Best Hotel Management Software for Small Properties

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Blogs / Hotel Technology

05/09/2024

Gurpreet Kaur

Hotel Management Software for Small Properties

Every hotel chain, whether it's small-sized or large-scale, needs a software solution to automate their day-to-day hotel operations.

Of course, the hospitality industry works on providing comfort and convenience, but innovations stand at the forefront for enhancing guest experience, automating daily operations, and making your hotel more profitable.

As a small-sized hotel owner, you don't need to wear multiple hats for managing your hotel operations such as reservations, housekeeping processes, reporting and analytics, etc.

Investing in affordable hotel management software is what you need to reduce the guesswork and grow your hotel business.

In this blog, we'll dive deeper to help you understand why small hotels need hotel management solutions, key features you should look for, along with the top three hotel management software solutions.

Why do small hotels need hotel management software?

Hotel management software is important for small to medium-sized hospitality businesses, bed and breakfast owners, and boutique hotels to -

manage front-end and backend operations
automate routine operations
enhance guest experience
get more bookings
double down your hotel revenue

Let's discuss some of the top reasons why small hoteliers need to invest in hotel management software-

1. Manage your hotel reservations

Traditionally, managing hotel reservations was a time-consuming task. This is where modern hotel management solutions such as PMS automate time-consuming hotel operations such as reservations, check-ins, housekeeping, and billing processes.

Thus, automation can save hoteliers hours as they can devote more time to enhancing guest satisfaction and less on administrative chores.

2. Increase guest satisfaction

As guest preferences are changing, small and big-sized hotel chains are using hotel management software to enhance guest experience. The first impression starts with the time before guests check intill, they leave your property.

A comforting stay experience not just makes your guests feel happy and satisfied, but rather it increases guest loyalty.

But the right hotel management solution like the eFrontDesk can personalize your guest's in-stay experience from check-in to check-out.

Guests no longer need to wait for hours, and front desk staff can focus on building better guest relationships.

Such smart Hotel technology enables hoteliers to know their guests inside out, track their preferences and provide personalized services that keep guests coming back to them.

For Instance – If your software knows that Guest A prefers to enjoy a certain type of beverage, then it stores their preferences in one place and helps hoteliers prepare these items next time for a better stay experience.

3. Real-time inventory control

Managing your hotel room inventory is important and if the hotel room is not sold for a certain date, the opportunity is lost forever.

These rooms aren’t like the soup or any food product that can be kept on the shelf for longer expecting it to be sold soon. Generally, hotel rooms have short expiry dates.

That’s why you need affordable hotel software to see which rooms are available and can better manage your inventory.

One such software is a revenue management system that helps small hotel owners manage their inventory level and set the right prices for each hotel room so they can maximize their occupancy level and increase their revenue.

4. Simplify your payment processes

Managing payment processes was a time-consuming affair. Moreover, contactless digital payments are on the rise, and modern guests consider it a necessity.

If your hotel chain doesn’t offer such digitized experiences to them, they won’t choose you.

As per market insights, guests want a contactless check-in option and online payment options for bookings.

According to Oracle's hospitality report, 49.1% of travelers want hotels to have contactless payments in the next 3 years. As guest expectations are rising, hoteliers need to provide the same level of experience they deserve.

So, investing in cloud hotel software like PMS is a game changer for hotel businesses as they can provide flexible payment options to guests such as credit cards, debit cards, or an online payment gateway.

The cloud-based software sends automated invoices to guests for guest reservations and additional services.

Thus, you can make them feel valued through hassle-free payments.

Key Features to Look for in Hotel Management Software

Here are a few key features that small hotel management software should have -

1. Reservation System/ Booking Engine

The hotel management software should have a reservation system for capturing online bookings. It should keep track of guest preferences, booking history, and future reservations and can provide personalized offers.

That’s why a key component of affordable hotel management software is its ability to manage online reservations so you can maximize your hotel revenue. A booking engine can enable hoteliers to convert lookers into guests.

2. Channel Management

This feature allows hoteliers to manage room rates and availability across all OTAs and other travel agencies such as booking.com, Airbnb, etc. As a small hotel owner, you can improve online visibility by connecting your hotel PMS with a channel manager.

This way, your guests can find you on numerous channels and you can increase your occupancy level.

Hence, you can save a significant amount of money on unnecessary marketing expenses by being present at all OTAs where your guests are looking.

3. Dynamic Pricing Strategy

Another key feature of hotel management software is setting the dynamic pricing strategy. Usually, it becomes challenging for hoteliers to compete with large hotel chains and stay competitive.

This is where setting a dynamic pricing strategy is a game changer for them to maximize their revenue by considering real-time demand and supply patterns, analyzing seasonality trends, and changes in traveler needs.

Thus, small-sized hotels can drive more hotel revenue by increasing their room prices during the peak season and vice versa.

4. Housekeeping Processes

Housekeeping acts as an inseparable element for hospitality establishments. Housekeeping isn’t just confined to cleaning tasks and processes, rather it provides a pleasing experience for guests.

