Hotel management assignment - 2000 words essay
206LON: Business Management and Decision
Making Process
Week 5 – Seminar: Software-Generated Information for
Decision Making
Software-Generated Information in Hospitality
Information Systems Used in the Hotel Industry
Information systems in the Hotel industry refer to computer systems in a hotel that supply information about that hotel’s business operations.
Information systems typically include all computerised systems which are used to gather data continuously both for use internally and externally.
Information systems play a crucial role in the hotel industry as they facilitate planning, management, overall operations of the hotels as well as policymaking.
So where and how can we use hotel management software and why are they useful?
Financial Reports: A competitive hotel property management software provides you with financial and business reports regarding your hotel business. You can learn about room occupancy ratios, the duration of stay of your guests, payment collection methods, and similar statistical forecasts for your hotel.
2. Hotel Administration: Hotel property management software helps you learn and execute marketing drills, send promotional emails, organise staff training, and develop in-house communication systems to bring ease in the processes.
Food service management: Hospitality management Software can not only help send real-time information to kitchen units but can also track inventory, order goods automatically and assess profitability and improvement areas.
Accounting: With the options to carry out accounting, you can assess profits to cost ratios, prepare bills, and also make payments to vendors and travel agents.
Online Bookings and Reservations: With online booking and reservation options, you can manage your hotel website, offer room rates to customers, put new offers and deals over the internet, and book rooms for your customers based on pre-deposit policies.
Check-Ins and Check-Outs: Hotel management software
allows you to manage check-ins and check-outs of your
customers. You can allot rooms, print check-in cards,
receive online payments, and extend stays of your
customers through a single software.
Rate Management: It is very important to manage your rates for the successful running of your business. You can devise plans and provide your customers with variable room rates and offer discount deals.
Housekeeping: You can develop lists of check-ins and check-outs and manage their housekeeping. The software allows you to maintain communication with your housekeeping staff. You can assign rooms to maids, develop their task lists, and review room status before and after the housekeeping service.
Property Management Systems
(PMS)
What is Hotel PMS?
Hotel property management systems manage all aspects of hotel business operations, including the delivery of superior guest experiences. Traditionally, a hotel property management system (PMS) was defined as a platform that enabled a hotel or group of hotels to manage front-office capabilities, such as:
booking reservations,
guest check-in/check-out,
room assignment,
managing room rates,
and billing.
Hotel PMS NOW integrates to other onsite services that impact the guest's complete experience, including:
Food and beverage operations
Housekeeping and maintenance management
Sales and catering execution for group bookings and event management
Revenue management
Distribution across multiple channels
Spa management
The Advantages of Hotel PMS
The consumer's travel journey begins by selecting a destination while simultaneously shopping for a hotel. That pre-stay shopping and booking interaction, their on-property engagement with the hotel and its staff, their in-room experience, and their sharing of feedback on social media post-stay are all part of their guest experience.
Hoteliers are challenged with providing a personalised guest experience while operating an effective hotel business.
Hotel PMS offers many benefits for the hotel. They include:
| Hotel PMS Feature | Hotel PMS Benefit |
| Enhanced Check-In/Check-Out Capabilities | Provide anytime, anywhere service to your guests using a mobile-enabled cloud-based hotel PMS Untether your front-desk staff so they can check guests in, assign rooms, enable guest services, and check guests out wherever there is internet connectivity |
| Improved Housekeeping Service | Increase housekeeping efficiency with instant updates on housekeeping mobile devices when customers check out, freeing up rooms for cleaning Enable greater flexibility with room management and improve response time for room-service tasks Identify and manage room-maintenance needs, ensuring rooms are clean and in perfect condition |
| Integrated Hotel Back-Office Systems | Connect operations and financial processes by leveraging prebuilt integrations to accounts receivable, accounts payable, payment gateways, hotel industry applications, and property infrastructure devices Integrate accounts receivable and commission handling Ensure accurate guest folios for faster, more accurate billing |
| Effective Hotel Distribution Management | Increase room occupancy and ADR through real-time rate and availability management across distribution channels Boost sales through direct booking channels on brand website |
| Improved Hotel Revenue Management | Empower managers to improve ADR with extensive options for setting rates and advanced rate-management features for manual and semi-automated revenue management |
| Better Managed Customer Data | Centralize and secure customer data and improve the quality and accuracy of guest profiles Understand customer buying patterns so you can define more targeted packages and services Ensure compliance with national and international data-compliance rules |
Deploying Hotel PMS
Until recently, hotel PMS solutions were often managed on premises. On-premises solutions include hardware that can take up a lot of space. Resources were needed to manage the systems and software updates, upgrades, and patches needed to be scheduled and installed manually by onsite staff.
Cloud-based, mobile-enabled hotel PMS platforms offer hotels an innovative way to engage with guests while enabling hotels to reduce IT costs and simplify their infrastructure. The systems are administered by the vendor and are easy to use. Updates, upgrades, and patches are done automatically, saving hotels time and money.
The benefits of cloud-based hotel PMS solutions include:
Faster innovation With cloud-based hotel PMS, hotels can bring new properties online more quickly. Each new release brings new capabilities to help deliver great guest experiences, improve operating efficiency, and increase employee productivity.
Lower IT complexity and costs With cloud-based hotel PMS, hotels can lower upfront capital expenditure on software and hardware. By going above-property, hotels can also reduce IT complexity and IT costs.
Increase in RevPAR and ADR With cloud-based hotel PMS, hotels can effectively manage rates and allocation of rooms to various distribution channels, helping to maximize occupancy, rates, and revenue.
Enhanced customer lifetime value With cloud-based hotel PMS, hotels get a single customer master with comprehensive guest profiles that allow them to personalize and differentiate guest experiences.