Is your PMS driving demand and revenue or just delivering on operational efficiencies? — Source: Stayflexi

Hoteliers, is your property management technology working for you? Now, let me clarify that question. I don’t simply mean, is it working; rather, is it working for you? Are you utilizing your PMS platform to drive bookings and revenue? Because, if you ask me, it should be.

With the help of next-generation technology, hoteliers can effectively rewrite legacy processes, improve workflows, and unlock new standards of productivity and guest personalization. But beyond those operational efficiencies, platforms like the PMS should also moonlight as an integral revenue tool that effectively inspires guest engagement, boosts demand, and creates upsell opportunities to maximize profitability. In fact, according to Mashable.com, an average 150-room hotel utilizing a targeted upsell program can expect a 5-20% conversion rate, resulting in up to $65,000/yr or more in additional revenue.

So if a hotel’s PMS is the digital heartbeat of the property, shouldn’t it have the ability to drive revenue pre-arrival, at the front desk, and throughout a guest’s stay?

The Role of the Modern Hotel PMS

The modern hotel PMS should be able to wear many hats. As a centralized hub of activity, transactions, guest profiles, and data, the ideal PMS should be a one-stop solution for sales, marketing, and operations that includes the following:

  • A single platform and single sign-on
  • User-friendly interface
  • Rate and inventory management
  • Point of sales (POS)
  • Autopayments
  • Group booking management
  • Mobile app or mobile functionality
  • Self-checkin/check out and upsell
  • Users and access controls
  • Revenue management
  • Channel management
  • Reputation management
  • Website & Booking Engine
  • Centralized reservations
  • Housekeeping management
  • Marketing (email and SMS)
  • Smart door locks
  • Custom reports
  • 24/7 support

Within these core features, a hotel PMS should look to leverage the power of automation. By automating front desk touch-points such as check-in, room allocations, room upgrades, and more, hotels can reduce the operational burden placed on hotel staff while giving guests more autonomy over their experience.

Some guests will prefer to utilize self-service options throughout their stay, while those who prefer an in-person exchange will benefit from more attentive hotel personnel at the ready. PMS automation can also give guests the freedom to change their booking, whether to capitalize on an upgrade or extend their stay on an hourly basis. Using this feature, hotels can intelligently auto-allocate the best rooms for each guest, seamlessly drive additional revenue on otherwise unsold rooms, and delight guests with the ability to completely customize their stay.

Now more than ever, flexibility and personalization double as a service that hotel guests are more than happy to pay for. As technology continues to unlock new levels and standards of data-driven personalization and convenience, hotel guests are increasingly interested in offers that are seamless and tailored to their needs and preferences.

Simply stated, guests are willing to pay more for the services and experiences that are relevant to them, and utilizing platforms that reduce friction and dynamically engage with guests using their data will help hotels win more bookings, create more impactful touch-points, and generate more relevant upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

A Flexible Solution That Delivers Maximum ROI

A truly modern, flexible PMS should be an all-in-one solution – not like its legacy predecessors, which are rife with limitations, but rather, a digital ecosystem built upon an open API framework. With this in mind, we designed the Stayflexi platform to come out of the box with an end-to-end PMS, plus channel manager, upsell engine, booking engine, and revenue manager - without the need for additional systems or integrations.

With the built-in channel manager, hotels can automatically distribute their rooms to agents anywhere in the world, including OTAs, retail travel agents, Meta Search Engines (or aggregators), and Global Distribution Systems (GDS), while instantly syncing with their PMS to ensure application congruence.

Using the revenue management feature, hotels can leverage autopilot pricing based on revenue targets while benefiting from a built-in rate shopper that helps hotels anticipate demand and optimize availability and pricing to set the best possible rates.

At the same time, the booking engine instantly turns hotel websites into a high conversion direct bookings channel via the power of flexible bookings, which empowers hotels to win direct business over OTA competitors, avoiding the high commissions.

Finally, our Magic Link feature connects hotels with their guests throughout the entire life cycle of the booking, without the need for a native app (but with all the benefits of one). Using their phone, guests can follow the ‘magic link’ to check in or out online, select upgrade offers, opt for late check-out, purchase add-ons or experiences, and conduct contactless payments. And, 80% of customers prefer to self-serve in order to get the information that they need.

With this functionality built directly into the platform, hotels benefit from enhanced operational efficiency and an influx of revenue opportunity that has traditionally slipped through the cracks of legacy technology and broken processes. After all, you only have so many rooms to sell, once a day. Every room that goes unsold or not sold at the highest possible rate is a lost opportunity.

So, hoteliers, let me ask you again – is your PMS working for you? If not, is it time to change that?

About Stayflexi

Trusted by over 1300+ leading independent hotels, luxury resorts, multi-property groups worldwide, Stayflexi is the industry's first fully automated all-in-one hotel management and automation platform.

Reshaping a legacy hospitality technology landscape, the modern, cloud-based solution provides integrated PMS, Guest Upsells, Channel Manager, Booking Engine, and Revenue Management tools under single sign-on. Packed with powerful features to streamline and automate operations while increasing staff productivity and guest satisfaction, Stayflexi can help hotels maximize profitability. Self-service options like self check-in/check-out, touchless POS, auto room allocations, and auto inventory management can reduce operational costs by 50%, while the upsell engine can increase bookings by 30% while enhancing the guest experience.

The company was founded by computer science majors from Carnegie Mellon and Cornell to address their own problems as hosts as well as travelers and currently serves over 23,000 rooms in 100 cities across 13 countries.

Steve Carran
Sales Director
+1 844 234 2363
Stayflexi