Hotelogix’s co-founder, Aditya Sanghi, recently spoke to Travel Trade Magazine, Cyprus about how cloud-based technology solutions can help small and medium sized businesses cope up with the current trends. We give you bits from of his interview.
With the rising demand of innovative cloud property management systems in the market, small and mid-size hotels are realizing the significance of shifting to the cloud. Not only is Cloud PMS low-investment, the biggest advantage lies in the low maintenance cost as compared to legacy or license based software.
Aditya Sanghi speaks about how market dynamics have changed drastically in the past few years and how it has impacted the small and medium businesses in the hospitality industry. Read on.
On the benefits of switching over to cloud for businesses and hoteliers
For small and mid-sized hotels, there are few crucial elements that are required to drive revenue and efficiency. Apart from the functional essentials, such as in-depth front desk management plus integrated food, beverage and housekeeping, it is extremely important for the property management system to have simplified workflows for complex tasks, which enhances user experience and efficiency. The PMS should enable multi-tasking and be responsive enough to prevent users from making operational errors.
Changing market dynamics have also made it imperative for the PMS to drive distribution, especially for this segment, as room inventory is relatively less than larger hotels- so it needs to be marketed in the most efficient manner. Since staff attrition rates are very high in the industry, the PMS should also be simple to use and easy to adapt so that any newcomer can quickly start using it.
The changing dynamics of the hospitality industry have now made it possible for an independent hotelier to directly compete with higher starred properties on online marketplaces and provide service the same traveler. This change has made it imperative for hotels to have enterprise grade systems that can automate operations, in order to consistently deliver expected guest experience. Hence, cloud based systems are the best and can deliver results to cater to these requirements, within the resource constraints of this small and medium segment. These cloud based systems are also technology ready to drive distribution systems and hence interoperate with online marketplaces. Cloud based PMSs have acted as a great leveler in the hotel industry. With a cloud-based PMS, hotels can do away with extensive investments in upfront software and hardware costs of legacy PMSs. Premium cloud-based PMSs are designed or focused towards end-to-end automation of a smaller hospitality business and are best suited to inter-operate with online marketplaces. (Also Read: White Paper on Legacy verus Cloud Property Management System)
On Hotelogix targeting small to mid-sized hotels, not starred ones
The market dynamics have changed drastically over the past five to seven years and this has significantly impacted SMBs in the hospitality segment. The increase in the popularity of online travel booking has opened up the global market to the smaller businesses and has created business opportunities around the globe. To avail this growing opportunity, this segment absolutely needs to step up its IT enablement and automation. Hotelogix sees a serious void in the industry and there is a dearth of solution providers focusing on SMBs segment. Hotelogix is here to fill the gap by empowering those businesses.
On Hotelogix’s webinars illustrating the benefits of switching to cloud based solution
Hotelogix works on empowering the small and mid-sized hotels not just in terms of providing software solutions but also by exposing them to practices through which they can manage their hotels more effectively. Through the webinars, Hotelogix wants to reach out to hoteliers and empower them with the right tools to accelerate their hospitality businesses. It is heartening to see the level of confidence hoteliers have in Hotelogix that they take the initiative of participating in webinars. The webinars are very popular in US, UK, Argentina, Brazil and Spain, to name a few countries.
On the demand for cloud based technology in Greece and Cyprus
In Greece and Cyprus, most hoteliers still manage operations and distribution either manually or with legacy PMSs. Legacy PMSs are incapable of interoperating with online marketplaces, hence are a bad choice for tourism in Cyprus and Greece. Hotelogix, along with its Channel Partner hosted a webinar on 17 June, 2014 to educate and empower small and mid-sized hotels with the right tools to compete in the global online market-place. Hotelogix has good presence in Greece and will soon have a Greek interface to suit the local preference. (If you missed the webinar, you can watch it again by clicking here)
Cyprus on the other hand, is also accepting the change in the hotel industry scenario. Hotels are moving to cloud PMS as it is easier, secure and cost-effective to implement as compared to legacy PMS. This change is very slow but Hotelogix, with its efforts to educate the market and hoteliers, aims to bring drastic changes in these two markets in the years to come.
Hotelogix is a cloud based, end-to-end hospitality technology solution built to seamlessly manage hotels, resorts, serviced apartments or multi-location hotel chains. The software provides a single window to manage all hotel operations and bookings- online and offline. Hotelogix integrates with travel agent networks and external booking sites, providing a wider inventory distribution, along with real-time integration with partner sites, group booking websites, and other central reservation systems. With a presence in more than 75 countries, Hotelogix is used by both new hotels, hotels previously unable to afford such technology and hotels looking to replace legacy systems with a web-based SaaS which gives greater functionality and a higher level of integration for distribution of inventory.
Click here and turn to Page 19 to read Aditya Sanghi’s interview on Travel Trade Magazine, Cyprus.
