While selecting software, we often fall prey to the misconception that one size fits all. But every hotel has specific requirements based on property type, portfolio size and geography. At the same time, every business has unique management styles and preferences for design, usability and software functionality. It’s crucial to identify specific hotel management software features your business needs before starting the selection process. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a misfit hotel management software that may unnecessarily complicate operations.
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This Article Covers:
- What Is Hotel Management Software?
- Purchasing Considerations
- Top Features & Requirements
- Popular Hotel Management Platforms
- How To Select the Best Hotel Management Software
- Wrapping It Up
What Is Hotel Management Software?
Hotel management software offers a bundle of tools that help:
- Market properties on multiple channels.
- Digitize front desk and housekeeping operations.
- Record tasks, interactions and finances for better accountability.
These systems manage every aspect of hotel management, including marketing, booking, front desk, housekeeping and reporting. You can integrate the platform with CRM, ERP, BI and accounting modules for complete digitized journeys that include customer acquisition, inventory tracking, data analysis and intelligent recommendations.
Primary Benefits
- Streamline Operations: Automate recurring tasks like invoicing, reminders, email marketing and periodical maintenance so you can focus on scaling your business and building brand goodwill.
- Increase Efficiency: Keep your rooms ready-to-rent with automated housekeeping services pre-check-in and post-check-out based on custom rules. Advanced platforms offer HR tools and allow you to track progress and maintain records of activities.
- Centralize Business Data: You can access, update and track relevant information across all departments and properties. Enterprise solutions enable you to locate documents quickly with robust search and filtering modules.
- Enhance Customer Experience: Offer guests unique portals or mobile apps for online bookings, check-ins and outs, document storage, and interactions with staff and managers. You can also set up triggered emails throughout the guest journey like welcome messages, rules and regulations, tour guides, and more.
- Improve Property Visibility: Advertise your rooms and properties across multiple listing channels, OTAs, GDS and social media. Get a unified view of every listing, sync information and make changes with a few clicks.
Purchasing Considerations
A hotel management business is a complex ecosystem with multiple operations, departments and teams working simultaneously. To smoothly run this business, you need software that can not only manage but streamline your unique workflows.
Preparing a hotel management system requirements checklist can help kickstart your search for the ideal software and ensure you meet all your needs. Here are some considerations to outline your list:
Deployment
Most hotel management solutions are cloud-based and available as SaaS (Software as a Service). You pay a monthly subscription, access the platform via any web-browsing device and avoid hefty investments in IT infrastructure.
But enterprises with large portfolios might be better off with on-premise hotel management software as they can customize the platform to meet their requirements. You buy the software license, deploy it on proprietary servers and customize it to fit your business perfectly.
Integrations
Hotel management platforms are a part of the larger property management software cog. So make sure the software you’re considering integrates with solutions your business uses and may use in the future.
Check if it has an accessible API and detailed developer documentation — indicators of a platform’s connectivity. You can also hire third-party technical consultants to design custom integrations.
Mobile-Friendly
You don’t need to run around between the front desk and back office anymore. With a mobile-friendly hotel management system, your managers, staff and housekeepers can access and log activities anywhere. Depending on the software, you can expect apps or portals with real-time, event-based notifications.
In April 2022, 59.64% of global web traffic and 51.72% of North American traffic came through mobile phones. You need mobile-optimized touchpoints to tap into this traffic. While comparing vendors, you should test the mobile user interface across devices and make sure it’s fast and intuitive.
Ease of Use
The platform’s user interface (UI) should be intuitive and straightforward. Many overlook this point in the evaluation process, but the usability of the UI directly affects the time to onboard and implement the software. The more unintuitive and complex the interface is, the longer it takes for you to train your staff and make that transition.
Vendor Support
You must research customer support reviews from fellow hoteliers. Look for vendors that can provide you with long-run support based on your business’s IT expertise and infrastructure.
A service-level agreement with the vendor’s support team can standardize response time and ensure that any software malfunctions won’t drastically impact your operations.
ROI and Spending
Decide if you want to update an existing system or buy a new hotel management software. The best way to do so is to calculate the new platform’s return on investment (ROI).
The following questions can help you determine whether the software will pay off:
- How much time do you currently spend on administrative processes?
- Does automation help reduce time-consuming tasks?
- How will it impact your distribution and revenue structures?
- What’s the cost of system integration and maintenance?
You have a winner in your hand if the solution helps reduce the time taken to perform administrative tasks, streamlines distribution, and the consequent revenue boost is more than the cost of maintaining the software.
Key Features & Requirements
Now that you know what a hotel management software is, its benefits and purchasing considerations, it’s time to look at our hand-picked hotel management software features to examine when researching and comparing vendors.
