What Is Property Management System In Hotel

[Rell Jette]

Theconsumer's travel journey begins by selecting a destination while simultaneously shopping for a hotel. That pre-stay shopping and booking interaction, their on-property engagement with the hotel and its staff, their in-room experience, and their sharing of feedback on social media post-stay are all part of their guest experience. Hoteliers are challenged with providing a personalized guest experience while operating an effective hotel business. Today's hotel PMS solutions help hoteliers deliver the experience guests want, while efficiently managing their business. Hotel PMS offers many benefits for a hotelier's business. They include

Choosing the right hotel property management system is critical to the smooth running of your hotel operation. It pays to understand exactly what you do need, and what you don't need. The 2020/2021 Smart Decision Guide to Hotel Property Management Systems provides the information you need to make a smart decision and find the hotel PMS that best fits your need. This research report, conducted by Starfleet and sponsored by Oracle Hospitality, provides a checklist to use when evaluating hotel PMS, a list of must-ask questions for vendors, a roadmap for buying decisions, and valuable insights from industry insiders and experts.

Until recently, hotel PMS solutions were often managed on premises. On-premises solutions include hardware that can take up a lot of space. Resources were needed to manage the systems and software updates, upgrades, and patches that needed to be scheduled and installed manually by onsite staff.

Cloud-based, mobile-enabled hotel PMS platforms offer hotels an innovative way to engage with guests while enabling hotels to reduce IT costs and simplify their infrastructure. The systems are administered by the vendor and are easy to use. Updates, upgrades, and patches are done automatically, saving hotels time and money.

With a cloud hotel PMS, hotels can bring new properties online more quickly. Each new release brings new capabilities to help deliver great guest experiences, improve operating efficiency, and increase employee productivity.

Traditionally, a hotel property management system was defined as a system that enabled a hotel or group of hotels to manage front-office capabilities, such as booking reservations, guest check-in/checkout, room assignment, managing room rates, and billing. Hotel PMS delivered a software platform that replaced time-intensive, paper and spreadsheet-heavy processes.

However, hotel PMS technology has evolved and greater integrations offer services that extend well beyond the front desk. Hotel PMS is now a critical business-operations system that enables hoteliers to deliver a seamless and contactless guest experience. Hotel PMS now integrates to other onsite services that impact the guest's complete experience, including.

Hoteliers' demands for a property management system are many: orchestrate hotel operations, manage guest preferences, manage room inventory and rates, and evolve constantly all while keeping data secure. That's why Oracle Hospitality created OPERA Cloud Property Management.

A modern property management system combines multiple work environments in a single piece of software. Depending on the provider, the combination of modules and functions can vary, and the functionality of one module can be slightly different. Additionally, some vendors sell their systems in separate modules that can be integrated with an existing solution used by a hotel. Here is the basic structure of a hotel PMS.

Keep in mind that it is hard to divide the functions of PMS into more and less important because all of them are necessary. However, regardless of a property type, hotel property management systems must have a reservation system with a website booking engine and front-desk operations module. Other essential modules usually include channel management, revenue management, housekeeping, customer data management, report, and analytics. And big hotels or resorts certainly need point-of-sale (POS) services and back-office modules.

Channel management software is a single interface to control and distribute inventories across different channels such as GDSs, OTAs, wholesalers, direct booking platforms, etc. A channel manager connects directly to a central reservation system that holds information about the availability and cost of hotel rooms, sharing this information via the distribution channels. It makes room inventory available to travelers who want to book a room or property online, listing rooms on different sources. Also, a channel management module facilitates booking-related transactions.

Different distribution channels expose inventory to different audiences. For example, connection to OTAs and some airline websites allows a larger number of potential guests to be reached, those who book flights or plan trips in advance. Metasearch sites compare prices across different channels, letting a customer make the best decision. Connections to GDSs assist non-leisure traveler booking as well as group reservations.

A PMS housekeeping module connects housekeeping staff to the front office. A front-office manager can make a list of tasks to assign, and housekeepers can update room status. If this is a cloud-based PMS, housekeepers can update the status of their assignments or rooms through a connected mobile app or tablet. Also, this module keeps the list of maintenance tasks and reports for the users.

