What Are The Features That You Will Look for Before Purchasing a Hotel Management Software?

By Sudhir Kumar Singh

After 7 years of being in the revenue management business, I am sharing a bitter truth here that most of hotel revenue management software fail at what they promise. I would want a fully integrated software that can help me simplify all my operations. Might be possible to get everything from a single solution; however, I would be pleased if the following can be achieved:

On premise or cloud based?: More important for me is the decision whether I want to go with an on-premise installation or a cloud based model.

A cloud based model works well for small hotels and start-ups as it offers them great affordability, no tension for the regular software updates, technical support, etc. Pay for what you use, no hidden charges, and so on. But data security could be a challenge. Though I don't have detailed knowledge on how these cloud based hotel software provider ensure data security but it is definitely important for us - the hoteliers.

On the other hand, on premise hotel management software is good for hotels, which already have a great in-house technical support team.

Front office operations: I would surely want my hotel revenue management software to manage my front office operations seamlessly.

Pricing: Something with a robust algorithm to recommend me quality pricing, set my budget and target, Am I asking for too much?

Information about Reservation: Can tell me actual reservations

Monitors Competition.

Ease of use: There is no point in installing or hiring software that my team or I find difficult to use. I should understand each of its feature and be able to run it effectively; rather I should be able to make the most of it for my hotel. I do not want to go for the one that needs me to consult tutorials all the time.

Instead, it should be so simple that I should be able to write a tutorial to how to use it. Just KIDDING!

Detailed Reporting: It should help me with the data reporting and save me from pulling out manual reports. My sales data and revenue should be clearly before my eyes.

Scalability and customization: Customization must come handy. In case I need to align it with any of my additional systems or processes, that scalability must come at no cost or a lesser cost. I hope I am making sense.

Data security: As I have already mentioned above, this one stands crucial for me. Of course! I don't want to share my guests' data with anyone. What could be scarier than losing your business critical data to competition! A complete nightmare!

Invoicing: I should be able to generate a detailed invoice using my hotel revenue management software.

What are the pros and cons of rate parity in a hotels revenue strategy?

Hope you find this useful.

I am not an advocate of rate parity as I think it is a bad strategy for hotels and result into lost revenue for us. But there are just a few advantages, which are:

Successful rate distribution across channels: Hotels have the ease to distribute same pricing across channels.

Rate uniformity across channels: The customer does not get confused or feel skeptical about the given site. Moreover, he does not feel cheated that a better price was available somewhere else and that h/she has been duped.

Best Price: This benefit is more for the OTAs than hotels. LOL... The OTAs can guarantee the best price.

Unlike France that has come out of this rate parity agreement, we the ones who are already stuck should focus more on what we can do to maximize our revenue and let not rate parity impact us. I tried improving my guest experience by improving my facilities. This is bringing them back to me and I am enjoying offering them direct bookings.

BTW, think of an optimal hotel revenue management with an efficient tool.

Think of solutions offered by hotelline.com. It would help too. Cheers!

Click here know more about   Hotel Revenue Management Software and   Hotel Management Software