Customers rely on technology for almost everything, whether booking hotel rooms, planning trips, or ordering food. The ease and convenience have encouraged them to make it a central part of their lives. Fortunately, hospitality tech companies can provide the necessary tools to meet these demands.
These companies make tools specifically for hospitality businesses. Each industry needs different processes to gain success. For the hospitality industry, the most important element is guest experience. A hospitality tech company factors this in when creating the tools.
If you want to partner with these companies to outshine your competition, you must explore them in detail. So, let’s discuss hospitality tech, its types, benefits, and the top companies that provide it.
What Is Hospitality Tech?
Hospitality tech is any tool or system that helps hospitality businesses like hotels, restaurants, and lodgings with their operations. It helps these businesses become more efficient and enhance the guest experience.
However, hospitality tech goes beyond point of sale (POS) and property management systems (PMS). It includes every piece of technology that hospitality businesses use, whether it’s on-premise or cloud-based.
Hotels and restaurants often use digital screens to promote amenities and special offers. Some hotels even provide smart appliances in rooms.
Moreover, almost all restaurants, cafes, and hotels offer free Wi-Fi to their guests. Everything that supports this, from routers and access points to Ethernet cables and captive portals, is part of hospitality tech.
Running a hospitality business is easy when you have the right technology stack. You can either go for an integrated system with multiple tools or buy separate tools that integrate. In both cases, you’ll need an overview of the tools you need.
So, let’s look at the five most important types of hospitality tech:
- Property management system (PMS): Lodging businesses use a PMS to manage bookings, guest check-ins and check-outs, room assignments, and other business processes. It helps these businesses become more efficient, eliminate repetitive tasks, and get more done.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) system): As mentioned, the hospitality industry needs to provide excellent guest experience to gain success. CRM software helps manage guest interactions, personalize services, and track preferences.
- Booking engine or online ordering: A hotel website is useless if it doesn’t let people book their rooms online. In the same way, a restaurant website should offer online ordering for customer ease.
- Reputation management systems: Potential customers choose businesses based on customer reviews. So, you need a platform that helps you manage and maintain a good reputation.
- Mobile apps: Letting customers engage with your business online is one thing. However, having a mobile app they can access anytime, without constraints, enhances their experience like no other tactic.
Choosing the Best Hospitality Tech Companies
Hotel owners know the importance of research and planning when opening and running their businesses. Yet, they often neglect these steps when choosing the best hospitality tech companies. You must understand that this process goes beyond choosing the most popular options.
The company you choose must align with your hotel needs. So, start by analyzing your goals. What do you want to achieve with those tools?
After answering this question, look at the company’s mission statement. Its goals should align with your goals to ensure a successful partnership.
Next, talk to other businesses in your industry. Ask them about their experience with the companies you have shortlisted. You can also look at their reviews online.
However, don’t make a decision based solely on star ratings. Read the reviews in-depth and see what people love about the company.
Moreover, read reviews for the individual tools they provide. You should also look at the features and compare them with others. Check if the tools have integration capabilities that work with your existing tools.
Then, look at their customer service. A hospitality platform should always be ready to offer technical support. Otherwise, you might lose your customers. For example, if a real estate technology company can’t fix CRM problems on time, it could lead to missed opportunities.
However, your success depends on how well the tools fit your needs. So, the company you choose must offer customizations in not only their tools but also their pricing models.
5 Benefits of Hospitality Tech That Make It Worthwhile
The benefits of hospitality tech go beyond mere ease and convenience. By meeting customer demands, you can gain much more for your business:
- Increased efficiency: Technology lets you automate your daily operations. As a result, you can increase efficiency and get more done. For example, a platform for business lodging takes online orders and reduces manual work.
- Saved time and money: Since technology takes the burden off your shoulders, you can save time. You can spend this time on things like strategy. Moreover, you won’t need a huge team, which saves money.
- Enhanced guest experience: Technology helps you provide ease and convenience to your customers. It also enables you to personalize things, which enhances the guest experience.
- Maximized revenue: Technology solutions also help you maximize your earnings. For example, having a platform for hotel bookings brings you direct revenue. On the other hand, third-party booking sites keep their cut, which might not be ideal.
- Data-driven decisions: Most tools give you comprehensive reports on your performance and customer behavior. Using this information, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your business.
By now, you must know how hospitality tech can help you with your business. You can plan your next steps to incorporate these tools into your business. To help you with this, here are a few top hospitality tech companies.
Let’s start with a PMS since it’s one of the most important tools all hotels need. Mews is one of the best choices for this tool.
It is a cloud-based tool that simplifies hotel management through automation and integration. It even has a mobile app for managing tasks on the go. The tool’s cloud-based nature also allows you to hire remote employees, ensuring flexibility in your operations.
Next, we have Salesforce, the best CRM software for hospitality businesses. It helps hotels, restaurants, and other businesses manage customer data and interactions. It offers real-time access and customization to improve efficiency and customer relationships.
As a hotel owner, you’ll also need to track competitors’ prices and set your accordingly to stay competitive. That’s where OTA Insight (currently Lighthouse) comes in. You can also call this a revenue management system, which is essential in hospitality.
This tool offers real-time data on competitor pricing and market trends. As a result, hotels can set better prices and increase revenue. Company partners recommend it for its extensive data integration and transparency.
Hospitality businesses also need marketing tools. Revinate would be a good choice, especially if you want to focus on email marketing.
This tool allows you to manage business data and automate your marketing campaigns. While it’s a bit complex to set up, the benefits are worth all the trouble.
Lastly, we have Canary messages since you must also manage guest conversations. This tool allows you to automate messages and save time.
Frequently Asked Questions About Tech Hospitality Companies
Let’s answer some frequently asked questions before wrapping up this discussion.
What types of technology solutions do hospitality tech companies offer?
Hospitality tech companies offer a range of solutions, including PMS, online booking engines, and guest communication platforms.
However, these are just the basic solutions that every hospitality company needs. Apart from these, a hospitality tech company also offers revenue management software, channel managers, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Are hospitality tech solutions customizable?
Yes, most hospitality tech solutions are customizable. They let you mix and match features to fit your needs, so you don’t have to pay more than you need.
You can also use integrations to combine visiting systems with new tech. This will increase efficiency and produce better results.
Can hospitality tech companies integrate with my current systems?
Yes, hospitality tech companies often integrate with current systems, including PMS, CRM, and mobile POS.
Integrated tools work together to bring you better results. After such integrations, you can usually see everything in one place. This holistic view makes it easier to generate reports and make data-driven decisions.
Implement Hospitality Tech To Stay Competitive
There’s a reason hospitality tech companies are so famous. Whether it’s the food service, hotel, or travel industry, every business needs these tools. They help companies manage operations and create better guest experiences. If your guests don’t feel welcome, they won’t return. Analyze your needs and fill your tech stack accordingly.
Beambox is a WiFi marketing platform that helps you leverage your WiFi to gather data and automate marketing campaigns. You can use Beambox to build contact lists and grow your online rating on autopilot with customer reviews.
With Beambox, you can secure your WiFi connection and provide your guests with a smooth internet experience. Start your trial today!
