The hospitality industry has undergone rapid and radical changes in the past decade. People’s expectations from hotels have changed concomitantly. Gone are the days when travelers were content with checking in to motels for a quick nightcap.
Now, a hotel is far from being an incidental part of a traveler’s journey – it is the very destination one seeks. In the USA, people generally spend one to six weeks researching a hotel online before finally making a booking.
Hotels across the world are coping with these challenges by turning to hospitality software. Here are some of the solutions that hotel tech has provided to the hospitality industry.
Reservations Management:
Hotels are increasingly more concerned with maximizing room occupancy rather than seeking the highest profit per room. The reservations management system (RMS) ensures that this objective is met by accommodating dynamic pricing.
The RMS integrates with a hotel’s front desk and collates all bookings in real-time. It updates a hotel’s room availability, rates, and inventory to a host of other social media sites – including third-party travel agents and the hotel’s website.
Demand is matched with supply in real-time by allowing prices to fluctuate frequently. A consumer searching for rooms is immediately notified of vacancies and price changes, thus increasing the rate of conversion.
Online Booking:
According to Travel Daily News International, over 83% of US adults prefer to book their hotel rooms online. An increasing number of travelers are choosing to personally compare prices, reviews, and convenience online before booking. Barely 24% of them approached a travel agent for their previous holiday bookings.
A booking engine works by integrating the process with a hotel’s website or social media page. It blends property search, reservation, and payment functionalities into one seamless, convenient environment.
Customer loyalty is positively correlated with a good booking experience, and as is well known – it is nearly six times more expensive to attract new customers than to retain your old ones. With 5% more repeat customers, you can earn as much as 30-90% more profit.
A booking management system can optimize a hotel’s loyalty program by offering personalized discount coupons and goodie bags to users with active accounts on your website.
Booking Management:
Once a room is booked, the booking management system gathers and displays all the information in one place for the hotel staff. Bookings from different online and offline channels are sent to the housekeeping wing to prepare the rooms as per directions. The software also allows users to modify and cancel bookings.
Some booking solutions provide continuous customer support through chatbots. It allows the hotel to personalize the user experience by offering a virtual concierge service.
Reporting and Statistics:
A key benefit of the hospitality software is the amount of data it can collect and process. Booking data, for instance, gives information such as guest details, stay histories, room rates, and revenues. Hotels design their key performance indicators based on revenue and room rates.
Guest data gives valuable insight into customer demographics, preferences, and the revenue they generate. By connecting with the guests on social media, the hotels can build their public image to suit every demographic. At the back end of the hospitality industry, data on supplies and housekeeping can help in improving performance.
In summary:
Hotel tech helps in better management of hospitality property, reservations, revenue, and performance. It saves an employee’s time, allowing them to interact with more customers and make their stay pleasant. Additionally, with deep insight into consumer preferences, hospitality software can help a hotel provide the best customer service – building a steady base of loyal customers.