1. Channel Manager
You can list property information, including room rent, availability, inventory and descriptions across multiple sales channels, OTAs and GDS. Get an overview of every post’s status and engagement and make quick changes from a dashboard. You can avoid double bookings and other manual errors by automatically adjusting distribution for vacant, occupied or under maintenance rooms.
Market rooms on multiple channels and manage listings from a dashboard.
- Inventory allocation
- Switch off channels with high commission
- Selective pricing and availability
- Real-time sync and updates
- GDS connections
2. Front Desk Management
This module lets you view and update room bookings, generate invoices, process payments and manage guest check-ins and outs. With an interactive calendar and drag-and-drop tools, you can track reservations (both current and upcoming), schedule housekeeping, monitor room status, and perform night audits and shift audits.
You can connect the system with your bank accounts and preferred payment gateways to create a connected payment and check-out experience for your guests. Some platforms also offer inventory tracking and search tools, enabling your staff to have a definite answer whenever guests request services, food, information or products.
Use an integrated calendar to schedule and manage reservations, housekeeping and miscellaneous tasks.
- Invoicing
- Payment processing
- Commission calculator
- Guest profiles
- Integrated calendars
- Customizable checklists
- Digital check-ins and check-outs
- Drag-and-drop reservations
- Email templates
- Front desk dashboard
- Lost and found tracking
- Pro forma contracts and invoices
- Night audit
- Inventory tracking
- Search tools
3. Groups and Allotments
If you plan on hosting an event or a group of guests at your hotel, this feature-set becomes relevant, not to mention crucial. You can block rooms, export room lists and configure billing settings to bill a single account for multiple rooms.
You can get an overview of bookings, equipment, meeting rooms, facilities and event information coupled with guest profiles and history. Advanced platforms can also streamline corporate bookings by directly sending invoices to the parent company and supporting custom pricing for repeat customers.
- Configure cutoff dates
- Import rooming lists
- Dynamic room rates
- Block rooms
- Corporate groups
- Casual groups
- Folio splitting
4. Housekeeping and Maintenance
You can onboard housekeeping teams and assign role-based profiles and user access. They can log in from any device, view a list of assigned tasks and update the status.
Your front office can maintain constant visibility into room statuses and send messages to housekeepers during unforeseen circumstances. Enterprise platforms let you onboard third-party service providers and define rules for automated work orders.
Stay on top of housekeeping and maintenance tasks.
- Staff onboarding
- Task tracking
- Work orders
- Housekeeping zones
- Automated maintenance scheduling
- Room status tracking
- Staff communication portals
5. Rate Management
Manage room rates across every channel, website and reward program. You can access a unified view of your pricing structure and adjust channel-specific rates with a few clicks. For example, offer coupon codes for website bookings and drive up OTA prices to incentivize traffic to book through your native booking engine.
Advanced solutions have algorithms to compare historical data on pricing, competitor rates, market conditions and local events to offer dynamic rate adjustments and ensure you maintain healthy rent structures.
Set channel-specific room rates with a few clicks.
- Channel-specific pricing
- Coupon codes
- Work orders
- BAR pricing strategy
- OTA vs. direct booking
- Dynamic rates
- Competitor rate analysis
- Rate adjustments
6. Reporting
Hotel management software helps you collect guest, staff and operational data and generate profitability, audit, room and tax, shift audit, departure/arrival, housekeeping, and other reports. You can also specify rules for automated monthly or weekly reporting.
Some platforms offer business intelligence to track ADR, RevPAR, GOPPAR and a slew of other KPIs to help you analyze data and find opportunities.
Keep track of KPIs and analyze data for opportunities.
- Customizable templates
- Daily reconciliation
- Report exporting
- Report scheduling
- Tax reports
- Profitability reports
- Property performance reports
- KPI tracking
- Revenue forecasting
- Occupancy and revenue goals
7. Reservation Management
Most hotel management solutions come equipped with a central reservation system (CRS) that collects your bookings from multiple channels and offers a unified view of every ongoing and upcoming reservation. You can add prospective guests to a waitlist and send automated confirmation emails when you accept their bookings.
Native booking engines enable you to take direct bookings through your website and avoid third-party booking commissions and fees. You can equip the booking engine with your refund, cancellation and corporate policies to help prospects make an informed decision.
Get an overview of bookings coming through every sales channel.
- Reservation reminders
- Cancellation policies
- Restrictions
- Waitlists
- Refunds
- Upsell and cross-sell
- Automated confirmation emails
8. Guest Experience
Guests are the focal point of any hotel management business, and you need specialized tools to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat visits.
Hotel management systems help create guest profiles for tracking their journeys and preferences. You can suggest tour guides, gift cards, customizable reservations and personalized pricing using the information.
Most solutions support connections with third-party CRM software for in-depth customer data management.
Improve engagement with unique digital content like virtual tours, 3D floor maps and drone videos.
