5 Reasons to Embrace All-in-one Hotel Technology

We know, your job as a hotelier is not just limited to the routine operations. There are 100s of other important factors that require your attention. 

BUT, you can’t work on all of them simultaneously with a stand alone system. Even you know it. 

You need an ALL-IN-ONE (integrated) hotel technology for this. 

Afterall, technology has the power to make or break any business. 

Having said that, in this blog, we are going to talk about different software used by hotels, and the need of integrated hotel technology.

To start, let’s explore the different applications used by hotels these days. 

Which software are used in the hotel industry?

It’s been years since technology penetrated the hospitality industry. Since then, there have been a plethora of software applications developed and shut down. But a few have prevailed and are still in constant use. 

They are: 

Hotel Software:

The hotel management software is used to streamline reservations, front office, back office, housekeeping, guest management and even billing operations. 

Generally, there are two types of hotel software used in the hotel industry:

• On-premise hotel software
• Cloud-based hotel software

Well, both the software have their positives and negatives. However, it solely depends on an individual hotel business to choose a software that fulfills its requirements. 

Must-read: A Complete Guide to Select the Right Hotel Software 

Channel Manager:

The Channel manager helps hotels manage their inventory distribution and rates in real-time on different channels (viz. OTAs, GDS, vacation rental portals) and fetch reservations from them. 

The system updates the latest availability on all connected channels as soon as any booking is received. 

Booking Engine:

The online booking engine is responsible to showcase your availability on your website. It is integrated with your hotel’s website and social media pages and allows you to acquire direct, commission-free bookings.

Restaurant POS System:

Hotels often provide room services. And some of them may have in-house restaurants, cafes, bars or pubs. For that reason, hotels use restaurant POS systems to manage their food and beverage services. 

Similar to the hotel software, there are two types of restaurant POS systems:

1. On-premise restaurant POS system
2. Cloud-based restaurant POS system

Depending on the size and requirements of the F&B business, the most suitable POS system is selected.

Review Management Software:

Your property receives online reviews on numerous platforms. It is a monotonous task for hotels to check and respond to those reviews from each platform’s extranet / back end. 

Therefore, hotels use a review management software to collect, monitor, and respond to all the online reviews effortlessly. 

Loyalty Program Software:

As the facts stand,

Around 50% of future revenue comes from just 20% of the existing guests. 

Forbes

And, loyalty programs are indeed a surefire way of ensuring that your existing guests select YOUR hotel brand over others.  

A loyalty program software helps hotels to keep a track of all their loyal guests’ details, their earned loyalty points, rewards, and basically streamline all the nitty-gritty of loyalty program management.

Add-ons:

So far, we have learned about the primary technology solutions you need to simplify your hotel’s major operations. However, to function smoothly, you need other products, which are commonly used as third-party integrations.

For example, integration with:

1. Financial accounting software to keep proper track of sales, purchases, payables and receivables.
2. PABX to calculate the phone call charges (If you are providing facilities of local or international calling to your guests.)
3. Payment gateways to accept and process online payments.
4. SMS gateways to send several types of messages to your guests.
5. Electronic key card or any doorlock interface to ensure the security of rooms.
6. Passport scanners to verify and store the guest details.

These are just a few off the top of my head. There could be many others as well.  

Explore our collection of 500+ hardware and software integrations for the effortless hotel management. 

Depending upon the type, size, location, and requirements, hotels have to adopt a broad set of technology to ensure automation up to 90%. 

Moving on, let us understand,

Why do hotels need all-in-one hotel technology?

Here, let us take an example.

In the human body, the brain is connected with all the organs via nerves, tissues or muscles. These nerves are used to transmit messages from the brain to all the organs, who then perform the required action. 

Well, the hotel software also works pretty much in the same way. 

It is connected to all the aspects of your hotel business such as reservations, housekeeping, backoffice, payments through integrations with separate systems. The hotel software, which is at the core of your business, brings all the departments together and notifies them about any action required. 

