The software you need if you are a small hotel (and what you don’t)

Trying to manage a small hotel—whether it’s a boutique hotel, a bed-and-breakfast, or a modest 50-room property— still comes with difficult challenges. With limited staff, tight budgets, and the need to compete with larger chains, small hoteliers have to balance the need to offer the high end service larger competitors offer, but do so with limited staff and budgets.

Software often can be the great equalizer. However, there are hundreds of products to choose from, and not everything on the market is something a small hotelier truly needs to spend money on. Here’s a rundown of what you should, and shouldn’t, be looking for to make sure your small hotel continues to prosper.

Property Management Software (PMS)

A Property Management System is simply essential, helping you stay on top of reservations, billing, reporting, housekeeping … you name it. It is the backbone of hotel operations, the software small hotel managers rely on every day more than anything else to stay on top of everything.

Having the ability to track the status of every room in real time is critical. Managers need to know not just when it is occupied, but when it needs housekeeping, and when that maintenance is completed. Every room of your hotel must be integrated with your booking platform so that it is reserved instantly when someone makes a reservation, either through your website or an affiliate, to prevent double bookings or lost reservations.

As you are a business owner after all, having immediate access to invoicing, payments, revenue and expenses are extremely important as well. A strong PMS will be able to provide all these reports to you at no extra charge.

Point of Sale (POS)

Point of Sale is a fairly simple concept: it processes and manages sales transactions and helps track inventory. If your small hotel has a gift shop, spa, golf course or restaurant, a POS system is essential.

If possible, every small hotelier should integrate with their PMS, so guests can book amenities or restaurant reservations when they book a room or check in. Making it easier to do so has proven to increase sales across the board.

If your property does not include a large, busy restaurant or other amenities in which you need several POS terminals to take payments, additional hardware should be unnecessary. However, make sure your PMS and POS are fully compatible before installing them. If you get them from the same company, you should be able to get them at a lower cost as well.

Housekeeping Management Software

This is fairly self-explanatory. Your guests will always want a clean room, either when they first check-in or when they return to their room for the day. Missing a single housekeeping time can lead to bad reviews and early check-outs.

So suffice it to say, even small hoteliers need housekeeping software. The good news is that most PMS companies offer it as part of their system, or offer it at a discount when you bundle.

At a minimum, this software should track the status of every room in real time, even unoccupied rooms, and assign a specific member or members or your housekeeping team for it. Every manager should be able to look at a single dashboard at any time of day and know exactly which rooms have been cleaned, which ones haven’t, and which ones are overdue – even if just by a few minutes.

Staff should be able to provide updates as soon as they are finished with a room via a mobile app.

Revenue Management Software

This type of software is useful for larger properties, however many PMS companies include revenue management as part of their package.

Essentially, this tool helps you price your rooms for the current market, using dynamic pricing to analyze demand, determine what nearby competitors are charging and other factors. This helps to maximize profits by determining exactly how much guests would be willing to pay for a room, without pricing yourself out of a sale.

Again, many PMS companies offer this service, so this shouldn’t be an added expense. However, it is important to make sure that the software you decide to go with is customized for your needs. If you have a 50 room hotel in a small market, for example, you don’t need the same revenue management tools a 1000 room Las Vegas resort would.

Booking engine

Every property, no matter how small, should give potential customers the ability to book a room directly from your website.

The reason is simple. When guests book on your website you save as much as 25% in commissions that you would have to pay if the reservation came from an online travel agency (OTA) like Expedia or Travelocity. You could then use those savings to promote your website online and get more direct bookings, and get more savings, and so on.

Again, check with your PMS provider to see if they offer a booking engine, as most do. If you do need to buy a separate booking engine, make absolutely sure it keeps your data – and your customers’ data – completely safe with the latest encryption. Also only use a booking engine that is customizable to your needs, fits your brand, and of course, is mobile friendly.

Waiver software

Waiver software is only necessary if your property offers activities in which there could be a liability should someone get injured. Ziplines, ATV tours, water sports, and even hiking tours are all examples where it would be necessary for guests to sign a waiver before booking a time.

However, for smaller properties with 50 rooms or less, you could just as easily email your guests the waiver rather than paying for software. In fact, some booking software companies offer e-waivers (in which guests can instantly sign waivers electronically) for free.

The bottom line

For small hoteliers, managing properties with 50 or fewer rooms, it is imperative to choose the right software that can meet all your needs, and do it within the budget. Put simply, small hoteliers with limited budgets have very little room for error, and making the wrong decision can be immensely costly.

Start with the most pressing needs, like booking and PMS software. Avoid companies that use bait and switch tactics, giving you one price for their software then surprising you with additional services and fees in order to get what you need. And of course, make sure the software company you choose has excellent customer service in case something goes wrong that affects your business – a human answering the phone is a good start.

At Laguna Creek, you never have to worry about surprise charges or hidden fees. You know exactly what you are getting. And we pride ourselves in being available to answer any questions, and doing whatever it takes to make things right.

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