Hotel PMS to reduce costs in your hotels and resorts

Where is your hospitality business leaking money? It might be on your skyrocketing energy bills, inflating food prices or fast-rising labor costs. It might also be on the day-to-day business operations you’re running with legacy technology solutions.  

In a recent report by Statista, almost a quarter of hotels said that the main reason for modernizing their technology was to improve the guest experience. Just 5% of hoteliers said that the main reason for using technology was to save time. And yet, if hotel and resort owners choose the right property management system (PMS) for their business, they can achieve both – and save significant costs in the process. 

In times of economic hardship, the obvious instinct for any business is to tighten its budget and save costs where it can. Investing in the latest hotel management software might seem at odds with scaling back. However, failing to update your core technology – your PMS – and to centralize your operations could be costing your business more than you think.  

Today, many hotels and resorts still rely on patched-together business applications to keep their operations ticking over – and likely face higher running costs, greater security risks, operational inefficiencies and obsolete reporting as a result. These challenges will only multiply as this technology continues to age. A modern, cloud-based PMS could take these headaches away by consolidating all your business functions and data in one place, from your hotel to your on-site spa, and providing all the industry features you need. Even better, by opting for a cloud-based platform, you won’t need to make a big upfront investment, or worry about costly upgrades.  

Here are four ways a modern PMS platform could save you significant money in the long run: 

Add self-service options 

Hospitality is a people-first business. And yet the hotel industry is in the midst of a chronic labor shortage – according to the recent Deloitte report “The European Hospitality Industry Outlook,” a shortage of skilled employees is one of the biggest risks hospitality leaders currently face. It’s why many hotels and resorts are turning to self-service and autonomous technology to plug the gap, rolling out everything from self-check-in kiosks in hotel lobbies to QR code ordering in their restaurants.

Self-service technologies can help: 

• Alleviate queues and give your guests greater control and convenience during their hotel stay. If they can book services online, your guests won’t have to wait for your staff to become available. 
• Through a mobile app or self-service kiosk, upsell services such as room upgrades and spa treatments, and make guests aware of all other areas of your business. 

• Keep track of guests’ behaviors and preferences so you can send them personalized offers and recommendations. 
• Speed up restaurant service by offering QR code ordering. Not only does this free up staff, but it allows you to change and update the menu quickly whenever you want. Switch seamlessly from breakfast to lunch, dynamically change prices, and highlight higher value menu items or special offers. 

Automate manual tasks 

How much time do your staff waste manually inputting data into your separate systems? The reality today is that many hotels and resorts still rely heavily on manual processes in their daily operations as they make do with obsolete, disjointed software systems. As staff waste time copying and pasting information from one application to another or manually generating reports, their attention is diverted from serving your guests better and focusing on higher priority tasks.  

A modern PMS brings all your operations and data together in one place, giving your staff the control and visibility they need to carry out their roles to the best of their ability. It helps to: 

• Improve communication between staff across the property, and ensure customer queries and requests are routed to the right department 
• Automate task management and delegate tasks based on staff availability 
• Avoid manual data input errors and data loss 
• Achieve greater insights across your business with solid metrics and reporting. 

One system to manage all audits 

Data analysis inefficiencies cost businesses a staggering 62 billion hours annually worldwide, according to the IDC ‘Data and Analytics in a Digital-First World’ report. The same study found that 95% struggle with operational challenges around data and analytics. What’s holding them back? Well, for 88% it’s their legacy technology. 

For hotels and resorts, keeping up with audits can be hugely time intensive. From rate availability to night audits, running a successful hotel business requires ongoing monitoring and reporting on a daily basis. When you are juggling separate data collected across different systems, managing all these audits can be a costly and stressful exercise.  

A modern PMS system that also covers your entire business relieves this. By replacing many disparate software solutions with one, you have all your data in the same format. You can also: 

• Verify data and operations faster, for example highlighting any disparities between reservations, room occupancy and invoices. 
• Automatically generate reports that take into account all business departments and access the insights you need in a timely manner. 
• Minimize the risk of human error. 
• Adhere to a regular auditing schedule.  

Identify inefficiencies across the property 

Rising energy costs are the biggest challenge for 80% of hoteliers across Europe, Statista reports. With shrinking margins, it’s more important than ever for hotels to identify areas of risk and opportunity quickly. This can be difficult when you are using one system to manage your rooms, another one for the spa, a third one for the restaurant, and using Excel to do your reports.

By managing all your rooms and activities via a single dashboard, you can:

• Accurately plan and forecast demand in your restaurants to avoid food waste.  
• Get a clear picture of your guests, understand who is more likely to order specific services, and create packages and personalized deals. 
• Maintain a clear view of all the activities you offer, and clearly see what is bringing in money, and what needs more work. Do you have too many free spots in the spa on Tuesdays, or at the end of the month? Perhaps you need to reschedule the massage therapists – or you could launch a special offer and showcase it to arriving guests.  

Now’s the time to invest in a modern PMS for your hotel business 

Moving with the times and embracing the latest technology is crucial if you want to remain successful in the hotel industry. Without this investment, hotels and resorts simply won’t be able to keep up with their competitors or offer the services their guests now expect, simply because their legacy systems can’t cost effectively support them.  

The right PMS, then, is key for improving the guest experience and running a resilient and cost-efficient operation. Want to find out how to get started? Get in touch – we can help.