And for better clarification, we have listed some solid reasons to have an all-in-one hotel technology:

To keep up with the latest trends

Using a standalone hotel software is an outdated concept. In an industry where innovations happen every day, you have to keep up with the latest technology and adopt the practices that most of the successful businesses are following. 

To ensure a better user experience

When you have siloed systems integrated with each other, you have to deal with different user interfaces, training programs, and functioning. Basically, you don’t have anything centralized or common. 

But all-in-one technology provides you with the same experience throughout the entire systems, thus not hindering your user experience. 

To avoid integration hassles

With disjoint technology, you constantly come across integration issues, contacting multiple vendors for support, and even complexity of handling distinct databases. 

Well, there’s an endless list of hassles you need to face and resolve to make the system compatible for your hotel.

Now, let’s talk about something practical and realistic. So, what exactly happens to your property if you don’t use an integrated technology? Let’s see.  

What happens if you don’t have an integrated hotel technology?

The sole purpose of technology is to make things easier and simpler for you, NOT to increase your complexities. 

But, if you have segregated software, you may come across more difficulties than you could imagine. 

Some of them are:

Can’t track real-time business performance

When your hotel management solutions are not synchronized, you have overlapping databases. Each system provides you with different reports. 

Since each software is limited to look after a certain set of operations only, they will provide reports accordingly. In this way, it becomes quite inconvenient for you to merge the data and then analyze your entire business performance.  

How does an integrated system help you overcome this challenge? 

An all-in-one hotel software gives you centralized control over your entire hotel operations. 

You get consolidated reports of your reservations, online distribution, marketing, bookings, and revenue generation. So, it becomes easy for you to track your performance and strategize to expand your hotel business.  

Have to deal with multiple vendors

In absence of integrated hotel technology, dealing with multiple vendors becomes a part of your list. 

You have to handle multiple contracts, payments, support – everything separately. You have to maintain communication with each vendor, consuming a lot of time and taking a toll on your efficiency.

And the biggest challenge lies in fragmented databases in the systems. 

Since all the systems will have a unique way to manage and record your guest database, you won’t have a centralized storage. And we know, a consolidated guest database is crucial to impart a good guest experience. 

Think again, do you want to spend your day dealing with vendors or taking care of your guests?

How does an integrated system help you overcome this challenge? 

When you have a complete suite of hotel management technology from one vendor; chasing multiple providers becomes a thing of the past. 

It is a one-stop solution for hotels; you have one contract, one invoice, one support number and one point of contact. 

In addition, you have a centralized access and storage of all your data. So, it solves all your concerns about dispersed data.

Absence of live inventory distribution

Hotels like you have multiple booking sources viz. OTAs, website, walk-ins, phone and through local travel agents. 

Now, when you DON’T have a channel manager integrated with a hotel software and booking engine, then you come across the following situation:

Let’s say, you have a hotel with 10 rooms. You’re getting bookings from 4 different channels; such as OTAs (Agoda, Expedia, Booking.com), booking engine, local tour operator, and metasearch engines.

You received a booking from Booking.com. As soon as that happens, the channel manager updates the revised inventory (i.e. 9 rooms) across all your connected channels.

Now, you have the latest availability on all channels.

Later, you receive a walk-in reservation. Since your hotel software and channel manager aren’t integrated, you have to update the latest inventory MANUALLY. But, even a nanosecond delay in doing this may lead to overbookings. 

We’re sure you don’t want this to happen to you. Right?

How does an integrated system help you overcome this challenge? 

The integrated trio of the hotel software, booking engine and channel manager helps you manage inventory and rates in REAL-TIME on your connected channels. 

This means, any changes made in the inventory or rates from the PMS or any booking received; will be instantly reflected on all platforms. 

