Visioning a Post-COVID Era in Cloud PMS

Question

In this viewpoint, we asked 10 leading PMS providers to share their views and thoughts on how PMS will change in the post-COVID era.

Uli Pillau · Answer

Imagine all the chaos if you had to hire a consultant to come to your home and set up ZOOM on your computer at the onset of beginning of COVID-19. This is the state of “cloud” PMS technology in the hospitality industry. Coronavirus forced every one of us to take some time to reflect and, more importantly, reprioritize. I am confident that people put their relationships at the top of the list and without actively thinking about it, turned to technology. This was the solution to bridge the person-to-person gap while keeping each other safe and being more efficient. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that anything good has come out of the pandemic, it has pushed people to adapt to changes and get past their insecurities about being involved with technology. Through it all, people have shown the true creativity of the human spirit while also spread it online, bringing everyone just a little bit closer together.

Binu Mathews · Answer

At the outset, it is important to understand that a pandemic like COVID has changed life in its entirety. Behaviors, priorities, and expectations have changed. Many businesses, verticals or solutions that existed/exist today will need to undergo transformations. As in most industries, the hospitality and travel industries also need to adapt to the new normal. Spring back to the old normal cannot be expected. Recovery will be a slow and gradual process. Expectations and priorities will be different from guests and hotel management. Hoteliers will look for frictionless, touch-free and self-service solutions that can change the entire guest experience. Traditional PMS should evolve to cloud and mobile “front of the house solutions” that encompasses Booking, Check-in, Check-out, In stay, Restaurant and Self-service solutions. FX1 cloud & mobile platform from IDS Next is designed and developed to manage these future challenges.

Zen Valli · Answer

Let's face it; we've become complacent. If COVID has taught us anything, it's the need to shake up the way we engage and adapt technology in the hospitality industry. We've become accustomed to inherited practices and dated processes, trying to stay ahead of the game by investing in fancy customer-facing touchpoints but without keeping our technology stack in order. I met with a hotel chain recently where they had some sexy tech, but none of their systems collaborated, and their PMS was outdated; the need for hotel teams and manual processes to manage these systems was huge.

Warren Dehan · Answer

Today's hotel operations are about doing more with less and honoring regional social distancing guidelines. Reduced staffing levels means more work is falling to management and executive level teams. This, combined with new social distancing mandates and guest health concerns, is creating the new guest journey, one that relies more on technology than ever before. As the preferred cloud and on-premise property-management system (PMS) solution for independent hotels, Maestro has an obligation to provide service and support to our clients no matter what they need or how they need us.

Nicole Dehler · Answer

Although the COVID-19 lockdowns are finally subsiding, hotels find themselves caught in the horns of a dilemma: On the one hand, hotels face increasing pressure to greatly enhance their hygiene and social distancing policies. On the other hand, hotels themselves are reopening with reduced resources, and considerably smaller staff sizes. And they must do all of this while still maintaining exceptional standards of personalized service.

Jason Floyd · Answer

As much as the COVID-19 global pandemic has thrown the hospitality and restaurant industries for a loop, it has also proven an important point about the digitalization journey: Get started now if you haven't already. Leaders in hotels, casinos, and resorts have been doing that, sharpening their focus on the kinds of technology that can evolve and align their businesses with where the industry is headed. They've been asking the essential question: How will we be doing business in the future? This assessment has set them up to be in a better position now.

Laura Calin · Answer

As we all move toward a post-COVID era, Oracle Hospitality will be steadfast in supporting the hospitality industry. Since the beginning of this crisis, we've been continuously evolving to help the industry navigate and prepare for the “new next” and meet guests' rapidly changing needs. Our team is providing technologies and strategies to help hotels offer contactless or low-touch guest service and simultaneously be more productive and efficient. We've developed an innovative Automated Room Assignment solution that uses artificial intelligence to assign guests to rooms and allows hoteliers to efficiently manage room inventory and cleaning. Available in OPERA Cloud, this feature will help optimize room rotations to minimize wear and tear as well as take rooms out of assignment so that proper cleaning and disinfecting can take place.

Linda Vallner · Answer

Let's start by asking ourselves if there ever will be a post-COVID era - has the world not changed so much that we will one day look back and consider the time to be either before or after “VIRUS AWARENESS” became a global phenomenon? The time hospitality showed its resiliency, the time we went to virus-war and won. Because, of course, we will win. In the upheaval we are experiencing, technology and hotels fight side by side. Problems are being solved, and features are being developed. What will be the most significant changes for PMS?

Adam Harris · Answer

The Hospitality Industry has always been about taking care of guests ever since the first known facilities opened to travelers in ancient Greece. In the 1600s Innkeepers in France were required to register all travelers and the first notion of the PMS was born. But what if the PMS is about to disappear? Let's first look at consumers. Covid-19 has accelerated the use of mobile devices amongst all generations. With distribution channels severely disrupted and for lack of viable alternatives, services like Amazon and Instacart have soared. But what if this change in behavior is here to stay? The boundaries set by the virus are training generations of consumers on how to transact on their mobile phones for all their purchasing needs.

James Slatter · Answer

It is widely accepted that the world emerging from the current crisis, will be one shaped by the new norms and cultural evolutions that are taking place today. Hoteliers who are ready to welcome guests in an environment that emphasizes their safety and personal value, will be the first to recover. In the meantime, pragmatic solutions that empower hotels to 'do more with less' will help them weather the storm and strengthen short and long-term margins as the industry returns to growth. At Agilysys, our continually growing investment in R&D is being utilized to modernize the existing product portfolio and creating new products that enable hoteliers to leverage technology to enhance the guest experience. Many products we have released in the past year are no longer “nice to have” but are now “must have” solutions.

Visioning a Post-COVID Era in Cloud PMS

10 experts shared their view

10 leading PMS providers share their views and thoughts on how PMS will change in the post-COVID era

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Visioning a post-COVID Era

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