Before we start talking about chain hotels, let’s first understand what centralized management is? As the term suggests, it is all about managing organizational operations from a central location/office. There are undoubtedly many advantages that one entity can witness, and they are, for example – consistency across the business, efficient control over operations, clarity into departments’ activities, and clear direction for growth, etc. Quickly coming to the point – if you can centrally manage operations of your chain/group hotels, you are set to see success for sure.
Let’s dig a little deeper
1. Efficient multi-property operations
This is how you take the first step towards managing your chain hotels centrally. Say, for example, you have five properties spread across locations. You are at Property A, and you need to know the current position of Property B or C. Without a centralized capability, you surely have to call up your managers, right? Now, what if they don’t have the data you want? They would need some time to collect them before getting back to you. It also could happen that they are not at their desks. All these would lead to loss of time and even business opportunities.
Now, look at another scenario. You currently have an efficient enterprise-grade cloud-based hotel property management software at the core of your chain hotel operations. With this, you don’t even have to be at your property/office to know your chain’s position. Right from room vacancy to check-ins and checkouts, you get to see every detail on your mobile or any other handheld device from wherever you want to. Try visualizing this – you are on vacation, and you get a call from one of your corporate clients enquiring about ten rooms at Property A. Since you are now enabled with centralized operations, you have to look at your phone, and you are done. Isn’t it easy?
2. Centralized control
We know that, at times, you may find it challenging to monitor your entire infrastructure when you have multiple hotels spread across locations. To address this issue, you would need something robust to power up your operations. For example, a feature like single sign-on via your cloud hotel PMS will help you manage operations across all your properties. As part of your group-wide administration, get better control over chain operations by implementing group standards centrally.
3. Know your guests better
Yes. This is what you will be able to achieve with an efficient centralized operation. With the right application, you can access guest data captured at the time of reservation at any of your hotels. You should be able to capture their full name, type (FIT or corporate), gender, nationality, contact details, and special preferences, including likes, dislikes, payment methods, and room type booked during the last reservation/stay. Know them better; reach out to them with tailored offerings, and attract them. Once they are at your property, delight them and earn their loyalty. Remember, only happy and loyal guests will come back to you. Wait, there is more to it. They will also spread the good word about you on social media and hotel review platforms. What more do you want?
4. Improved profitability
Centrally manage and distribute rates across all your online/offline sales channels to increase occupancy and RevPAR. You can sell the inventory of all your member properties centrally from the group website and Central Reservation Office (CRO) with a single sign-on access. All these will help you sell more across all your properties leading to improved profitability.
5. MIS reports
You got it. We are talking about reports/data. When you are good at centrally managing multiple hotels, you will face almost no hurdle while accessing Management Information System (MIS) Reports. You will have a goldmine of reports on vital aspects like reservation, registration, cashiering, night audit, guest folio, housekeeping, and many more. The fun part is that you will have access to all these operationally critical reports in just one place. What are you waiting for? Analyze them; make informed decisions at the right time to boost your overall business.
Since you are now clear about the importance of centralized operations for your chain/group hotel, how about doing it now and doing it right? To expedite things, you can start with a smart cloud-based hotel management software like Hotelogix. It will help you adopt an efficient centralized approach to manage, track, analyze, and even optimize the constant flow of information across all your properties. Here are some compelling reasons to consider Hotelogix for top-notch multi-property operations –
- Single sign-on to centrally manage operations for all your hotels
- Centralized revenue management strategy
- Manage TA/Corporate profile from a central location
- Real-time room inventory management for your member properties
- CRO to manage all offline and online bookings
- Enable and push group-wide flexible pricing strategy to sell more
