It’s finally happening.  

The hospitality industry is finally set to bounce back following a seemingly never-ending lockdown. Now that the industry is heading for its recovery phase, it’s time to reassess the tools you’ve used to run your operation – and see if you can do better. 

If your PMS had already been showing signs of weakness pre-Covid, it’ll only get increasingly out of step with today’s new guest expectations.  

Holiday bookings surged in the UK following the unveiling of the country’s roadmap out of lockdown. With the increase in demand, along with the increasing expectations, hoteliers need to be ready. 

Here’s five key reasons that you need to change your hotel PMS.

1. Your staff are frustrated with your current PMS

Sometimes, the opinions of your staff are all you need to evaluate your PMS. Are your staff complaining about the system crashing when they click on the arrivals list? What about having to do a complicated turnaround to place a deposit on a future booking? 

If members of the team are continually voicing displeasure using the PMS, don’t assume it’s because they’re using it incorrectly or need training. While that might be the case, there could be something much worse at play. 

Speak to the team and find out what it is that frustrates them the most about the PMS.  

2. You’re still updating OTA sites manually 

Managing relationships with OTAs has become even more crucial for hoteliers. According to a Google study, 52% of travellers will visit your hotel’s website after seeing you on an OTA.  

In addition to that, Expedia released a study saying travellers are 57% more likely to book a stay via an OTA than they were pre-Covid.  

In this age of the hospitality industry, there’s absolutely no reason at all to update OTAs with rates and availability manually.  

Your PMS should connect directly to the likes of Booking.com and Expedia and do all of the hard work when it comes to ensuring every website knows how many rooms you have free and what your latest rates are.  

It should sort out the incoming bookings for you, too, thus removing any chance of the dreaded double booking. 

If it doesn’t do any of this, you need to find a hotel PMS with a brilliant channel manager. 

3. You’re not seamlessly connected to your POS System 

How many times in the past have guests complained about their room bill or queried certain items on it? And how often are those transactions related to your F&B operation? 

Chances are, this is because you’ve been manually transferring charges from the F&B side of the business to room accounts. Did you know there’s a much better way of doing this that pretty much eradicates human error? 

A modern PMS should be able to connect to a host of POS systems. In doing so, it’ll enable bar and restaurant staff to automatically post food and drink bills to room accounts. Some will even transfer across the POS sales data into your main PMS accounts reports! This will increase your hotel upselling opportunities and ensure you maximise revenue on every guest’s stay. 

Imagine that… 

4. You’ve had trouble getting guests back 

Tempting guests to return to your hotel isn’t easy, even if they had a brilliant stay with you the first time around. 

In order to build great relationships with your customers that result in plenty of return bookings, you need to nurture them with email marketing and personalised guest correspondence. 

Can your hotel PMS send pre- and post-stay emails and SMS messages automatically? Are you able to export a list of customers that can then be imported into a modern email marketing tool? 

More importantly: are you making it easy to book directly on your website? 

If the answer is “no” to any of those questions, it’s time to get a new PMS – it’s that important. 

5. You’re falling behind competitors 

Your competitors’ room prices seem to flex more than yours and, as a result, they appear to know the secret sauce that draws in more guests. What gives? 

Why can’t you do the same? And why do you never really know what level to set your room prices at? 

The answer likely is that your competitors are using modern PMSs that enable them to flex rates strategically based on market conditions (which are unprecedented at the moment) and work from actionable, insightful data about past performance. 

Do you really want to be lagging because your system is no longer up to scratch?  

Wrapping up 

There is a silver lining to all this. Property management systems no longer cost an arm and a leg. Well, some do, but choose the right one and you’ll pay a manageable monthly fee that enables every staff member to use the system no matter where they are or what device they have on hand. Choosing the right one will also play a critical role in your hotel’s campaign to rebound in a post-Covid world. 

Is it time you replaced your PMS? 

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InnQuest Software is a leading technology provider for the hospitality industry. For over 25 years, innQuest has combined hotelier experience with innovative technology to deliver an all-in-one solution that empowers hotels to attract guests, drive customer loyalty, and increase profits. Our flagship Hotel Management System, roomMaster, helps manage over 5,500 properties across 100 countries. InnQuest develops scalable solutions ranging from a Hotel PMS, Cloud PMS, Channel Manager, Hotel CRM and helps properties enable guests to Book Direct. We believe that everyone deserves a great guest experience, whether they’re staying at a small B&B, a thousand-room resort, or anywhere in between. 

Call us today on +44 (0) 33 0100 1090, or email us at sales@innquestemea.com. We will be happy to walk you through InnQuest’s solutions. 

For US, please call +1 813 288 4900 or email sales@innquest.com.