In this competitive hotel landscape, hotel managers need a tool for managing their reservations and providing the best possible customer service.
Gone are the times when hoteliers spend hours creating complex spreadsheets, doing number crunching, and preparing detailed reports to make decisions in the future.
As guests have become technologically smart, so has the hotelier’s need to come up with an out-of-the-box alternative aka a hotel management solution that smoothens guests’ journey from A to Z.
This powerful tool automates administrative tasks, streamlines check-in/check-out processes, sets the best room rates, and helps you maximize hotel revenue.
As everything is automated, hotel staff can reduce their reliance on paperwork and provide a better service for guests. That’s possible through a property management system (PMS).
In this blog, we’ll learn the intricacies of hospitality PMS, its key functionalities, and the various benefits associated with it.
What is hotel PMS?
A hotel property management system is an online software that enables hoteliers to manage their daily operations.
These include managing front desk operations, payment processing, rate availability, room inventory, and streamlining housekeeping tasks.
So, you can manage everything in a hotel from internal to external processes.
Think of the PMS software as the human brain that performs behind-the-scenes tasks such as automating administrative tasks and freeing up the hotel staff to focus on other important elements.
Hoteliers can connect this software with third-party systems such as channel managers, point of sale systems (POS), accounting systems, and payment gateways.
Thus, PMS is a game changer for hospitality businesses as it manages the check-in/check-out process, avoids the risk of double bookings, automates time-consuming and routine operations, and enhances your guest experience.
What are the benefits of PMS software?
Let’s talk about the benefits of property management system in detail-
1. Enhances guest experience
Guest experience is like a cherry on the cake for hospitality businesses. If a guest’s experience is compromised, they won’t take it lightly.
Cloud-based PMS software frees up the front desk staff and lets hotel staff focus on building relationships with guests.
Moreover, this technology stores the guest information and keeps track of guest preferences, making it a potent tool for hoteliers to serve their guests in a personalized fashion.
Thus, they can convert first-time visitors into loyal guests.
2. Save your time
PMS software saves time for hoteliers by automating routine tasks such as sending automatic invoices, updating room availability, and pre-arrival e-mails to guests.
This way, hotel staff can devote more time to serving guests and enhance guest satisfaction.
A seamless integration of PMS with a channel manager captures all the data from various booking channels.
Additionally, a channel manager updates the room inventory across all OTAs, so you don’t have to manually update the inventory on each booking channel.
Thus, the risk of double bookings is avoided.
3. Increases your hotel revenue
One of the significant benefits of the property management system is that it helps hoteliers to increase their hotel revenue.
Integration of PMS with a revenue management system enables hotel managers to increase or decrease room prices depending on historical data or seasonality trends.
The RMS uses a powerful machine learning algorithm to decide the best prices of rooms based on various factors such as guest behavior, competitor prices, length of stay, etc.
This means hoteliers can increase their average daily rate and maximize their occupancy rate through demand and supply patterns.
Moreover, it reduces your operating costs as the PMS software automates administrative tasks.
When a PMS is connected to a booking engine, guests can directly make a reservation on your website. You don’t have to pay a hefty commission to OTAs.
4. Upsell and cross-sell your services
Traditionally, the front desk staff was busy dealing with guests and streamlining the check-in process.
They didn’t find time to cross-sell or upsell their offerings to maximize their revenue potential.
An AI-powered PMS software can automatically suggest relevant room upgrades or cross-sell another service to increase ancillary revenue.
Features of Hotel Property Management System
Let’s discuss a few features of the hotel property management system-
1. Managing hotel reservations
One of the peculiar features of hotel PMS is that it can be integrated with other technologies, so it helps hotel staff manage all their bookings in one place.
So, you can keep track of all bookings, room availability, and rate changes across multiple booking channels in one place in real time.
Thus, you can avoid the overbooking issues when the same room is booked twice by different guests. This way, you won’t lose your guests and hence revenue.
2. Manage your front desk operations
The hotel PMS acts as a valuable tool for front desk staff to manage check-ins/check-outs, keep track of all bookings, and room statuses, and process payments.
As the guest’s information is available to hotel staff at their fingertips, they can automate the front desk tasks and provide a better experience to guests.
They’d always feel happy when there was an automated system in place, and they didn’t want to stand for hours in queue for check-in/check-out.
3. Streamline your housekeeping processes
Another function of PMS software in hospitality is that it streamlines the housekeeping processes. It updates the room statuses in real-time as dirty, clean, or out of order.
Once the housekeeping staff changes the room status, the front desk staff can get insights about available rooms and can shift the guests to a ready room.
If the front desk staff see that the room is not ready for a guest, they will assign tasks to the housekeeping staff. This way, everything is in sync and there’s coordination between the front desk department and housekeeping staff.
4. Maximize your hotel revenue
Another important functionality of PMS software is revenue management. Hotel staff can set the optimal room prices for each room and can charge more from guests in case of high demand or peak season.
During times of low demand and off-season, the system adjusts the prices accordingly depending on guest buying behavior, demand, and supply patterns so you can at least earn some portion of revenue.
5. Point of sale system
Modern PMS software often has integration with point-of-sale systems that cumulates the guest purchases from multiple touchpoints.
It helps the hotel staff manage guest transactions at different places such as restaurants, spas, gift shops, bars, etc.
Whatever transactions guests make, the amount will be automatically added to the guest’s bill. Thus, guest transactions can be managed in one place and hoteliers can receive and manage payments for different products/services.
6. Managing reports
Another key feature of hotel PMS is reporting and analytics functionality. Hotel managers can make data-driven decisions through customized reports that provide detailed metrics such as average daily rate, revenue per available room, etc.
By analyzing such numbers, hoteliers can understand what’s worked in the past, current trends, and what’s not performing well. This way, they can maximize the hotel’s profitability.
7. Building relationships with guests (CRM)
Collecting guest information is a GOLDMINE for hoteliers and they can personalize their services. They can launch special promotions and discounts for guests based on their preferences and past stays.
Even they can run loyalty programs and turn first-time visitors into repeat customers.
CRM system organizes guest data in one place such as booking history, and guest feedback and later they can fine-tune their services.
For example – If the guest shared feedback on improving the experience for corporate travelers, hotel staff can revamp their meeting rooms or invest in high-quality wi-fi.
8.Invoicing and payment features
A hotel’s PMS software should offer various payment options to guests (debit cards/credit cards) so they can feel confident while making a reservation. The software should send confirmation e-mails to guests automatically.
Wrapping up
There are innumerable hotel property management systems available in the industry, but it depends on your use case.
Do you need a PMS that offers seamless integration with other technologies? Or do you need software that has an intuitive interface and is easy to use?
Whatever type of PMS you choose, ensure that it transforms your hotel business and makes the job of hotel staff easy including front-end and backend operations.
When every aspect of a hotel is managed on the fly, you can increase your hotel revenue, maximize the bottom line, and enhance the guest experience.
Before choosing the property management system, choose the one that aligns with your goals, is suitable for your business size, and meets your operational needs.
Thus, you’d be able to run your hotel operations with ease, automate your routine tasks, and personalize your guest experience.
No matter what the size of your hotel is whether it’s a boutique hotel or a large chain establishment, adopting proper PMS is crucial for the success of your hospitality business.
