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Hospitality is built on one central pillar – providing guests with an exceptional experience. From country pubs with rooms to city center hotel groups, the focus of every good hotelier is the guest. In today’s increasingly digital world, hotel technology must ensure that guest experience is also at the core of the platforms created to serve the industry.
Hotel systems are no longer basic back-end software that counts occupied rooms and supports finance through billing. Digitization has pushed previously pure operating systems into guest journey touchpoints, making technology the key to guest experience. And, just as sales and marketing teams embody the brand beyond the hotel, technology should enhance the hotel’s appeal in all digital interactions.
Technology vendors must understand the role they play in shaping a positive hotel experience for guests and employees, a role that will drive business success in the most difficult markets.
Challenges in driving revenue and occupancy amid a cost-of-living crisis, coupled with staff shortages, could harm the guest experience. Technology needs to support the business without overwhelming teams with redundant functionality or complex infrastructure.
Meet different property needs
Every hotel has different needs, so the system must be adapted to the commercial and operational characteristics of each hotel. Whether it’s more revenue, greater efficiency, or improved data control and usage, identifying the broader business drivers will define the specific attributes the technology needs to achieve commercial success.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution;
said Thibault Catala, CEO of Catala Consulting. If you want to understand how technology can help your specific hotel, it’s important to define the guest journey. Hotel technology is designed to give each guest the choice of using a computer or talking to a human, allowing them to shape their experience from the start. The better hoteliers understand their customer journey, the more they can leverage technology to improve guest satisfaction.
Brands must stand out: how they deliver hospitality, the type of service their staff provide, how personal the experience is and the quality of the business they operate. Technology touches every aspect of hotel operations; therefore, it needs to be well thought out, designed and configured to work in the background, invisibly but effectively supporting employees and guests.
Integration and built-in platforms
Integration (or system interface) is a buzzword in the hotel technology world today. It allows data to flow between various solutions, often from different providers. However, not all interfaces are created equal. While data may flow out of the PMS, data from third-party applications may not come back. This creates siled data sets that become difficult to manage over time.
Not long ago, our chief technology officer, Andrew Metcalfe, said: “What we need to focus on is how do we have fewer integrated suppliers that are doing a great job and are very connected, and Not the public chaos that the hotel industry thinks is right now. Everyone seems to be launching a new startup, expecting it to grow, and are unhappy that PMS is not integrated into the hundreds or thousands of existing products. This is not a hotelier centric. It is unrealistic to assume that hoteliers have the necessary technical expertise to evaluate the superiority of any of the more than 30 available guest experience applications. Additionally, due to ongoing staffing difficulties, their Time is limited, making such an assessment impractical.”
The PMS must sync seamlessly with other systems across departments such as catering, finance, events, spa and more to improve operations, efficiency and support staffing.
Modular hotel platforms are like the hospitality kids on campus – they know how everything works and help new kids. At Guestline, our team of experienced hoteliers work with our technology developers to ensure the system is built with a set of purpose-built add-on products that work together seamlessly while also interacting with third-party systems. By providing our hotel partners with a customizable platform (“pick and mix” style technology products), hoteliers have control over creating the technology environment their business truly needs today and can grow as their business grows. Expand and deliver an exceptional guest experience.
The value of a fully connected system
The value of first-party data is very high – the only way to obtain a detailed library of first-party data is to ensure that there are no data silos.
By running disparate systems in different parts of the business, or relying on rudimentary manual systems driven by Excel spreadsheets, hoteliers are encouraging fragmented data collection and management, thereby increasing the chance of error and risking data security. Katara said: Garbage in, garbage out. Without the right data, you can’t get the right output. Everything starts with clean data.
Chaotic, complex systems prevent hoteliers from fully using data. Dangers of multiple interfaces and fragmented systems include a lack of in-property controls (such as OTAs and booking engines that retain guest data), limited data access, and the inability to provide meaningful oversight. The simpler the ecosystem, the greater the benefits of data.