- Guest preference
- Gift cards
- Certificates
- Customizable reservations
- Location tours and guides
- Customer-specific pricing
- Additional services
9. Backend Management
Track and manage every asset your business owns (except rooms and properties under the front office’s jurisdiction). You can handle staff members, event rooms, inventory, point of sale systems, utilities and other hotel assets.
A few platforms also have review managers that gather customer reviews from every channel and allow you to respond from a centralized dashboard.
- Event management
- Spa and gym management
- Staff management
- Staff invoicing
- Utility costs and hotel spending analysis
- Inventory tracking
- Promotional campaigns
- Review management
10. Other Capabilities
Other than the aforementioned features, hotel management solutions require a few miscellaneous qualities to succeed. Suppose you’re managing cross-country hotel chains, or you want to attract international tourists. The right hotel management software will help you translate your websites and listings to targeted local languages, accept multiple currencies and save customers the exchange hassle.
On top of that, the platform should be mobile-optimized and support eSignatures for remote workflows. It should also be PCI-DSS compliant and have SSL certifications to create a secure payment environment and safeguard data transfers.
- Intuitive UI
- Customizable interface
- Electronic signatures
- Mobile-optimized
- Multi-currency
- Multi-language
- PCI DSS compliance
- SSL support
Popular Hotel Management Software
As discussed above, the best hotel management software is the one that fits your needs and improves overall productivity. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution available that can handle every type and scale of business.
To get you started on your hunt for the perfect hotel management system, we’ve listed overviews of some of the most popular options in the market:
eZee Absolute
eZee Absolute is a cloud-based software that can handle every type of hotel, including motels, bed and breakfasts, inns, campgrounds, vacation rentals, service apartments, and hotel chains.
Manage every front desk task from a unified dashboard.
It supports multiple languages, offers connections with OTAs and has a mobile app for front desk operations. Its other features include:
- Website builder
- Booking engine
- Channel manager
- Revenue management
- Rate analysis
- Payment connections
- Chatbots
- Inventory management
WebRezPro
WebRezPro is an all-in-one hotel management system that lets you manage every type of property. It provides a robust website builder with drag-and-drop tools and template libraries. A built-in accounting module helps manage property accounts. Some of the other features are:
- Front desk management
- Booking engine
- Housekeeping
- Accounting
- Group management
- Rate analysis
- Reporting
Track financials and analyze data for growing your business.
Cloudbeds
Cloudbeds is a hotel management software to manage and streamline business operations anywhere. It offers website designing services and a marketplace for integrations with third-party software.
Compare year-on-year data to find opportunities.
You can connect the website with native booking engines and payment processors to create a seamless experience for customers without external redirections. Some offerings include:
- Housekeeping and maintenance
- Channel manager
- Booking engine
- Payment processor
- Revenue analysis
- Pricing engine
Selecting the Best Software
Picking the ideal system for your business is like choosing a car. Without proper assistance, the task becomes overwhelming because of the countless hotel management software features and options available.
SelectHub has devised a straightforward lean selection methodology to help you identify your hotel management system requirements and pick the best vendor that aligns with your needs. Don’t believe us? Here’s a summary of the lean selection:
- Establish: Start by determining why you need hotel management software. Take time to identify the pain points and bottlenecks in your workflow.
- Collaborate: Assemble a committee of executives, department leaders and business partners to determine what they expect from the new system.
- Define: Create a detailed requirements checklist that addresses every committee member’s needs.
- Distribute: Shortlist a handful of vendors and compare each on how they meet your requirements. It helps to have a fair scoring system while comparing vendors, as you can use this score in the following steps.
- Justify: Review vendor scores from the previous round and determine one of three possibilities:
- Do you want a new solution?
- Do you want add-ons for your current system?
- Do you want to end your journey here?
- Prove: Schedule product demos, request proofs-of-concept (POCs) and review use cases to see how shortlisted vendors back up their requirements score. Score each vendor based on their demo performance.
- Rank: Rank potential vendors based on their TCO, requirements and demo scores. At this point, you can start removing vendors that look unlikely.
- Negotiate: Contact the top vendor on your list and review their contract. Get a second opinion from a lawyer or a law firm about the agreement. You’re ready to move on to the next step if you’re satisfied with the terms. Otherwise, repeat this step with each vendor on your list until you find the ideal contract.
- Sign: Sign the contract and design a detailed implementation and onboarding strategy.
You can also use our free hotel management software comparison platform that offers a list of top solutions based on your requirements. Compare features, rank products and identify an ideal hotel management system.
Wrapping It Up
The right software enables you to automate repetitive tasks, streamline operations, improve visibility into every activity and simplify your life. But finding a suitable platform that meets your unique needs isn’t a walk in the park. You need to identify the required hotel management software features and look for solutions that offer them without going over the budget. Hopefully, this guide can be a roadmap for choosing the perfect system for your company.
Did we answer all your questions? Want to know more about the software? Let us know in the comment box. Happy selecting!