Hospitality Tech Vendors: one-stop-shop or best-of-breed plug-in?

From a technology perspective, the hospitality industry will continue to have a PMS-centric hotel tech stack approach. Today's PMS is the hotel 's command center for rooms and F&B management, sales and catering, distribution, availability, pricing, reservations, guest interactions, issue resolution, housekeeping, reporting, billing, guest communications, etc. and is often described as the central nervous system of the hotel operations.

The question is, what kind of a PMS? Luckily for our industry, the future is already here in the form of a cloud with Open API (application programming interface) integration platform. Ever since the emergence of the cloud-first PMS platforms Mews and Cloudbeds, and of Opera Cloud five years ago, there has been a monumental shift in the PMS vendor community's mindset: from closed system mentality to cloud PMS with Open API mentality.

I believe over the next 5 years the adoption of cloud PMS solutions will explode and this will be the highest growth component of the hotel tech stack, followed by revenue management systems (RMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.

Why the cloud PMS? Low costs, efficiencies, higher productivity and data security aside, in the near and mid-term any full-service 3-4-5-star hotel will need over 100 plus APIs with third-party tech applications and solutions to be able to function and meet the basic needs and wants of today's digitally-savvy travelers. These include AI Agents, contactless guest experience, mobile locks, issue resolution apps, guest messaging, virtual concierge, IoT devices and utility management, smart room technology, entertainment hubs, CRM programs, etc.

This type of connectivity is impossible or super expensive to achieve with a legacy PMS, which is hostile to any third-party interfaces by default. A cloud PMS with its Open API and integration hub/marketplace facilitating connectivity to hundreds and thousands of smart, innovative and much sought-after applications and solutions is the clear winner today and tomorrow. Good examples: The Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform with 3,000 API capabilities, StayNTouch Integration Hub with 1,100 APIs; Mews  Marketplace - 1,000 APIs, Cloudbeds PMS - 300 APIs etc.

So, the question is: should hospitality tech vendors aim to become a one-stop-shop or a best-of-breed plug-in? The above already provides the answer: unless you are a cloud PMS, your hospitality tech company should aim to become the  best-of-breed plug-in technology vendor in your category of expertise: Agentic AI platform, PMS, CRS, CRM, Channel Manager, etc.