The recent h2c GmbH Digital Hotel Operations Global Study – of which we were pleased to be one of the sponsors – found that hotels use a wide variety of systems for gathering data about guest preferences.
NB: This is an article from Dailypoint
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And whilst this is not at all surprising, and is indeed necessary for hotels to maximize the amount of data they can collect, it can cause problems and limitations where the systems are not fully integrated with a central guest profile. In this article, we will explore these issues in more detail and look at potential solutions. But first, let us take a look at some of the findings from the h2c GmbH study, starting with the data gathering points that the 84 hotel chains surveyed last year said they were using:
2023 Hotel Integration Study: PMS Leads, Gaps Remain
As would be expected, the Property Management System (PMS) is the number one data gathering point for guest information, with 64% of hotels surveyed by h2c GmbH having PMS systems that are fully integrated with the central guest profile, and a further 27% in total having some level of integration. This is followed by the IBE, with 38% of hotels enjoying fully integrated online booking solutions.
After this, things start to deteriorate, with between 20% and 27% of hotels included in the study having no integration whatsoever for the remaining data gathering points, including business-critical and guest-facing systems such as the website, ORM and Point of Sale (POS) solutions. This is worrying. Dr Michael Toedt, CEO of dailypointTM, explains why.
“The 2023 h2c GmbH Global Study found that, on the whole, general levels of integration with the PMS (not just related to gathering guest preferences) are much improved from 2017 levels. This is illustrated in the slide.
Critical Gaps and Central Guest Profile Discrepancies Highlighted
“However, there is still a great deal of work to be done to improve integrations, especially in the three systems highlighted above: the POS, Sales & Catering Module and services such as Spa and Golf. The lack of integration here is not only hindering the hotels’ ability to create and maintain the all-important central guest profile. It is also affecting their capacity to use the data gathered from the various apps within the IT stack to create valuable guest insights that enable the provision of highly personalized services, communications and experiences.”
Indeed, there appears to be some confusion around how many hotels are actually achieving central guest profiles at all. In the 2023 study, 70% of hotels claimed that this is the case. But when h2c GmbH asked the same question of the hotels’ tech vendors, the figure dropped 13 percentage points to a disappointing 57%.
