Hotel PMS Integration: Takes Your Hotel to New Heights

Below are some key integrations that add to the importance of a hotel property management system and make this tool a must-have for hotels:  

1. Channel Management Systems

Channel management systems or channel manager allow hotels to effectively manage their distribution channels including online channels such as OTA (online travel agencies), GDS (global distribution systems), and the hotel website.  

Integration of a hotel PMS with a channel manager helps hotels create a single interface to control room inventories, rates, and reservations across various channels instead of logging into every channel’s extranet to update them manually. 

The PMS then pushes all the designated inventory, prices, and availability to the booking channels. At the same time, the bookings made through the connected hotel channels are imported into the hotel property management system. Furthermore, room availability is updated in real-time across all channels using channel managers.  

2. Revenue Management Systems (RMS)

Revenue management systems when integrated with the PMS allow hotels to make data-driven, more financially sound, and lucrative decisions.  

An RMS leverages algorithms, historical data, market and seasonal demand, competitor prices, local events, etc., to determine and forecast traveler behavior and demands as well as optimal room rates. Integration allows this solution to acquire this data directly from the PMS. 

Room availability as well as present rates get pushed from the PMS to RMS so that the latter could make more accurate nightly rate recommendations. Then, once a suggestion gets approved, the PMS receives the new data automatically, eliminating the need for any manual updates. 

Using this data, hotels identify the most suitable prices for their rooms and maximize revenue. 

Choice Hotels International integrated one of its subsidiaries, Radisson Hotels Americas' business, transitioning nearly 600 hotels to Choice’s PMS and RMS on the company's booking platform, in December 2023. 

‘With the Radisson Hotels Americas properties now integrated, we are well-positioned to further help reduce Choice franchisees’ costs, continue to boost their profitability, and help drive their performance to the next level.’, said Choice Hotels President and CEO Pat Pacious. 

In July, the multinational hospitality company also migrated every Radisson Americas brand—including Radisson Blu, Radisson, and Country Inn & Suites, onto Choice’s central reservation system, making them available on ChoiceHotels.com.  

Post-digital migration and centralization, the legacy Radisson Americas brands reported a 26% year-over-year rise in digital bookings and a 21% year-over-year increase in digital booked revenue, significantly reducing their dependence on third-party booking channels.  

3. Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)

This integration between a hotel PMS and a customer relation management system (CRM) allows hotels to know more about their guests and send targeted and automated marketing campaigns and guest messages, driving hotel revenue.  

By integrating PMS and CRM, the former solution shares real-time reservation information with the latter tool. This is done to create guest profiles and hotel segmentations and automate guest communications based on guest data, tastes, and preferences identified using the PMS data.  

4. Payment Gateways

Payment gateways allow hotels to accept card payments; it facilitates secure communication of the guest’s payment information to the hotel’s payment processing network.  

Integrating payment gateways with hotel PMS allows payment information entered into the booking forms and transactions to automatically reach the PMS solution in real time via the payment processing network.  

This integration also ensures secure payments using point-to-point encryption and tokenization. These provisions protect card data from cyber threats and ensure that credit card numbers are kept out of the property management system for PCI compliance.  

Without this integration, approved transactions will have to be manually posted to reservations in the hotel property management system, causing delays in the check-in/check-out process. 

5. POS Systems

POS or point-of-sales solution processes guest transactions and manages the food and beverage sales, and services in hotel outlets such as restaurants and bars, spa and wellness centers, souvenirs and gift shops, etc.  

When POS is connected with the hotel PMS, the outlet charges are entered first into the POS system, then go directly to the PMS for verification of guest details such as status, room number, and credit authorization limit, via integration. Once the charge is approved, the POS system posts these charges to the PMS reservation folio.  

Without Hotel PMS and POS integration, outlet/service charges must be communicated and added manually to the reservation folio of the PMS at the front desk. This adds to the already time-consuming administrative tasks and creates room for human errors in billing and invoicing, slowing down the check-out process.  

Bangkok-based hotel chain ONYX Hospitality Group adopted the technology of PMS and POS to streamline operations for its current properties and integrated both to reap the multiple benefits from greater connectivity.  

Minor Hotels, a global hotel owner, operator, and investor, upgraded 100 of its properties with a cloud-based PMS back in 2023 to better understand and serve its guests. It already used a cloud POS in some of its restaurants and bars. 

‘Integration of these solutions will enable Minor Hotels to consolidate data into a common platform, better manage revenue across different countries and currencies, and optimize its operations with insights from real-time analytics and reporting.’, said Michael MacDonald, CTO, Minor International. 

6. Facilities and operation tools

This point includes integration with multiple facilities and operations tools such as housekeeping and maintenance, scheduling and labor management, room access controls, marketing and upselling, etc. 

These apps or tools allow hoteliers to streamline their housekeeping, marketing, and many other operational and other tasks, elevating guest experience, reducing costs, and enhancing efficiency.  

Now that we have learned about the various PMS integrations, let’s look at the benefits that hotels get out of them.  

Benefits of Hotel PMS Integration Solution

Integration of hotel PMS with third-party solutions and tools offers the following benefits:  

• Operational Efficiency: Allows hotels to automate workflows, reduce manual intervention, and thus reduce the room for errors, saving time and effort.  
• Enhanced Guest Experience: Allows guests to seamlessly book and check-in/out and enjoy personalized services through data collection and analytics. 
• Revenue Optimization: Allows hoteliers to effectively manage all distribution channels, practice dynamic pricing, and implement targeted marketing, attracting guests and boosting revenue.  
• Data-Driven Insights: Allows hotels to gain actionable data and insights from various connected department systems on a centralized platform to make comprehensive and informed decisions. 
• Repeat Business: Helps hotels offer personalized services, create guest loyalty, and ensure repeat business.

According to research, 82% of hoteliers at small- and medium-sized properties, and 92% of those at large, full-service properties, stated that upgrading their PMS within the past 3 years allowed them to enhance revenue performance “significantly” or “dramatically”.

With a PMS solution offering so many benefits and such impressive results, choosing the right PMS partner who offers seamless integration with other key hotel systems/tools and regular updates or upgrades under support and maintenance services, becomes crucial.  

Let’s learn how to choose the right Hotel PMS partner in our last section.  

Choosing the Right PMS Integration Partner

It is extremely important to choose the most suitable cloud-based hotel PMS partner as some do not offer all the integrations. Thus, 

• Carefully discuss and understand your hotel’s unique integration requirements based on the hotel’s size, needs as well as budget.
• Partners such as BOTSHOT offer multiple seamless integrations at affordable prices.  
• Go for integrations with your existing hotel tools and solutions as well as desired future ones.  
• Check for ease of use, data security provisions, and customer training and support.
• BOTSHOT PredictoPMS offers a simple and intuitive interface, compliance with GDPR and ISO 27001 regulations as well as 24*7 support.  
• Before choosing a partner always go through the potential partner’s case studies and user reviews/ testimonials.

Thus, choosing the right PMS integration partner such as BOTSHOT will help you enjoy the many benefits this revolutionary technology has to offer.  

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