What Advice Would You Offer to Hotels Choosing Their Tech-Stack?

“My approach focuses on independent hotels and small owner-operated groups. There’s so much going on in the hotel tech-stack landscape that it can be daunting for hotels to see where to go.

First and foremost, bring the stakeholders that are impacted by the tech-stack together to discuss the process and what they want or need to get out of it. Do a review of the current status, how the current tech-stack looks, what the problems really are, and how they want to move forward. Go step by step through the daily processes to bring everything together. This can’t be a solo project. Everyone needs to be included from the start. Involving key positions halfway through contract negotiations or the purchasing process will just add more time to the process or completely throw it off.

If the hotel or group doesn’t have an individual within the team who understands the world of interfacing, APIs, etc, then bring in a consultant. You need someone who can help translate the jargon and ask pertinent questions that may have been forgotten. Look at the full tech-stack and ask if supplier A can interface with supplier B, etc. Ask each existing supplier if they work together and how they do it. Get the full story, and don’t be afraid to bring them all around one table to map out the tech-stack. Marking out clear deliverables, timelines, and costs is vitally important.

I’ve found that independent hotels and small groups can get railroaded by charismatic salespeople. They’ll make it sound like their system will resolve all your problems. But don’t be afraid to say no and get help. Visit hotels with these systems and ask them for their input and advice.”

“First, make sure to go through the day-by-day operations of your hotel. What’s already in place and what could be improved? Which manual tasks are still in place, which spreadsheets do you use, how do you keep track of your reservations? Could they be replaced with systems, thereby saving you on manual hour input and delivering on speed? That might also help shift your input to a newfound focus on strategy.

Next, make an inventory. Include the nature of your hotel, whether you have many groups, if you’re a congress location, are a city center hotel, or focus more on transient guests. Are you in an area with a lot of competition or hardly any? These are all aspects to take into consideration when deciding on which systems to integrate. Make sure to demo a couple similar systems after you’ve decided on the needs of your hotel.

Do you need help? If so, don’t hesitate to ask an expert. If your automation is done at the right moment, in the right place, you can improve your results and ensure employees remain focused on your business. When setting up new systems also consider your integration with your other systems so you can analyze data in one central location.”

“The best advice I could give is “Less is more”. We sometimes try to provide our teams with a lot of technology, but users may not be able to adopt all of it. “Less is more” is a concept that applies to various areas of life, including technology. When it comes to choosing a tech stack for a hotel, “less is more” means that selecting a few technologies that are effective and efficient can be better than choosing multiple technologies that may not integrate well or provide unnecessary features. Here are some reasons why “less is more” can be an effective approach to tech-stack selection:

A) Simplicity: Fewer technologies mean less complexity in the overall tech-stack. This can help reduce training time, minimize errors, and streamline operations.

B) Cost-effective: Fewer technologies can be more cost-effective, as hotels may only need to pay for licenses and maintenance for a few tools. It can also save money on staff training costs.

C) Integration: Fewer technologies may integrate better with each other, allowing for seamless communication and data flow between systems. This can help reduce the manual work needed to transfer data from one system to another.

In conclusion, choosing a few, high-quality technologies that integrate well with each other can help hotels streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve guest experiences.

By following this approach, hotels can leverage technology to their advantage while minimizing the potential for confusion or inefficiencies caused by having too many technologies.”

“Simplify. More data doesn’t mean better results. Most of the time additional data simply adds to the confusion. BI tools are the “new thing” but most people can’t read the information correctly. So if you go for a vendor, go for the system that prompts you to ask questions. Systems that are simple enough for everyone to use. For example, systems that send you an anomaly report if something is “off” and which would ask you to check the current status. It might send you a prompt asking “Are you trying to buy occupancy?” or “High Risk of being overpriced”. If the user can’t make sense of a system then it’s all a waste.”

1. ” It’s important to always think about the long-term goals and ROI. It takes time, effort, and a testing period for any tool to be implemented and achieve full efficiency. For example, you wouldn’t want to change tools every couple of years.
   
