Growing a hotel business manually can be daunting, as it requires keeping all records on paper, whether it be the booking process or hotel check-in.
The majority of jobs are done by hotel employees, who can become angry with one another, resulting in blunders and mistakes.
But you can get rid of this daily headache. By integrating hotel management software into your hotel.
This software can ease most of your chores by giving an easy and effective way to handle every aspect of hotel administration.
In this blog, we'll going to cover all about hotel management software, by explaining its benefits, types, and must features in the hotel management system.
So, sit back and relax, we are going to dive in.
But, first, let me give you an overview.
A hotel management system is a set of tools that provide seamless and efficient hotel operations. Which mainly consists of front desk operations, online reservations, inventory management, rate adjustment, distribution, billing, invoicing, and so on.
One of the best features of this software is that it is cloud-based for easy online access and can integrate with other software like online booking engines and payment gateways.
Adding a hotel management system to your hotel can streamline your workflow, save time on day-to-day activities, manage inventory, and give data-driven insights and market trends.
Also, a hotel management system can help you improve your team performance and make you stand out from the crowd.
Now that we have understood hotel management software, let's investigate its benefits.
According to the report published by Statista, the global market of the hospitality sector will boom to $58.1 billion in 2027 at a CAGR of 22.6%.
Considering the stats, going for hotel management software could be a beneficial move to expand the hotel business to horizons.
In case you still need convincing, here are the top 10 benefits of implementing hotel management software in your hotel.
In the hotel business, it's important to gain the trust of guests as it builds a hotel reputation. By integrating the hotel management system, you can significantly enhance guests' experience.
It automates the arrival and departure of guests, manages inventory, takes feedback, improves room service, and informs guests preferences on services (like dining options, entertainment), etc.
Also, you can implement smart hotel systems like room lighting, air conditioners, heating, etc. that can be controlled via mobile phones. This increases their comfort and makes them feel happy.
For an example of a hotel - BurjAl Arab, Dubai
At the Burj Al Arab, the unique Al Mahara restaurant offers a unique underwater dining experience, where guests can savor different types of seafood cuisines while surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling aquarium.
Day-to-day paperwork at the front desk and other manual tasks are challenging, resulting in errors and mistakes.
Hotel management software or system automates your booking system and check-in/check-out system and processes payments, eliminating the need for customers to visit the front desk.
Due to its ability to handle most jobs, it reduces human errors and performs operations more effectively.
An example of a hotel - the Marriott Marquis, New York City
The Marriott Marquis Hotel utilizes a mobile check-in/check-out feature and keyless entry to save time and enhance productivity for busy business guests.
Online Visibility plays an important part in getting customers, as it boosts direct bookings, provides valuable insights, and helps you know your audience and what they want.
A hotel management system can attract customers to your websites and convert them into your guests.
By opting for a good hotel management system, you can also integrate software features like chatbots, and a hotel booking engine into your website, enabling guests to get an exceptional user experience and eventually increase your online visibility.
For an example of Hotel "Accor"
Accor Group of Hotel has been using chatbots and booking engines to engage with customers and drive direct bookings through their website.
For hotels, it is important to spread their brand across all distribution channels, but managing one another can be difficult, that is why hotel management software like channel manager, manages every online distribution channel by centralizing them into a single platform and automating hotel room distribution across various platforms, thus saves time and streamlines operations by reducing error.
Additionally, hotel management software aligns all your channels and prevents overbooking or double booking, by providing real-time insights.
Managing front desk operations is one of the most vital aspects of the hotel industry that leaves an impression on customers. By automating front desk operations with the help of a hotel management system, you can operate the day-to-day business more efficiently and help enhance guest experience.
Typically, the front desk tasks include check-in/check-out, managing guest profiles, inventory, room rates, billing and invoicing, etc.
Hotel management software like PMS (Property management system) can help you facilitate all your front desk tasks with ease, and it can connect with your other software like booking engine, channel manager, and revenue management system, allowing for data sharing and better insights across all platforms, thereby improving decision making.
Increasing overall booking or filling the occupancy is always the main agenda of the hotel.
By implementing hotel management software, you optimize and maximize your booking level across all booking platforms, it also boosts profit and offers the best discounts. to customers who are looking for accommodation.
Whether it's a seasonal traveler or a business traveler, the software customizes offers and deals according to the market trends and specific target audience.
Hotel management software fluctuates rates according to market demand, competitor's pricing, and other factors to maintain visibility even when the volume of customers is low.
In the hotel business, different types of software are used for different purposes for the smooth functioning of all hotel-related tasks.
Here are 5 software that surely boost your hotel management.
The PMS software is one of the key components of hotel management as it manages the forefront tasks like booking management, front desk operations, payment tracking, generating bills and invoices, and assigning rooms to guests. It also tracks real-time guest feedback on hotel services.
By using PMS hoteliers can boost their work efficiency, save time on daily tasks, and automate most of the tasks including check-in/check-out.
A channel manager is a channel management system that distributes hotel rooms across various online or offline distribution channels (OTA's GDS, Travel agents, a metasearch engine, website, etc.). It centralizes all distribution channels to a single dashboard.
This allows you to manage inventory, rates, room availability, and so on in real time so that you can avoid overbooking and enhance the visibility of your hotel.
A revenue management system is as important as a property management system as it is essential for managing pricing strategy and maximizing revenue.
