While peak season brings many benefits for hotels, it also presents several challenges for hoteliers. Apart from the ever-nagging problem of labor shortage and changing guest demands, they have to handle daily operations, including reservations, check-ins and check-outs, payments, etc. To be precise, they must ensure the smooth execution of all these activities. But the big question is how will they manage all these? Manually? No way. With technology? Yes, but which one?
The answer is Cloud-based Hotel PMS. Need more convincing? Then, hear it from Dev Kumar, AGM – Sales & Marketing, at Resort De Coracao.
Resort De Coracao is a hotel group with properties in Goa and Corbett, India. For loyal customers, the group’s properties offer elegant hospitality and modern sensibility. Now listen to him – “We ran our operations on a server-based PMS. Apart from not letting us manage group operations with central control, the solution couldn’t help us sell more online, and it restricted our operational capabilities and efficiencies during peak season business.”
Hoteliers with server-based PMSs across the globe are familiar with such issues, right? Then what makes this group so special, and why are we discussing it? Well, here is the answer. It migrated to the cloud with Hotelogix in 2020. However, we’re not discussing the group for that reason. Instead, we’re interested in the benefits they’ve experienced, such as increased sales, occupancy rates, and most importantly, improved operational efficiency.
As the festive and new year season in India picks up, more and more travelers get ready to book their accommodations, and hotels face a significant challenge – increasing operational activities and managing the surge of guests while maintaining high customer satisfaction. In all these, one crucial thing that matters the most is the kind of hotel property management system they have in place. This is an essential piece of software that automates processes, streamlines operations, reduces errors, saves time, and allows for better guest services. Moreover, it helps hotel groups centrally manage operations across multiple properties with a single sign-on, leading to better control over business processes.
Apart from centrally managing their properties from their Gurugram corporate office, they have been able to sell more online since migrating to the cloud. They sell rooms on about 10 OTAs, and real-time two-way integration with Channel Manager helps them with instant updates of rate and availability across all OTAs to maintain rate parity, sell more, and eliminate overbookings. Most importantly, this integration saves about 90% of their time daily allowing them to attend to guest needs.
Another noteworthy point is that the group has almost 100% occupancy from mid-November through December due to improved advance bookings. But is it ready to handle the peak season rush? According to Dev Kumar, yes, they are prepared for it.
“We can now efficiently and effortlessly manage guest reservations, check-ins and check-outs, room assignments, and billing from any location and device. It means our staff can manage guest services and operations on the go without being tethered to their desks,” says Dev Kumar.
Also, during peak seasons, the management at Resort De Coracao can scale up their Hotel PMS infrastructure to handle the increased demand. With the cloud-based PMS, they can quickly add new users, workstations, mobile devices, etc., to manage rush hour operations. “It ensures that guests receive prompt and efficient service, resulting in a better overall experience,” says Dev Kumar. On top of everything, newly hired staff can get started quickly as cloud-based Hotel PMSs are pretty easy to use.
Other important points we need to talk about are – flexibility and data security. Cloud-based Hotel PMS allows staff to access the application and data from anywhere, at any time. This means that they can work remotely and collaborate with each other seamlessly, even during peak seasons. Additionally, these solutions come with automated backups and disaster recovery features, ensuring their data, primarily guest data, is always secure.
Rush-hour hotel operations can be extremely hectic and challenging, with guests checking in and out, housekeeping and maintenance teams working to keep rooms clean and ready, and staff managing reservations and payments. In such a fast-paced environment, technology is crucial in streamlining operations across departments and ensuring everything is in tandem. In such situations, cloud-based Hotel PMS like Hotelogix is the only solution hotels across sizes and offerings need the most.