As a result, your hotel’s latest availability is maintained on all the channels; reducing your overbookings and helping you utilize 100% inventory. The up-to-date rates also decrease your rate disparity concerns. 

Have to incur cost and maintenance of integration

Certainly, when you have standalone systems, you have to put in additional efforts, money and resources to integrate them.

Above that, you NEED to keep chasing all the providers to develop the integration. It’s a tiring process in its entirety. (Believe us, you don’t want to experience that!))

Besides, individual systems turn out to be quite heavy on your pocket.

Another major problem is the maintenance of the software. Various vendors will have their own frequency and process for upgrades and downtimes. 

So, it will be challenging for you to keep your hotel operations up and running 24X7.  

DEAD END? 

How does an integrated system help you overcome this challenge? 

You can get rid of all these hassles by implementing an all-in one hotel technology suite from a single vendor. There’d be no requirements of additional integration. 

The best part is, your vendor will take care of the downtime and enhancements; ensuring that your operations are not hindered.

Besides, when you purchase all software from one vendor, you’d definitely have a nice pocket friendly deal. 

Have data leak and security breach concerns 

With the scattered software, security issues always prevail. 

Being a part of the hospitality industry, you have access to highly confidential information of your guests.

Not only that, the hotel software you use contains important information about your business. 

In case of separate systems, you’d have to face changing security measures. With no consistency of encryption techniques and processes; you’ll be prone to data leak and breach attacks.

How does an integrated system help you overcome this challenge? 

Since there’s one vendor, you don’t have to worry about security measures of individual software. Your tech provider will be ensuring consistent measures across the whole suite.  

A few tech providers offer a PCI-DSS compliant* integrated hotel management system. Such systems have the encrypted database and the providers are following all the protocols of PCI-DSS to safeguard your data from breach.  

*The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is an information security standard for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes.\

Your day-to-day hotel operations, reservations, review management, business performance or be it anything, an all-in-one hotel technology is capable of to handle all of it. 

Now, you may think,

Where can you find the best integrated hotel solutions?

The solution is actually pretty simple.

Invest in a robust and all-in-one hotel technology solution like:

Both of them are seamlessly connected with eZee’s in-house channel manager, booking engine, review management software, hotel loyalty program, and likewise. 

These comprehensive hotel management systems are transforming the traditional practices and enabling hotels to transcend their growth. 

Now, let us guide you on,

Benefits of having a one stop-solution for entire hotel management

By far, you must be substantially clear with the fact that having a suite of connected hotel software is all you need. 

Once you adopt such technology, you don’t have to worry about the hassles of using a standalone software. 

Above all, an all-in-technology benefits you in following ways:

Improves efficiency and accuracy

An all-in-one hotel technology automates all your operations and sets you free from managing them manually.

You don’t have to jump from one system to another to track the business performance, get access to the data or for anything. 

Ergo, all it takes is a right suite of technology to enhance your efficiency and emerge as a best hotel.  

Enhances your guest experience

Your guest’s satisfaction is directly relative to your services. 

Better the services, happier the guests!

Well, personalization is the key to make your guests happy. 

So, you can put efforts in delivering the best personalized guest experience. 

You can greet them personally, you can manage their requests and can walk an extra mile to enhance their state experience. 

Lets you focus on other business aspects

Automated and simplified operations with an all-in-one hotel technology, help you concentrate on other aspects of your hotel business as well. For instance, your hotel’s:

• OTA performance
• Online review management
• Reputation management
• Revenue and marketing management

…and the list could be endless.

In a nutshell, you can focus on N different elements of hotel business.

Optimizes your resource utilization

Your key resources are your staff, money and time. And the all-in-one technology solutions ensure you the optimal utilization of your resources.

Let us explain to you how. 

First thing first, it saves your time and efforts invested after staff training. Besides, your staff has to be trained only once. They need to have the knowledge of only one system. So they can use it and carry out all the functions smoothly.

In addition to this, the complete technology suite is as it is saving your time and money.