It allows you to pull information like market status, data from your hotel, and other competitor hotel insights that allow you to adjust the optimum pricing strategy and implement room rates at any given time.
Most hotels integrate their CRM system in their front desk to organize and collect guests' past and current data (contact details, booking history, feedback, past services, personalization, etc.) to analyze their preferences and booking behavior, this helps hoteliers to personalize and enhance guests' experience to an extreme level.
CRM software integrated with PMS software can be very beneficial for hotel chains and resorts as it helps store guest data in an accessible format.
For hotels that have multiple services or properties within the hotel premises having different payment systems, the POS system tracks and handles all transactions that guests purchase from different points of sale.
Like, if a guest booked a massage session, had breakfast, or made some additional purchases, and did not have to pay each time, this system automatically aggregates all costs, allowing them to pay once when checking out.
However, each organization has its different requirements, select the best system that suits your standards and demands, or you can select a hotel management software package that includes multiple software in one.
Now, let's look at some features that must be in a hotel management system.
After understanding the types of hotel management software, it is a must to consider some features that must be included to streamline day-to-day workflow and enhance the guest experience.
Below are some common features, you may use this as a guide to choose a feature that you want to put specifically in your hotel management software.
Booking and reserving a hotel room are the daily tasks for hoteliers.
With the help of HMS, you can control your booking and keep an eye on everything in one place, you can manage rates, gain valuable insights about guests' preferences, and oversee multiple locations from anywhere, just by clicking buttons.
By implementing a robust HMS in your hotel, you can witnessoptimal growth and an increase in the rate of satisfaction of guests.
This feature comes as one of priority when it comes to hospitality as it consists of room availability, room rates, room maintenance, housekeeping, and cleaning activities.
A good hotel management system will give real-time room availability, set up rates for different types of rooms, and ensure that everything in the room is facilitated to provide guests with total satisfaction.
Guest management is the key to improving brand reputation. Effective guest management can result in a positive experience which leads to brand elevation.
A good HMS can help you streamline your reservations, check-ins, or check-outs, as well as any other special request from guests.
This technology helps you to make guests' experiences more personalized and better than their past stays.
Front desk tasks are mundane tasks that must be done manually daily.
A Hotel management system can automate these regular tasks like reservation or booking, room assignment, check-in or check-out, maintaining guests' data, generating billing and invoicing, etc.
Integrating HMS into your front desk allows you to automatically allot rooms, facilitate adjustments and audits regularly, and process payments with ease.
Handling guests from various distribution channels is tough, but with HMS software features like Channel Management,
which integrates with different channels and shows them on a single screen hoteliers can simply track leads and guests to fill the room occupancy and improve revenue.
It also prevents overbooking a hotel roomand automatically updates room availability across many distribution channels in real time.
Unsecured payment can lead to a breach of guest's data (contact details, credit card data, payment history, etc.).
To avoid this from happening, hoteliers must install good and reliable HMS software that can also integrate with the payment gateway for guest's payment transactions, providing security of transactions, convenience to guests and overall improving the hotel's reputation.
As the mobile has access to everyone, the HMS software needs to have mobile accessibility for a smoother and more flexible experience for guests.
It can manage and access hotel operations or tasks via mobile like booking, check-in/check-out, processing payments, inventory management, feedback management, room services, housekeeping, and so on.
Mobile accessibility allows staff to respond to guests' needs or queries in real-time.
Hotel management software must have smoother integration with other software like accounting, PMS, and many more to streamline every hotel management task,
Which saves time and effort to manage different platforms at different times, it allows the flow of information through various departments and provides convenience to track and analyze every detail that's important to increase revenue and gain visibility.
Only some HMS software includes a financial aspect of hotel management and automates the billing and invoicing process.
With reliable HMS software, you can integrate secure and smoother payment processing while also ensuring the security of guests' data.
It also can generate reports on occupancy, expense rate, additional rate, and other financial metrics to improve the financial performance of a hotel and deliver data-driven solutions to make smarter decisions.
This feature of HMS is very crucial because, at the very end, every hotelier needs reporting and analysis of their tasks and services to track their tool's performance, make data-driven decisions on hotel operations, and customize strategies to improve guests' experience.
Also, hotel management systems with reporting and analytics provide customer-driven insights like guests booking behavior and their experience to enhance their customer satisfaction.
Overall, a hotel management system has many features to integrate, but you must choose what's right for your business that simplifies your workflow and provides visible revenue growth.
In recent years, the hospitality industry has adopted hotel management software to overcome their daily tasks and improve total revenue.
The hotel management software updates, forecasts, and enhances the overall hotel performance by automating most of the tasks.
Here are some challenges that hotel management software can overcome.
These are the main challenges that can be overcome with the help of hotel management software, hotels must consider using one as it is cost-effective, easy to customize, and scales according to your brand.
A good hotel management software aligns with your brand and helps you to grow even further, with the help of this modern technology hoteliers can get a sigh of relief by automating most of their tasks, allowing them to focus on the areas that help to improve hotel revenue and guest satisfaction.
Collaborating with BOTSHOT is a beneficial move for all your hotel management needs, with BOTSHOT's "Hotel in a Box" you can access every hotel management-related software that eases your work and drives growth to your hotel.
For more details, Schedule a demo for a 14-day free trial, for all-in-one hotel management software.