Enhancing guest relationship management capabilities should improve guest loyalty and retention. These improvements should be reflected in increased RevPAR and profitability. Streamlining operations across the organization and providing better management controls should lead to increased staff efficiency and reduce operational costs.
So how does one go about identifying the “right next-generation property management system” (PMS) or make the necessary upgrades to their existing platform capabilities? For starters, it’s important to understand a number of key concepts, including technology and data Integration, centralized and unified guest data, Guest Experience Management and advanced revenue management.
Technology and Data Integration
Hotel performance improvement depends to a large extent on technology interoperability and data integration. The PMS, the central reservations system (CRS) or channel manager and the revenue management solution all need to seamlessly connect and share data — preferably, in a real-time manner.
Inventory-related data needs to flow into all distribution channels, including direct booking platforms and call centers as well as the Global Distribution System (GDS) and OTAs. The CRS needs to publish optimal pricing decisions and channel recommendations based on input from the revenue management system, which, in turn, needs to capture up-to-the-moment information from the PMS.
Ensuring that the revenue management solution interfaces with both the PMS and CRS is imperative if a hotel is to effectively position itself vis-à-vis other hotels in the same competitive set. Also important is the ability to customize the direct booking engine within the CRS, or channel manager and to automate channel-specific offers via the call center and other channels.
Data integration ensures that room rates and inventory availability update quickly and accurately across all booking channels. Otherwise, prices presented on some channels may be lower than desired. Similarly, guestrooms presented as available may, in fact, be unavailable, causing overbooking and harming brand reputation.