An efficient cloud hotel software helps you manage housekeeping processes in one place. It sends automated reminders to housekeeping staff as to which rooms must be cleaned,and even tracks the performance of your staff.

Thus, mid-sized hotel owners can ensure that everything is cleaned, and their room statuses are updated.

5. Reporting and Analytics

A key feature of investing in small hotel software is that you can manage data on the go such as occupancy rates, revenue, and much more.

Hotels get huge piles of data from various sources, and they need to track them so they can make informed decisions in the future.

They can curate their marketing and pricing strategy accordingly. Analyzing such leaps and bounds of data takes time, but investing in an affordable software solution can change your game.

You can get detailed insights into guest behavior, preferences, average daily rates, occupancy statuses, etc. This way, you can turn your hotel business into a profitable venture.

Benefits of Using Hotel Management Software for Small Properties

Let's talk about a few benefits of hotel management software for small hotels -

1. Save your time on administrative tasks

The right hotel management software reduces your time by 80-90%.

The hoteliers need not worry about spending more time on administrative tasks and rather they can focus on the strategic side of things such as building strong relationships with guests.

An all-in-one cloud-based software centralizes everything in one place whether it’s managing housekeeping processes, freeing up the front desk staff, or creating detailed reports.

2. Know your guests inside out

The cloud hotel software stores the guest preferences in one place so the hotelier can know which specific guest prefers to book which suite and for how long they can stay.

They can understand guest expectations at a deeper level which results in more frequent guest visits.

3. Increase your online visibility

Today’s guests are present on all sites and that’s why you need to build a stellar online presence. That’s truly possible when the hotel software can seamlessly integrate with the booking engine.

Thus, you can accept online bookings from any guest and through any channel.

4. Create detailed reports

Running hotel operations is just one side of the coin, managing it end to end seeing where the money is coming from, and making important decisions is a tougher job.

Affordable cloud-based hotel software provides detailed insights on room rates, occupancy rates, revenue, and guest demographics.

By leveraging data and insights, hoteliers can fine-tune their marketing strategies accordingly.

For instance – If the hotel observed they experienced low occupancy during weekdays through reports, they can come up with compelling promotions and discount offers to persuade the visitors to book a stay with you.

How to Choose the Right Software for Your Property?

Here’s a checklist to help you choose the right hotel management software for your property-

1. Identify the needs of your hotel

You can make a wise decision once you know about your hotel requirements, what amenities it offers, and the size of your hotel.

The other way is to talk to your hotel staff and ask them what they need to run the hotel operations smoothly.

Then, you can figure out these are the solutions you need-

A booking engine is a MUST to get direct online reservations.
Integration with channel manager to manage room rates and availability across multiple channels.
Manage your hotel operations on the go such as housekeeping processes, payment gateway integration, reporting and analytics, and reservation management.
A CRM system for building guest relationships.

2. Consider the features of your software

Create a checklist of features you need in hotel management software such as coordinating housekeeping tasks, payment processing, managing reservations, etc.

There are plenty of features you need to be aware of while selecting software-

Managing your inventory
Analytics and reporting feature
Whether it’s mobile-friendly or not
Does it support third-party integration?

3. Do you want to scale your hospitality business?

Make sure to select cloud-based hotel management software that can meet your scalability requirements. You can scale the software as and when your hotel business grows.

Also, it should provide continuous support to hoteliers and offer many features so they can make a better choice.

4. Analyze your budget

The hotel management software you select should be budget friendly and you should be ready to pay for the additional costs if you go for more updates and integrations.

Conduct competitor research effectively and evaluate their prices. Do they offer a free trial or multiple-tiered packages?

5. How easy the user interface is

The hotel staff can seamlessly work on software if it has a user-friendly interface. The staff should require minimal training to get their hands on it.

More importantly, the cloud-based software should offer an enjoyable user interface for staff.

You can check the functionalities of the software by taking a free trial.

6. Customer support and training

If the software doesn’t provide good quality customer support, then it’s not worth it for your staff or the guests.

The staff should not support you with the technical issues, rather they should assist you with answering your questions and providing the necessary resources wherever required.

7. Security features

When choosing a hotel management solution, make sure the software complies with security regulations. It should protect guest data by employing strong security features such as encryption technology, password protection, etc.

The data stored on the server should be end-to-end protected and guest information should be safe from hackers.

Wrapping Up

Now, you understand why small hotels and properties need to invest in a scalable hotel management solution.

Such a hotel management solution is a game changer for hotels to automate administrative work, get more reservations, provide in-depth guest insights, and help them make informed decisions in the long run.

By automating time-consuming tasks, small-sized hotel chains can increase their online visibility, reach a broader audience, get more bookings, and hence more revenue.

FAQs

1. How many rooms can the system manage?

Our cloud-based hotel management software can cover unlimited rooms for small, medium, and large-scale hotel chains.

2. Can you integrate it with third-party software?

Yes, you can integrate hotel management software seamlessly with third-party software such as Opera PMS, IDS for property management systems, and CC Avenue and Razor Pay for secure payment integration.