There is no doubt that changing your hotel property management system can be disruptive to your business, your team and your guests. Anyone that has been through the replacement of software that is an integral part of their business will agree.

Preparing your entire team mentally and making sure they are organized to make the change is critical to the success of your switchover to a new property management system. The time to get everyone excited about the change is during the preparation stage.

Preparation Stage

The preparation stage begins during the evaluation process and will continue into training and implementation of your new property management system. If the targeted implementation date is in the near future,  the evaluation process will need to overlap with the planning of the implementation phase.

Some factors that may affect the timing or urgency of a change in your property management system are:

• Current property management system is at the end of its life cycle and needs to be replaced.
• Franchise agreement ending, the business is dropping the flag (going independent, no longer a franchise).
• Purchasing a Hotel or Resort and the existing property management system is not part of the deal.
• Opening a new Hotel or Resort and you require a property management system.

Once you have purchased a Property Management System, your Hotel PMS vendor will assist with the planning process. However, the Project Manager and hotel management team responsible for the evaluation need to step up to the plate and lay the foundation – since it all starts prior to the purchase and during the Property Management System evaluation.

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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, and process and store this information in their Property Management System and On-line Booking Engine, it is necessary that the Hotel management understands the importance of payment card industry compliance (PCI) and what it means.

Your Hotel does not want to be in the position of having a system breach where your customers have their personal information exposed. This sort of situation has the potential to lead to a public relations nightmare for your business. Making sure that your Property Management System Vendor is in compliance with the Payment Card Industry standards helps reduce risk to your customers and your business.

However, it’s also important to understand that using a compliant PMS does not eliminate the possibility of a system breach – Using a PCI compliant vendor is just one of the steps you need to take to reduce risk to your customers and your business.

Image Credit: Purple Slog

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By Jeff Sefton

1. Select the Project Manager.
2. Determine the budget and get sign off.
3. Select the Evaluation Team.
4. Define the property type and identify who the guests are.
5. Identify business needs and identify guest needs.
6. Drill down and identify specific needs in relation to the property management system.
7. Research property management system vendors that offer the majority of features that match the needs assessment.
8. Create a potential vendor list.
9. From the potential Vendor list, break it down to a short list of 5 or less PMS Vendors.
10. Arrange and participate in system demonstrations by Vendors from the short list.
11. Make the decision.
12. Ask for references and contact them.

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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 a manual to a computerized system to meet the growth and unique needs of Safari West. We felt that by automating our reservation system it would enable us to enhance the guest experience and maximize our profits.

Once decided, we appointed a project manager and put together the project plan. We then developed a Request for Proposal (RFP) based on our needs analysis.

Here is how the rest of the process unfolded:

1. We conducted some research:
   • We started by calling the General Managers at similar size properties and asked questions such as what property management they were currently using? We used our Property/Reference Questionnaire to conduct the interviews.
   • We reviewed our marketing plan, defined our guests, demographics, etc.
   • We went on-line to gather information and read white papers about hospitality systems.
2. From there we developed a ‘long list’ from the research we conducted with similar properties and from information we gathered on-line.
3. We contracted an IT specialist to provide an assessment of our current infrastructure and make a recommendation (factoring in projected total cost of ownership) either to support a client server based system or a web-based system.
4. We then developed a ‘short list’ of five vendors to contact and set up demos.
5. We put together a document listing the key benefits of each vendor and the key concerns as they related to our RFP and needs analysis.
6. We prepared a recommendation to the property owners based on our research and analysis, taking into consideration all intangibles benefits including references, how long they have been around, are they keeping up on the latest trends, do their people have extensive experience, as well as price comparisons, model comparisons, support and training, interfaces with standard protocols, and web model vs. client server model. “

What were the 3 most important things you considered when making the purchase?

1. “The program needed to be easy to learn and could be fine tuned to our operation.
2. Will they be around in the next five years? Who are the people within the company – do they have experience in the hotel industry? The more experience, the better the program, training and support.
3. The program needed to match our operating style and should have more features than we thought we could use…we didn’t want to outgrow the system.”

