Small hotels might look easy to manage, but the operations are equally complex and always keep the hotel staff on their toes. Thus, a PMS for small hotels is also very much essential for streamlining operations, optimizing limited monetary resources, and elevating the guest experience.
As a hospitality professional serving the industry for the last 7 years, I have listed the factors to be kept in mind while choosing the most suitable property management system for your small hotel operations.
But first, let’s briefly understand what a small hotel PMS software is and why you need it.
A Property Management System(PMS) for small hotels is a software solution that is designed to fulfil the requirements of all sizes of hotels, small properties, inns, BnBs, etc.
The most suitable hotel Property Management System software can facilitate better reservation management, effectively monitor your hotel’s performance, streamline operations as well as elevate the guest experience. All this translates to better revenue and business.
The following are some benefits of a PMS software for small hotels:
Hotel PMS software allows small hotels to automate time-consuming hotel operations as well as administrative tasks such as reservation management, housekeeping, check-ins/outs, payment processing, etc.
A cloud-based hotel PMS solution does not only allow you to manage one small hotel but multiple small hotels with a single dashboard. Moreover, there isn’t a need to invest in hardware, servers, licenses, or upgrades.
PMS for small hotels allows them to connect to multiple OTAs, allowing for effective inventory, rate, and channel management. Small hotels can monitor room rates, practice dynamic pricing, and boost RevPAR by increasing occupancy rates.
Best PMS for small hotels is capable of generating reports, insights, and analytics using guest and business data that further help you improve your services, amenities, as well as performance, and revenue.
Property management systems allow you to create guest profiles and offer a personalized experience to guests. This solution also allows you to stay connected to them and attract new ones by automation and tailoring marketing communications and campaigns.
If you are a small hotel, you know you need to invest your resources judiciously. The room for mistakes and errors is small to none.
Thus, below are some factors that need to be considered while choosing the best PMS for small hotels for optimization of resources and adoption of the most suitable technology.
Knowing your requirements and setting a tentative budget, are some of the primary steps. You then need to match a small hotel PMS with your requirements and not vice versa.
Understand which hotel operations need to be automated and what areas need improvements. And allocate resources for the same. While cost is secondary, the suitability and effectiveness of the solution are primary.
Therefore, understanding your needs will help you to save money and get the most suitable and practical software solution for your unique hotel.
The next thing to keep in mind while choosing the best PMS for small hotels is to go for a cloud-based one. Hotels need a cloud-based property management system to manage hotels from a single dashboard even remotely.
This technology further allows small hotels to save a lot of capital expenditure and overhead costs that come with a local PMS. Moreover, it is a more manageable IT infrastructure for your small hotel.
Do not forget to ask for a free trial or demo to check the suitability of the system with your hotel.
One of the most important aspects of a hotel PMS is its capability to integrate with other key hotel systems and software and create synergies.
Best PMS for small hotels should allow for seamless integration with some of the crucial third-party solutions such as channel manager (BOTSHOT offers a smart channel manager called ChannelSyncro), RMS (revenue management system such as RevMaxi), CMS, POS (point-of-sales) tools, ORM tools, etc.
Data security is important for any hotel business due to an abundance of guest and business data. Thus, the property management system should ensure data security by compliance with industry standards and regulations, maintenance, and regular upgrades or updates.
BOTSHOT, for example, complies with GDPR and ISO 27001 regulations, ensuring complete guest data security.
While choosing a PMS, always look for features that you would want the solution to have for smooth and optimum hotel and property management.
Some of these may be:
PMS for small hotels should be easy and quick to set up. Cloud-based software gives hotels this ease as hoteliers do not need to carry out any complex hardware logistics and storage processes or software downloads.
An easy-to-set-up PMS will allow you to focus on more crucial tasks such as training the staff.
The PMS solution that you choose for your hotel should have a user-friendly and intuitive interface for ease of use. A system that is difficult to use would just add confusion to your life as a hotelier and give a hard time to the staff.
To make it a smooth sail, and save time, effort, and costs, ensure to check and choose the PMS that is easy to learn and understand and intuitive to use.
Training and support are some essentials if you are adopting the PMS technology for your hotel. Look for third-party vendors who will offer you training and support services during your operational hours.
Moreover, choose a vendor who offers ongoing training support. In case of any technical issue or glitch, you should be able to get the solution within minutes. This will help you avoid hampering hotel operations that could cost you big bucks.
Want to try a Free PMS Software for Small Hotels? Schedule a demo for PredictoPMS today!