2. Consider what’s important for your hotel – what are your requirements based on your business needs, objectives, and KPIs? What type of pricing approach do you need for your property? What types of segments do you want or need to optimize? What type of data do you need to be integrated with your tools – like rate shopping or reputation score. What type of Inventory controls do you need? What level of automation are you comfortable with? And what type of forecast models are available? You also need to consider your business type. If you’re planning to do total revenue management in the future then consider a tool that already offers it. Then compare different tools to see which one best suits your needs. It’s a good idea to see the demos so that you get a better picture of how the tools actually work. You can analyze how user-friendly they are and how challenging they’ll be to use on a daily basis. Don’t hesitate to ask specific questions either. They’ll be happy to help.
   
3. How long does it take for the implementation process and what will be required on your side?
   
4. See what types of updates are done and how often it occurs. Do they consider feedback from hoteliers to improve the performance of their tools?
   
5. How good is the customer service: Is it available worldwide and 24h? Who do you get in touch with when you face challenges?
   And finally, what type of training and support is included during the implementation process?”

“Ask around, and don´t get blinded by the light. There are great tools out there, but just because it´s the latest trend doesn´t mean it´s the right one for you. You might not need the most advanced RMS for a 10-room hostel. Likewise, you might not want your cousin´s BI when you run a large collection of hotels. Ask your industry peers, as they share your pain. Also, check on what’s available and what suits you through a marketplace. People within the markets tend to share great advice with each other.”

“The choice of technology should depend on an organization’s aims and align with its strategy rather than the other way around. Brands or hotels wishing to increase direct shares will want to find mechanics to engage with visitors in the booking funnel. Likewise, to motivate visitors to register into some sort of loyalty program or to the newsletter database. Depending on the depth of personalization one wants to pursue, it will be necessary to connect the website’s CMS, or at least the IBE, to the CRM to store customer information.

Conversion improvements can be done with the amazingly smart tools available for look-to-book-ratio refinement. The tools usually come with support for analytics, loyalty, and repeat visits.

Finally, when considering RMS it’s crucial to start with what you want the software to do. Is it an algorithm that’ll make smarter decisions for daily dynamic pricing, should it also improve decisions from group business, or is the main goal automation of revenue processes? For group evaluations, how important is it that ancillary revenues are incorporated into the room rate? Are you willing to offset ADR to revenues for other outlets? The tech-stack that will receive the decisions coming from the RMS, typically CRS and PMS, is also important. Make sure they can handle hurdle rates and restrictions coming from RMS.”

“Carefully consider which one you sign on to and base it on your budget, needs, and revenue manager experience.”

“In a word – flexibility. What’s right for you now may be what slows you down in 3 years. Chose a PMS that allows for quick API connections to a wide variety of solutions. If you have a group of hotels, you may also want to consider a middleware solution that de-couples the need for all guest data to live in the PMS.

The middleware allows for connections across the various software solutions a hotel might use (PMS, RMS, CRM, housekeeping, maintenance apps, etc), sharing only the information necessary for a smooth guest journey but allowing you to fully make use of them. For example, the CRM is often the sole domain of the marketing team. Middleware can connect this to your PMS while providing a single guest profile in the CRM. Your PMS would only be used for check-in/out and inventory management.”

“Before choosing to invest in your tech-stack my main advice would be to ask yourself the following two questions: What are my objectives, and do I have the right resources in place?

The first question should be in line with your overall strategy. The second question relates to a realistic assessment of your staff’s capacity and skills. Remember: The best return on your investment in tech-stack is the full adoption of the technology rather than the acquisition of the technology itself.

Having said that, there are a lot of options available on the market. And prices are becoming more affordable for everyone.

When choosing one system vs another I would advise clearly evaluating the following three points. First, the easiness and flexibility of system integration. Think about your current and future cloud ecosystem. From the PMS, to the RMS, to the CRM, to market intelligence, etc. Consider the granularity of data provided. Can you relate your revenue streams to the costs? Can you personalize your offers? How far can you analyze data compared to last year? And consider data reliability. How reliable is the forecast and suggested pricing?

Cost shouldn’t be the primary motivator of a choice. In the long run, “cheap is expensive”.”