience.

Flexibility is a vital component to that. When hotel operations teams can be mobile and handle any guest-related information while on the go using their own personal devices, that means they can be more proactive and see to those tasks in a more efficient way. This makes it much easier for them to meet the high standards that a safe, clean, and comfortable hotel stay entails.

5. Inclusive sales & catering, and food and beverage integrations

Events and dining are interwoven into the fabric of a great hotel experience. Sales & catering solutions and hotel restaurant point of sale provide key functionality along the way. An advanced hotel PMS will account for that. This touches on important details like room block bookings for events and charging meals and beverages to rooms while in the hotel restaurant or poolside.

This is about convenience and a more continuous and less fragmented guest experience. But it’s also about helping to reveal the guest’s story during their stay and then being better able to foster good communications and build higher value relationships in the long-term.