A unified system allows information to flow seamlessly from the guest to all hotel departments, improving the guest experience through enhanced identification and personalization. It’s easier for employees to manage all data in one place, collect or enter information using a single login, and easily assess a holistic view of the business through business intelligence reports like Guestline Insights.
Connected systems speed up work. Where data management can be automated, teams can focus on strategy and, most importantly, experimentation—looking at how to improve efficiency or increase revenue,
Katara added.
Therefore, an effective technological solution is to give hoteliers control over their own data. When systems are unified, there are no gaps in the flow of information – seamlessly shared internally – giving staff a 360-degree view of guests, making their experience better from discovery to booking to post-stay.
Finding the platform that’s right for you: traditional or cloud-based?
A common debate among technology providers revolves around legacy systems – technology that has been around seemingly forever, often hosted on-site by servers. They are often purchased for a single purpose, often requiring expensive extensions from the same vendor as third-party integration is nearly impossible. These systems can result in a confusing, complex network of systems that cannot communicate properly with each other. Is this “legacy system” suitable for today’s digital world?
Catala said the large number of new technology vendors working only in the cloud suggests otherwise, Legacy systems remain popular in the market but are losing market share to new players, primarily because they have been resistant to change.Old systems cannot maintain the same speed as existing systems [newer suppliers]. Cloud-based solutions train new users much faster because they are easier to use, have simple interfaces, and offer highly responsive customer support when needed.
Vendors offering legacy systems realize that this is not the way forward and they should abandon these solutions.According to a report by the Economic Intelligence Agency, cloud services can reduce IT costs by 40%
For some hoteliers, transitioning isn’t yet a priority — and Metcalfe said hesitancy to do so may be due to a lack of trust in the supplier market. Even if the “promised” benefits of a new solution sound truly enticing, they are afraid of compromising on existing functionality. It’s hard to believe that in 2024, hoteliers still think that adopting the cloud means compromising on quality and functionality, but that’s not the case.
Today, at Guestline, none of our customers are server-based; all of our customers are server-based. Everyone enjoys the benefits of using systems hosted in the cloud. The cloud-based platform enables fast program updates, centralized data security, and eliminates the need for cumbersome hardware such as servers or backup generators. By 2026, more than 75% of hoteliers will adopt cloud hotel solutions.
Evolving hotel technology from back-end to guest-facing
It’s not just cloud-native platforms; there’s a shift in understanding of the role technology plays in real estate. Hotel technology has evolved from being primarily a back-office system to playing a more integral role in delivering a positive guest experience.
It’s clear that the world has moved beyond simple property management systems (PMS) for managing guest rooms and invoices. While centralization, security and mobile platforms are critical, today’s digital-first world must address staff availability (with minimal training) and For guests (optimizing the intuitive experience).
Katara added that the system must provide Providing convenience to guests at every touchpoint along the guest journey.
Guest-facing technology is continuing to advance as we become more accustomed to self-service and expect a level of autonomy and control. Starting with a simple reservation engine, a centralized hotel system should provide guests (and employees) with a delightful digital experience such as:
- Increase revenue and guest satisfaction by promoting customizable bookings with options like digital payments, coupons and additional pre-arrival bookings.
- Enhance automation of operational processes, especially check-in/check-out procedures. This frees front desk staff from administrative responsibilities so they can focus on delivering a personalized guest experience.
- A single-platform approach that maximizes revenue through direct business, saves on third-party commissions and delivers a holistic brand experience across the hotel: restaurants, spas, bars and other ancillary services.
The savings and additional revenue further drive profits, allowing hotels to invest in amenities and guest experiences as part of long-term business goals for the connected hotel technology ecosystem.
It’s time to put our “experience” first
As an industry, we need to be more customer-oriented, people-centred, and proactive in providing a platform that is fit for purpose.
With Guestline, our hoteliers can run their business the way they want, delivering unique guest experiences and reducing employee stress. We continue to invest in our systems to deliver a single platform that is fully connected, centralized, secure and mobile, customizable for each hotel and ready for people to use.
We believe in technology, which can provide humanized solutions that not only improve the guest experience, but also the hotelier experience.
Sophie Cartwright
Marketing and Communications Manager
01743 282300
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