Where does the hotel PMS sit in the new hospitality technology stack?
HospitalityNET World Panel Topic
When it comes to hospitality technology, we may all agree that hotel PMSs are at the top of the food chain. It’s semantically already in the name itself: a PMS is the SYSTEM used to MANAGE your PROPERTY. This gives the software connotations of centrality in operations. However, a new wave of leaner systems is rising: hotel PMSs are becoming “hubs” rather than all-in-one solutions, using open APIs to allow users to plug in other hotel software and tools as needed. These systems are less about “managing the property,” and more about integrating third-party software.
In this environment, where do hotel PMSs sit in one’s tech stack? Is the classic notion of PMS outdated? Will the future of hotel technology be less reliant on PMSs as we know them?
TRAVHOTECH View
What is required is a system, whatever it is called, that allows for the configuration of different product types that can have inventory, availability and price and be sold to a customer in the same digital or traditional method that a room is offered today.
In the hospitality industry the one point of commonality in the product offering is the room. The smallest hotel or inn or BnB at a minimum will have some rooms even where there are no other product offerings.
This is the basis for the central nature of a hotel PMS software as whether you are an independent stand alone hotel or a massive international brand, everyone has rooms and room types, price, availability and ultimately reservations needs to sit somewhere. Guess where it is?
With that said the broader challenge is that our business platform remains tied to the view of the room as the product and more often the only product. Everything else that might be offered for sale is usually a non inventoried product with no genuine rate/price structure based upon availability and demand. This is the area that the development of the ‘PMS’ is falling short.
What is required is a system, whatever it is called, that allows for the configuration of different product types that can have inventory, availability and price and be sold to a customer in the same digital or traditional method that a room is offered today.
The approach that is taken with the types of transitional hotel PMS software described in the question is that they are leaning towards a digital environment where most of the heavy lifting will eventually be achieved by the customer in an increasingly self-service world. Not so much of the work and process handled by the traditional role of hotel staff.
As long as we need to store room types, rates and availability the important role of the system will remain. The location (on or above property) and the consolidation (single property vs multi property) may morph but the process and management of this information will remain necessary for all interested parties.
I would like to see the ‘PMS’ move into a broader sales platform beyond the room. Quickly. We are well overdue.
TRAVHOTECH reviews a year of dialogue and opinion through contributions to HospitalityNET’s World Panel topics in 2021. We’ve been pleased to able to offer our thoughts and experience on several important topics through our participation in the World Panel in 2021. Viewpoint first published on HospitalityNET Worldpanel for Information Technology in August 2021.
