Run an efficient & profitable hotel business using a cloud-based hotel management system

A hotel management system helps hotels manage their day-to-day operations, including bookings, guest communication, employees, sales, transactions, Online Travel Agents, and reporting. Reliable hotel software should assist you in automating manual processes, improving the guest experience, maximizing profits, and speeding up front-desk operations. In addition to possessing all of these characteristics, it must be user-friendly and simple to operate so that employees can be trained efficiently. A  good cloud-based hotel software solution could help hotels improve their guest experience by 49%.

Your cloud-based hotel management system, like any other technology, has a finite shelf life and needs to change in tandem with the current guest needs and demands.  Is the software you’re using sluggish? Are your guests constantly angry at your front desk staff for slow service? If your hotel software is slowing down your operations, it may be time to switch systems and find a better alternative. Here are seven reasons why it’s time to adapt to the future of hotel technology

1. You are using a siloed hotel management system that affects guest engagement.

 Owing to seamless integration with third-party services, like mobile guest check-in kiosks and reputation management software, your hospitality business can boost its scalability. It can take a while for your hotel service provider to update their system and offer you the technology of tomorrow you need to attract hotel guests. Most importantly, older hotel operating systems that aren’t cloud-based aren’t always connected to other products. It’s time to upgrade to future technology to improve guest engagement, reduce manual labor, and automate tasks.

2. Your modern guests are not benefitting from the old systems

Hotel management systems from the past do not facilitate great guest experiences. While they operate somewhat like a CRM that can later be used to re-engage past guests, they don’t really enhance the guest experience. Due to their speed and convenience, self-service options at properties are becoming increasingly popular today. As per reports, over 23% of millennial guests have checked in their holiday accommodation using a smartphone. The guest data is automatically synced with your hotel’s operating system when these apps are linked to it. It simplifies the guest check-in process for both your front office staff and the guest. Almost 90 percent of hotel guests in the U.S. and U.K. in a recent study said it would be useful to communicate with a hotel via messaging. Hence hotels must consider cloud-based hotel management systems that come integrated with chatbot tools and guest services automation for effective guest communication. If your hotel software lacks modern amenities that are required by the new-age travelers, it’s definitely time to go for an upgrade.

3. You are using legacy systems that are not mobile

It’s a common problem with older hotel software that they run on local hardware. Logging into these systems from the hotel computer system is the only way to access them on site. The maintenance for these solutions can also be costly and specialized, and many providers do charge additional fees for services such as customization of software, performance upgrades, and support. Users can access cloud-based hotel management systems from anywhere with an internet connection, allowing them to access data remotely in real-time.

In order to keep guests satisfied, your hotel staff needs hotel technology that can be accessed from any device at any time, anywhere, and from any location. It’s time to upgrade to the next-generation hotel technology.

4. Your employees find your system very straining to use

Cloud-based hotel management systems are defined by the people who use their interface daily to manage the property. Easy to use dashboard and overall user-friendliness is the key to your hotel software. Features such as drag and drops could assist your hotel employees to help learning the system faster with more efficiency. Overcomplicated hotel systems with unstable and poor support should be upgraded if feedback from your hotel staff says so.

 5. Your current system offers a low Return on Investment

An excellent hotel management system reduces costs, increases productivity, provides guest engagement, saves time, and achieves a high return on investment.

With that in mind, look for hotel software that:

• Helps increase direct bookings through a mobile-friendly booking engine
• Offers good channel manager software which effectively syncs with OTAs, revenue management, distribution, and inventory management
• Helps make informed data-based decisions through comprehensive business analytics
• Offers reputable payment gateways or built-in card processors
• Proves to be an effective CRM to manage present and past guests’ data as well as personalized requests

Changes must be in order if your hotel software lacks these features and offerings.

6. Your property is plagued with the burden of overbookings

You will be able to keep your competitive advantage with hotel management software that is of high quality and prevents overbookings. Manual update of your rates across every OTA channel will be required for a reservation system that comes devoid of a channel manager. This is a recipe for overbookings at any property along with inconvenience and inefficiency. Hence, a system that comes along with a channel manager will naturally keep all your inventories across every channel updated in real-time to avoid overbookings & inefficiencies. Additionally, an ideal software system needs to provide all-in-one solutions to help manage numerous facets of your hotel business. An up-to-date system will ensure ease of free-flowing communication across channels including your online booking engine.

7. Your housekeeping is slow and inefficient

Your hotel software should assist you in every way possible in running your hospitality business, including cleaning and maintenance management. A good hotel software will allow you to manage housekeeping from the dashboard, allowing you to obtain real-time information on room status and conditions, assign housekeeping employees to rooms, and write room comments as needed.

8. Business data is not stored/managed from time-to-time

No hotel business can operate without analyzing and studying data. An exemplary hotel software will make your life easier by collecting all data under the same roof. It will allow you to pull visual reports and comprehensive details with the help of a mere few clicks. Are your ADR and RevPar reports on track or whether how much business did each OTA give you can be tracked via a good software system? Features such as category-wise filtration of data, i.e, specials, year, marketing channel, room type and more can prove to be of great use.

Final thoughts

Do not allow new opportunities to slip from your grip by using outdated PMS. Instead, maximize revenue and automate hotel operations via an efficient hotel management system to make your life easier. To sum it all up, by using a cloud-based hotel management system, you can make your hotel business more profitable and run it smoother.