Originally the domain of the reservation office, the hotel Property Management System (PMS) now integrates well beyond the front desk. With recent developments in technology, the PMS is now a critical business operating system.
What is a Property Management System (PMS)?
Hotel front office systems, once laborious spreadsheet-based, paper-intensive – are now widely managed by software platforms which take care of reservations, check-in/out, room assignment, rates and billing, referred to generically as a PMS.
With recent developments in technology the PMS is now a critical business operating system running the complete guest ‘experience’, integrating with food and beverage, housekeeping, maintenance and managing multiple channels and locations. The PMS enables hoteliers to manage and monitor the key metrics such as average daily rate, occupancy, and RevPAR.
There are hundreds of systems on offer, aimed at a wide range of venue sizes, with many new entrants becoming real contenders for the larger independent chain.
What does a PMS do?
There is an entire new generation of all-rounder cloud-based PMS platforms. These platforms allow for rapid deployment of new features which means innovation is constant. Cloudbeds, Lodgify and Clock PMS, all put the ‘guest first’, as opposed to legacy systems which were transaction-based. These tend to feature a wide range of guest-facing features and engagement tools, along with fully automated online distribution, rate intelligence, hotel F&B and POS (Point of Sale) solutions. Some offer self-check- in, auto-emails, digital room service, OTA (Online Travel Agent) distribution, commission-free direct bookings, and MICE, integrated in a single system and accessible with a single login.
Established players like Oracle, offer a cloud-based PMS, Opera, which handles standard reservations, checks guests in and out, assigns rooms, manages room inventory and handles accounting and billing.
Other PMS’s (such as WebRezPro, highly ranked by Gartner) have functions beyond booking capabilities, managing PBX and voicemail, electronic lock, entertainment systems, channel management, sales and marketing and call accounting.
Integrating PMS with other services
A hotel can link its services into a unified network. For example, Hotspot Manager can integrate with your hotel loyalty app and your hotel PMS enabling you to identify guests by their mobile device for seamless integration with other services such as POS, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) framework, CRS (Central Reservation System), payment gateway, revenue management system, sales, and catering system, WiFi, mobile check-in check-out program, door lock, or an accounting system.
How can a unified network help with your PMS?
For many hoteliers, the PMS is responsible for the entire guest experience and it’s smooth operation is mission critical. As the services run over the unified network, it must be extremely robust. It needs to handle the demands of cloud-based apps, greedy guest bandwidth usage and multi-layered security.
Vital WiFi provides 24/7 guest and staff support and supervises the network remotely to ensure all is running as it should; providing optimal service across the entire building at all times. With a unified network, there will be no need for endless hours of maintenance from multiple service providers and an army of IT technicians.
Put confusing hotel WiFi solutions in the past and modernise your services with Vital WiFi. Talk to one of our friendly technicians for more information on our services and how to get started.
