What is a Hotel PMS?

To most people, a hotel PMS, or property management system, has been defined as a platform that helps hotels or a group of hotels manage their front-office: central reservations, guest check-in/check-out, room management, room rates and other types of tasks. Ultimately, Hotel PMS platforms were created to replace labor intensive paper and spreadsheet-heavy tasks. 

For today’s future-thinking hotelier, hotel property management systems (PMS) give them control over their hotel operations, featuring easy-to-use technology that is not locked to the actual physical hotel, allowing them to have the tools they need at their fingertips to take control of their hotels anywhere, anytime, with any device, gain visibility over their business, and make better business decisions. 

The Hotel PMS is a crucial part of a customer service focused hotel operations platform, built of many different components and integrations such as: 

• Housekeeping and facilities management 
• Group management 
• Revenue management and automation 
• Distribution and inventory management across multiple channels 
• Reporting and business intelligence tools 
• Payment processing 
• Food and beverage operations 

The consumer’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 the “guest experience”. Today, hoteliers are challenged with providing a personalized guest experience while still operating an effective hotel business. Current hotel PMS solutions should help a hotelier deliver the experience guests want, while efficiently growing their business. 

In order to accomplish this, a Hotel PMS should have the following features and benefits: 

The Cloud-based Difference

A cloud-based hotel PMS is more reliable and secure than a non-cloud premise-based system, due to consistent automatic refreshes, product updates, and the environment it is hosted in. With the mobility of a property management system that operates in the cloud, you and your staff can adjust rates, view reports and manage operations anywhere, anytime from any device. You are able to stay competitive with updated technology and focus on increasing your ROI. With cloud technology, there is zero hardware to maintain and zero software to purchase, which can transform your revenue, improve operations, advance performance and drive the success of your business. 

Ease-of-Use

A hotel PMS with an interface that is intuitively designed can save your staff time, reducing training time and slashing the number of resources needed to operate successfully and efficiently, especially when staff turnover is high. Additional features like a tape chart provide you with a user-friendly space to service reservations, view room availability, optimize room usage, and make, modify or cancel reservations all from one convenient screen. 

Easy Check-in and Mobile Key Features

A hotel PMS that makes checking in guests possible with just a few clicks, and offers mobile key features, is essential today. With many different guest personalities and preferences, some guests will love mobile check-in and mobile keys while others would prefer that personal connection with the hotel’s front desk staff. When a guest does want to be checked-in by a member of the front desk, a hotel PMS that speeds up the check-in process saves time and increases guest satisfaction. 

Intelligent Rate and Revenue Management

A hotel PMS with rate management tools that are easy to use, intelligent, and provide automation help you take control of your hotel’s revenue and profitability. The process of updating rates and demand levels should be intuitive, so you can save time while still getting the data you need to make accurate decisions. Rate management functions should give you control through multiple rate levels, demand levels, and configurable rate seasons. In addition, a hotel property management system should enable you to match actual market conditions with a ‘Best Available Rate’ (BAR) pricing strategy. 

Housekeeping

For hotel support staff, the smartphone is revolutionizing multiple hotel departments, including housekeeping. A mobile-ready hotel PMS can alert your staff which rooms are occupied, which ones must be cleaned immediately, and which rooms can be put back into service. That can save time for your housekeeping personnel who are on the clock and increase staff productivity while speeding up customer service. A cloud-based hotel PMS allows you to take control of your hotel so you can efficiently grow your business. 

Intuitive Marketing and Guest Intelligence

A hotel PMS that incorporates a customer relationship management (CRM) platform can help personalize your hotel’s guest experience by automatically delivering communications to guests throughout their travel journey. A CRM-integrated PMS can connect you with your guests before they even arrive to the hotel with emails suggesting nearby restaurant options, activities, spa treatments and more based on their stored guest history. This type of content shows your guests that you are excited to have them at your property and empowers them to plan their stay both pre-arrival and while on-site. 

Data Security and Protection

A major concern to both hoteliers and their guests is how to keep guest information safe. A fully PCI Compliant hotel PMS helps address issues such as data security through solutions such as point-to-point encryption and tokenization. Shielding your guest’s payment data throughout a secure payment processing environment greatly reduces your breach profile and PCI scope – helping protect your guests’ data from hackers and putting your operations at ease.

Partnership and Support

Your hotel property management system vendor should work well with your other technology vendors and partner with you through implementation and continuous support and account management. They should have a “customer service” focus and provide 24/7/365 support at no additional charge to you. Your hotel PMS should have online training tools for your staff, and an active customer community with knowledge-based articles, notifications for upcoming maintenance and releases, as well as past release documentation.   

A Hotel Property Management System (PMS) can have a positive impact on your hotel and make your operations more efficient.  The Smart Decision Guide to Hotel Property Management Systems provides key information needed to find the hotel PMS that best fits your requirements. This research report, conducted by Starfleet Research and sponsored by SkyTouch Technology, provides a simple checklist to use as well as a list of must-ask questions for vendors, a roadmap for buying decisions, and valuable insights from industry insiders and experts. 

Download the Smart Decision Guide