Did it matter to you if the property management system was web based or server based?

“Yes. We decided on a web based system. Most client server systems required that we own the software and install the programs on several computers.

The upkeep with upgrades and the cost of hiring an IT person to keep the system running would be very expensive. In contrast, a web based system allowed us to have someone else run the software remotely over live Internet connections. The onetime cost of a web based system vs. recurring costs associated with leased or purchased equipment such as software maintenance, server hardware maintenance, network support, database support and other contingencies was a huge savings.”

Now that you have purchased a property management system do you feel you made the right decision and if so what do you think were the most important parts of the process that led to that decision?

“Yes, indeed – we made the right decision. The most important part of the process was the developing the project plan and the project team. Defining our needs, getting the right people in the organization involved, building the business case as to return on investment, working with all the end users and getting their commitment and support, and finally, establishing a change procedure involving all the end users.”

What would you deem to be essential to the success of this project?

“Our team’s commitment was essential to the success of this project.”

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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 a block of rooms for a wholesaler and book those rooms out of the group block at previously negotiated wholesaler rates.

A wholesaler reservation is not the same as a typical reservation – It is necessary for a wholesaler to book reservations and obtain their preferred room rate while having their reservation take inventory from an assigned block of rooms.

Here are functions that you should look for when evaluating a property management system’s wholesaler module:

• Wholesaler confirmations
• Wholesaler pickup reports
• Pickup from Wholesaler block
• Wholesaler statistical reports
• Ability to set predetermined wholesaler rates
• City Ledger/Account receivable billing
• Ability to add additional hotel services
• Group check-in entire group or individually
• Group check-out entire group or individually
• Ability to assign room numbers to reservations booked by wholesaler
• Ability to quickly create ongoing wholesaler blocks for seasons or entire year
• Ability to drop unbooked rooms from the block by set number of days prior to arrival date
• Ability to split charges for incidentals and room and tax charges for wholesaler reservations

Image Credit: Alan Levine

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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 previous stays and the dates of those stays
• Previous source of business information i.e GDS, website, walk-in, etc.
• Market segment information i.e. AAA member, a corporate account member, convention guest, independent traveler, etc.

Guest history can also be used to track special guest requests. For example, if a guest prefers a lower floor or is allergic to feather pillows, it is helpful to record this information to anticipate guest needs for future stays.

Other Important Guest History Functions

• Exporting data for email marketing, direct mail campaigns, etc.
• Interfacing to systems that focus on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and/or guest loyalty programs

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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:

1. Hold a block of rooms for a group
2. Enter a complete rooming list for the group
3. Have guests book their own rooms individually out of the group block

Group business can represent a large part of a property’s revenue, so hoteliers are always looking for ways to make it easier for their group business customers to book accommodations. In addition, providing the ability for group customers to book their rooms online is becoming an essential service requirement for many hotels.

Not a Typical Reservation

Group reservations are unique because clients:

1. Need to get their preferred room rate AND
2. Have their reservation remove inventory from a preassigned block of rooms

Here’s an example:

• Bob and Sally have guaranteed the hotel that they will bring 250 wedding guests that will stay over at the hotel the night of their wedding
• The hotel group coordinator has offered them a special rate based on Bob and Sallys guarantee that their wedding group will occupy 125 rooms
• The group coordinator provides Bob and Sally with a booking code that will be given out to their wedding guests
• Their guests may phone direct to the hotel or book their own reservation using the online booking engine on the hotel web site
• By using their code during the booking process the room is taken out of the guaranteed block of 125 rooms and the guest gets a special room rate as part of the Bob and Sally wedding group

Here are some more group functions that you may want to consider when evaluating a property management system for your lodging business:

