By Jeff Sefton
During the hotel property management software evaluation process you should be asking the PMS vendor if the system you are considering is Payment Card Industry, Data Security Standard compliant.
It is the hotelier’s responsibility to protect their customers’ personal information including credit card numbers. Since hotels accept payments from guests and deposits for reservations, [...]
By Jeff Sefton
Select the Project Manager.
Determine the budget and get sign off.
Select the Evaluation Team.
Define the property type and identify who the guests are.
Identify business needs and identify guest needs.
Drill down and identify specific needs in relation to the property management system.
Research property management system vendors that offer the majority of features that match the [...]
By Jeff Sefton
Aphrodite Caserta, Director of Marketing & Communications at Safari West shares her experience regarding the hotel property management software evaluation process.
Tell me about the process you went through to purchase a property management system for your business.
“We completed a thorough needs assessment for the property and determined that we needed to move from [...]
By Jeff Sefton
A hotel sales team will work with Wholesalers to help fill hotel rooms. A wholesaler will be provided with a special negotiated rate which is typically based on the number of occupied rooms that are being guaranteed to the hotel over a determined period of time.
Wholesaler Functionality
Wholesaler functionality allows you to hold [...]
By Jeff Sefton
Guest History is an important property management system module because it helps your business build guest information in order to help facilitate better customer service and repeat business.
Guest History is generally made up of contact information gathered during the reservation process including:
Name, address, phone number, email address, etc.
Rates and room types booked on [...]
By Jeff Sefton
If you handle groups at your hotel you will require group functionality within your property management system. A group could be a wedding party, corporate function, convention, tour group, an airline crew, etc.
Group functionality allows you to:
Hold a block of rooms for a group
Enter a complete rooming list for the group
Have guests book [...]
By Jeff Sefton
Housekeeping is often one of the last departments that is consulted during the evaluation and purchase of a hotel property management system. Housekeeping is usually one of the larger departments in a hotel or resort, so providing that division with the tools they need goes a long way to:
Facilitating improved guest service
Contributing to [...]
By Jeff Sefton
In the last post we discussed creating the high level requirement list for your hotel. Now let’s take a look at breaking down that list into more detail. This can be a time consuming endeavor…but it’s well worth the effort.
This process will help your team cover all the bases while making your needs [...]
By Jeff Sefton
After your property management system evaluation team has been formed, it’s time to begin building a “high level” system requirement list.
These initial requirements will get broken down into a more detailed list at a later stage – at this point think about the system in modules such as:
Front Desk
Reservations
Housekeeping
Accounts Receivable
…and so [...]
By Jeff Sefton,
Choosing a strong and diverse evaluation team to help select the best tools to run your hotel is a good first step in gaining buy-in from your hotel team – It is important to have everyone on-board when a new property management system is selected for your property.
Everyone involved in your organization from [...]