The main function of this module is housekeeping management and property maintenance. Housekeeping functionality includes room status management, maid assignment for room cleaning based on a block or floor location, and keeping lists of tasks for housekeepers. Maintenance management keeps the record of hotel disruptions and repair activities with the further assignment of an attendant who can eliminate a problem.

It is critical for hoteliers to collect and organize guest data to keep in touch with current and past customers during and after check-out. The CRM module must integrate with the front desk and reservation system, collecting all guest information from these sources. It helps store guest data and provides a database in an accessible format. Also, it includes guest contact information before and after their stay. However, if a hotel already has its own CRM system, the PMS should integrate with it.

This module can also help organize marketing activities such as promotions, measure guest experience, and automate pre- and post-stay services. The CRM module helps owners personalize the guest experience with membership and loyalty programs, which are especially important for hotel chains and resorts.

To monitor current processes and understand business performance, all business owners rely on analytics. A PMS can serve as a business intelligence tool, collecting relevant hotel data and providing hoteliers with various types of automated reports. Depending on the software, it can generate night audit reports, room and tax reports, shift audit reports, departure/arrival reports, housekeeping reports, or other ongoing summaries.

Most hotels have some kind of in-house restaurant, not to mention properties with gyms and spas. So, if there are multiple payment terminals in a hotel, the point-of-sale (POS) system is indispensable to collect and accurately handle transactions from different sources. With a POS module in their PMS, hoteliers can include additional charges or discounts on the final bill for each customer. Some examples of such charges are

In addition to automated payment processing, a comprehensive POS module can support inventory management, collect information about customer purchasing patterns, generate sales activity reports, and keep financial data in one place.

The choice of a PMS depends on the size and type of a hotel property, as different systems have their own sets of core features and additional modules. Most players in the market offer hotel management systems that can be customized for different types of property and basic PMS components can be complemented with modules, required for a specific type of business.

Many properties already have reservation platforms or CRSs of their own, or utilize other business management software, so it is very important for the selected PMS to be integrable with third-party products. The final choice of a property management system for a hotel is largely shaped by the functionality required.

The 2021 Smart Decision Guide to Hotel Property Management Systems by Oracle provides an evaluation checklist to help hoteliers make the right decision, scaling each factor from 1 (absolutely not important) to 10 (very important). This checklist is also very useful for comparing systems by different vendors. Regardless of hotel size and type, consider the following:

Check integration options. If there are systems already used by a hotel, or if you plan on integrating additional software, make sure that your vendor supports all necessary APIs and is ready to provide integration services. Otherwise, you may consider an external technical consultant to provide integration services.

Consider a cloud solution with mobile access. Cloud solutions are generally less expensive than on-premises software, and an owner doesn`t need to pay maintenance fees. Users of cloud software pay a subscription fee depending on the number of rooms in a hotel and modules they need. Also, cloud software is better at integrating with third-party systems like OTAs and GDSs.

On top of that, cloud-based systems can be constantly and seamlessly updated, and usually have a mobile version. Mobile access facilitates communication across departments (front-office, management, housekeeping, etc.) which helps improve customer service.

Larger properties require solutions with a wide range of modules other than the basic reservation, front office, and housekeeping. Their PMS must facilitate group bookings as well as have POS services, a multi-property management system, back-office management, revenue management, sales, and marketing functionality.

Vendors cater to the needs of large properties, adding special modules like golf and spa management. Hotels that host MICE can choose a solution that has event management and catering functionality included. Also, owners of big properties should consider PMSs with capabilities that automate check-in and checkout and offer other self-service tools.

We looked at such renowned, comprehensive tools as Oracle, 5stelle*, Clock PMS, Maestro, and others. All of them are designed to streamline operations of big hotels and hotel chains but can also be tailored to fit the needs of independent properties.

Please note that most products are highly customizable and modular. So, when purchasing such a solution, you can choose the components you need and pay only for what you selected.

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