The modern hotel operation is no likely as it use to be in early times in today’s world there is fierce competition in the hospitality industry and it makes the modern hotel operation more complex as every hotel thrive to excel in each area of operation with the aim to provide more delightful stay for its guest this complex operation is very hard to manage it manually and also it increases the margin of errors and sometimes it end up burdening the operational staff with excess amount of work.
Thus, to manage the entire operation with ease and achieving the desired results the hotels needs an software which can streamline the various task and can integrate them for a smooth operation. This is where a PMS system played a very vital role as it is able to integrate the various operational departments which helps to streamline the process by ensuring proper information distribution, this enables the operational staff to take proper measures as required by each and every individual guest providing them a more personalized service and helping in creating a “WOW” moment for them.
The main benefits of a PMS system are as below.
Swift Service Delivery:
A PMS system helps in swift service delivery as it allows sharing any vital information among the operational staff of various departments and any guest request can be taken up in no time, also the system stores each and every information about the guest as his likes or dislikes any special request made by the guest. This makes the job easier for the operational staff to cater every guest according to their need as proper information distribution also helps to establish proper coordination to get the job done in minimum required time.
Interdepartmental Co-Ordination:
As discussed earlier it helps to establish interdepartmental coordination and ensures proper information and communication flow among all the operational staff which results in error-free operation and proper service delivery as in hotel operation it demands a high standard of interdepartmental coordination to create a memorable stay for the guest right from the time of check-in till the guest checks-out for eg. During the pre check-in process the front office needs to coordinate with housekeeping to get the rooms ready, with the F&B and kitchen to circulate any information pertaining to guest allergies or any special culinary request from the guest. Also, the front office needs to coordinate with travel desk if there is any pickup request is made by the guest. All these coordination becomes very difficult if it has to be done manually thus, PMS system helps in establishing coordination and enables to track them.
Data Security:
As business data or market data is supposed to be the lifeline for any hotel as it is the collected data on which it attempts its business expansion and it is being always a tough job for the hotels to maintain its data in secure way and protect it from any type of threats.
A PMS system helps the hotel to maintain the data in a secure way as the hotel can store its entire data in the PMS server and as the system is not accessible by everyone making it difficult to intrude by any unauthorized user.
The system also helps to maintain the data for any future references which enables the hotel to be in touch with the guest even after his checkout and enables the hotel to run any promotion from time to time to the guest who has stayed with the hotel or making then feel special by sending greetings on their birthday, marriage anniversary etc.
Apart from the above points a robust system also helps the management in making a future decision and setting up realistic approaches based on historical performances and helps the hotel to reach to its desired objective.
Mass Market Reach:
The biggest issue addressed over here, the hotel PMS system is able to establish a link with the online sales channels which takes a direct inventory status feed from the PMS and avoid any overbooking or under booking situations. As in today’s- times, it is the need of the hour for the hotels to showcase themselves on the online platforms. Thus, it becomes very cumbersome for the reservation staff to manage the inventory across all the channels at the same time manually. A cloud based PMS system helps to establish an link with the online sales channels and automate the process of inventory distribution among all the various channels which minimizes the human intervention and make the process error free.
Budget Friendly:
As in today’s time there are numerous companies providing PMS system solution to the hotels which are available in various budget in today’s time the most popular among them are cloud based PMS system which is not as costly as it use to be and is also has the flexibility of getting customization as per the specific needs of the hotel. Thus, making it possible for all the hotels even small case hotels to upgrade themselves to latest technological development and been able to explore new business opportunities and expand their business horizons.
It also helps the hoteliers to focus and allocate higher budgets for upgrading the hotels with latest amenities to create a comfortable stay for their guest.
User-Friendly:
This use to be a backdrop for the PMS system as before PMS systems used to be command based interface which makes them little difficult for the users to perform a task in the PMS as it requires a certain set of skills for a user to be able to operate the earlier PMS system but in modern era the cloud-based PMS has eliminated this backdrop and now it has a very user friendly UI and has evolved as one of the major benefits for the hoteliers as it gives the advantage of easy to use to the hotelier and the operational staff and helps in uplifting the service standards and swift service delivery.
Easy Access:
One of the greatest benefits gained by the hotels from a cloud-based PMS system is the ease of anywhere access as the new era cloud-based system does not work on individual server base and does not have the area and system limitation as the new era PMS can be accessed from any part of the world and also from any device even from a smartphone this has uplifted the service standards drastically and enables the staff to be active at any time from the ease of their place.
Better Control:
A hotel PMS system helps to streamline the entire operational process and it able to store all the information in one place which helps in better control and monitoring for the management to make more accurate forecasting and lay realistic future goals and create checkpoints to have more closer look on day to day advancement to avoid any kind deviation from the path to attain desired results.
In hospitality industry it is always been guest centered and that is why there is a famous saying as “Atithi Devo Bhava” means guest is God and with the advent of time and new business ways coming up it is the urge of time for hotels to equip themselves with the latest technological advent to be in the competition.