As a hotel owner or manager, you often have to deal with different types of software that can help in hotel management. Since there is such a variety of hotel software available on the market, you can easily wind up needing clarification about the role of each of them.

Hotel managers often need help understanding which type of software they need for running a hotel and which is for selling hotel rooms and amenities. This article aims to explain different kinds of software for hotels in detail.

PMS –  An essential software for hotels!

Property Management System or PMS is essential software for tracking room availability, scheduling guest bookings, and managing accommodation rates. Property management systems often have additional functionalities, such as:

  • Guest register with a guest attendance history
  • Managing additional amenities
  • Different reports about different KPIs
  • Staff register
  • Payment management and payment gateway information
  • Inventory management

Finding a suitable PMS is difficult since thousands of these systems are available on the market. When choosing the PMS, you should also consider the hotel or hotel chain size.

What is the booking engine?

A hotel booking engine allows travelers to book and pay for hotel services directly from the web or mobile application. Hotels should invest in booking development on their web presentations (or loyalty applications) or integrate the existing booking engines instead of paying commissions to online travel agencies. Hotels should aim to cut out the middlemen (someone who will find guests and take provisions).

Online Travel Agencies

Online travel agencies are places where all hotels are listed online. The most popular are Booking and Expedia, but hotels should try to be listed on as many OTAs as possible to be more successful.

The upside is that OTAs will promote your hotels and list all hotel amenities, multimedia, descriptions, and guests’ comments. The downside is that OTA’s will take a commission. There is also a question of how to send hotel data to 100 OTAs. It is a time-consuming job.

Also, what is the best way to synchronize data between OTAs and hotel PMS systems? For example, somebody reserves a room in the hotel from booking.com. How will a hotel be notified about that? What is the way to set the room occupancy and report to the other OTAs that the room is not available anymore? For that purpose, a hotel should use the channel manager software.

What are channel managers?

Channel managers will send all information about the hotel’s offers: rooms, rates, services, descriptions, pictures, and all other info to OTAs. Moreover, they will synchronize data between all OTAs and, if integrated, with the hotel’s PMS. The hotel will receive reports and real-time information about the sources and reservations of OTAs.

Hotel Operations Management Systems

PMS handles bookings but cannot help hotel staff with everyday tasks and processes. Hotel Operations Management Systems will automatize or half-automatize processes in housekeeping, maintenance, f&b, supervision, and other sectors.

These systems enable the Housekeeping sector to synchronize tasks and workers to check and update their work orders from their mobile phones. Information about the room status is automatically synchronized. Hotel Operations Management Systems rapidly increase efficiency in laundry and mini-bar services. The systems can automatically assign maintenance workers to the reported malfunctions and damages.

These systems give supervisors and quality managers checklists on their mobile devices and schedules for quality checks. They can further analyze checking results. Software for hotel operations can drastically save time and increase quality in all sectors and processes.

Concierge mobile applications

Concierge applications will help guests to learn about hotel amenities and services they can get from the hotel. Guests can book hotel services and receive notifications about discounts and any additional information they might need. It is an excellent opportunity for upselling.

Most importantly, the hotel will have guests’ database and will know their habits, what they like and which services they enjoy the most. The Concierge application can also act as a loyalty application, so when guests are not in the hotel, they can get promotions and notifications about hotel events and options for direct booking.

Conclusion

There are numerous other types of hotel software. In this article, we outlined only the most common ones. Just check out https://hoteltechreport.com/news/best-hotel-software and see how many different types of software for hotels there are.

It is not surprising that hoteliers need help understanding how software can help them in hotel running, so it is always a good idea to speak with a consultant. If you, as a hotel manager, have any questions or concerns about our hotel software, please send us an e-mail at office@sipodsoftware.com. We will be happy to help clarify certain things for you.