Selling rooms is the bread-and-butter of a hotel’s business and maintaining occupancy at its peak is often a yearlong battle. Because of the unpredictability of guests’ traveling trends, hotels are on the constant vigil for new reservations even when occupancy is reasonably high. Cloud computing has unlocked new possibilities for hoteliers in this space and awareness of the impact that this technology can have is beginning to spread across the industry.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to revenue. Simply put, better management results in better efficiency – which in turn boosts the property’s bottom line.
Let’s take a look at how Cloud technology makes this possible –
1. Simpler Management:
Cloud computing has enabled the development of powerful tools capable of enhancing all-round management within a hotel, such as the Property Management System (PMS). A powerful management tool that was once only accessible to the larger companies, the PMS achieves this primarily through automation. By automating a number of repetitive tasks that used to be carried out daily by the employees, a PMS can improve the hotel’s workflow while freeing up the staff to spend more time with guests. The system also allows the front-desk personnel to interact with and update the rest of the hotel’s staff in real-time, so managers can prepare for any last-minute reservations without the usual hassle. This kind of improved management allows the hotel to properly optimize its resources and keep occupancy at its highest, also providing better returns for investors in the long run.
2. Fewer Errors:
Human errors, while unavoidable, have always caused hotels great distress. While it’s decidedly acceptable to make mistakes, guests are not likely to dismiss any flaw in their vacation and in today’s social media era, a single unhappy visitor can attract a lot of unwanted attention. The only choice the management is left with in such a scenario is to dip into the day’s profits to cover the cost of upgrading the unhappy customer’s level of service – a solution that can become very expensive. By automating a number of tasks and assisting the staff by providing them with useful updates on their devices, a cloud based PMS increases productivity while also lowering the odds of encountering human errors. It does this by creating an environment supplemented by highly standardized routines that put less pressure on the staff – improving the guest experience and encouraging loyalty. Over time, this enables the hotel to keep more rooms full.
3. Improved Integration:
Cloud has provided hoteliers with a variety of modern tools at an affordable cost. Hoteliers can now equip their property with distribution systems, revenue management systems, and other powerful software to gain an advantage over competitors. Cloud based software has allowed independent hotels to gain global visibility and sell more rooms by eliminating geographical boundaries. With thousands of Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) spending billions of dollars annually in marketing and promotion, tens of millions of bookings are made online every year. In addition, Cloud based systems allows hoteliers to grow with the technology – for instance, the recent onset of mobile technology could be easily implemented by a large number hotels because their service providers began incorporating these new technologies into their systems. Smartphones are now becoming an increasingly larger source of bookings and hoteliers using cloud based systems have benefitted from the increased sales.
The value of migrating to the Cloud has been gaining widespread prominence over the past few years as more and more hoteliers are coming to see it’s potential. Every few months, hospitality witnesses new breakthroughs in digital technology that are further enhancing the management capabilities of systems like the PMS, propelling Cloud computing to even greater heights.
By making the most of these advanced software platforms and the new-age infrastructure powering them, hoteliers around the world have been able to gain global visibility and enjoy streamlined management – privileges that were once beyond the reach of independent properties.