1. Group confirmations and deposits
2. Ability to split charges for incidentals and room and tax charges
3. Master folio for Group and individual folios
4. Group Notes
5. Ability to add additional hotel services
6. Ability to assign room numbers to group members
7. Ability to import group rooming lists
8. Pickup from Group Block
9. City Ledger/Account receivable billing
10. Group check-in entire group or individually
11. Group check-out entire group or individually
12. Ability to drop unbooked rooms from the block by set number of days prior to arrival date
13. Group pickup reports
14. Group statistical reports

Image Credit: Jacob Botter

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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 human resources by aiding in cost reduction through efficiency

There are two primary concerns that the housekeeping department will have with regards to the property management system:

1. Access to easily read screens and reports so they know the the status of rooms at any given moment
2. Having the ability to easily update room status in the property management system

Some Functions to Consider

Phone System Interface

• This offers housekeepers the ability to update the room status (set the room as “clean”) in the property management system by simply keying in a code on the guest room telephone
• When the supervisors follow with their inspections, they may then punch in a code to designate the room as “inspected”

Tracking and Reporting Maintenance Items

• It is also the responsibility of the housekeeping department to manage out of order guest rooms that need repairs or upgrades to keep them up to standard.
• Tracking and reporting of maintenance items is essential, as is having the ability to keep a history of these items to spot trends or for future reference.
• The ability to track maintenance on common areas such as lobbies, meeting rooms, public washrooms and health club areas is key in keeping those areas up to acceptable standards as well.
• Keeping service standards high includes the efficient tracking and management of maintaining your hotel and keeping it looking good.

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 crystal clear
• The goal is to end up with a detailed evaluation checklist to meet your business needs
• Keep it as simple as possible and continue to ask yourself if an item on the list is need or a want
• This list should be reserved for must have functions – you can keep a separate list for functions that would be nice to have

“Must Have” Functions by Module

Take your high level list (modules) and start listing must have functionality under each module heading – Break the modules in manageable sections.

Let’s use the reservations module as an example. Within your module headings create summary sections such as creating a guest reservation, modifying reservations, reporting and so on.

Creating a guest reservation

• Independent guest reservations Check list
• Source of business related to the reservation
• Market segment related to the reservation
• Reservation deposits
• Attaching Travel Agent information for commission tracking
• Email/print guest registration card
• Select from a variety of room rates and change room rates
• Process no show reservations
• On-line Booking reservations
• GDS reservations
• Modifying a guest reservation
• Cancel a reservation.
• View and change guest address and contact information.
• View or change arrival and departure dates (length of stay)
• Add, view or change guest notes or requests
• Change or remove a travel agent that is linked to the reservation
• Change rate.
• Reservation Reports
• Productivity reports
• Forecast reports
• Consumption reports
• Statistical reports
• Group reservations (you may consider taking the items from your reservations module list that apply to the group module to start your list for the group module.)
• Wholesaler reservations (you may consider taking the items from your reservations module list that apply to the wholesaler module to start your list for the wholesaler module.)

As you can see above, it begins to get much more detailed. You can also see in the Guest Reservation example above that other modules (the group module and wholesaler module in this case) can be related and inter-connected – Even if modules overlap it’s easier to keep them separated during the evaluation list exercise.

Every property is different and so are the modules and property management system requirements – the extent of the list and the people involved will vary from hotel to hotel.

Property Management Systems are Not Identical

Like hotels, property management systems are different from one another. Some property management system companies cater to resorts while others to city hotels, some to full service hotels and others to limited service hotels. The point here is that they may have different functionality and may offer more advanced functionality in one module over another depending on the types of lodging clients they service.

The exercise above helps to ensure that your specific requirements will be met and you won’t be in store for any surprises after signing on the dotted line. You do not want to be in a position to find out functions don’t work the way you need them to for your property – Lower the risk of surprises by working through an expanded requirement list for each of your property’s PMS modules.

Next week we’ll start reviewing specific hotel functions and property management system modules.

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This visual was inspired by Defining Hotel Revenue Management

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