Remote hotel management. Full operations control with cloud technology and innovative solutions

Today, we see an emphasis on remoteness when giant companies and small startups encourage workers to stay home due to coronavirus. However, the trend for working remotely is not new, it just found a renewed sound.

In our workplace, we anticipate more and more technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and virtual reality that lead to experimenting with a mix of human-software interaction.

However, at first glance, we have little option for any remoteness regarding the hotel industry. But it's only an illusion as mastering remote work is all about finding the right tools to stay productive and connected. The list of hospitality tools below will help your hotel team work without personal contact in harmony, wherever it happens to be.

Managing hotel workflow remotely

If you were trying to organize hotel workflow remotely ten years ago, there is no way you could accomplish as much as you do today. Currently, every stage in the hotel management process can be carried out by hotel staff completely without even being there.

Let's focus on the stages of a typical hotel stay in terms of engaging with our guests without personal contact:

• Fast check-in. To check-in, guests should create an account in Concierge mobile app, fill out a digital form, upload photos of documents in their profile, and sign digitally. No personal contact required. Guests can also extend their stay through the Concierge app (subject to room availability). If customers want to change the date of their stay, they can discuss it with the staff via Direct Chat. Thus, guests have more independence and should only get the keys at the hotel.
• Guest Management. Hotel employees can meet the requirements of guests independently and find alternatives faster. When the staff uses the Guest Module, customers avoid standing at the reception because all the important clients' data needed for check-in are already saved in the hotel management system.
• Service during the stay. Guests can order food, select the exact delivery time and zone. For example, a client orders breakfast, selects the time (10 a.m.) and area (place the food on the service tray outside the door), pays for the meal via the app, and picks up the food. After the meal, he/she leaves dirty dishes on the tray outside the door. The same refers to room cleaning and room service. The guest orders room service through the app, chooses the time and room number.
• Pay for services, including accommodation via the app. The guest can request invoices for all unpaid items, and then make a payment on an invoice.
• Mobile POS. Guests can pay for services and orders without registration from any mobile device with a QR-code.
• Cleaning and preparing the room for the next guests. When the guest has departed, the room status changes to vacant in the Housekeeping module. The cleaning priorities and urgent tasks included. After the housekeeping staff has cleaned the room, the status updates to "Room cleaned"/"Ready to check-in".
• Employee Management. Hotel managers are able to control everything on all stages, from guest check-ins and service delivery to check-outs, room status, payments, hotel statistics, and reports. Using the hotel software, managers can view the department operations in real-time, streamline the performance of the cleaning staff, assign tasks or exact housekeeper, and consequently improve service quality. Hoteliers receive notifications about all actions to respond to them promptly.
• Maintenance. Equipment failures have a negative impact on operations, and thus lead to more complicated problems and a decrease in available rooms. With hotel software, maintenance employees get requests and work orders directly. Whenever managers recognize a maintenance problem, they approve the work and report it to technicians, so that they can start solving failures. In the Maintenance module, maintenance employees can create task-reminders and communicate what should be repaired or replaced.
• Task Management. Hotel managers can assign tasks, set priorities and deadlines, as well as control the execution.
• Communication. All the communication in the hotel can be easily done through the app and Direct Chat. Each department of the hotel has access to the hotel system. Thanks to it, the hotel staff can communicate directly with guests and with each other in real-time and handle customer concerns immediately. Communication between different departments of the hotel is accomplished via the Maintenance module. Also, hoteliers can use mobile push notifications as a part of a marketing and promotional strategy, namely send news, offers, deals, sales alerts, events reminders, and more.

As shown above, every daily task at the hotel performed without personal contact. With HotelFriend hotel management software, it's not so hard to make remote work actually work at your hotel. Now, let's dig deeper into the hotel management tools you can pull together to achieve needed levels of remoteness.

The essential hospitality toolkit for working remotely

As of now, in the context of quarantines and crises that the world faces, everyone goes online. From sales and service to the whole process management, business owners who know how to organize remote work efficiently will be able to operate at a profit without making many sacrifices. But how the above-mentioned correlates to the people-centric industries like the hospitality one?

Usually, the hoteliers take bookings mostly from OTA channels, less often from metasearch channels and through direct bookings on the hotel website, incoming reservation calls or general reservations email, contact guests before arrival to confirm reservations and communicate guest preferences and travel details (specific requests, arrival times, etc.).

However, as hoteliers tend to more customers, more loyalty, and a more profitable business altogether, they incorporate additional tools to meet new conditions of life, namely Booking Button, Channel Manager, PMS system, Concierge apps, which we will discuss in more detail below.

Channel manager to deal with OTAs

Hoteliers actively work with booking sites as they realize the benefits. Even though third-parties ask the high commissions, more than 60% of hotel managers think that OTAs ensure a structured offer and allow to bring hotel guests from all over the world and save on marketing costs due to the international reach of OTAs (based on Hospitalitynet survey).

With many third-party agencies, hoteliers need a Channel Manager - an important tool for managing online sales of the hotel. If you use it, you can send your information to as many brokers as you want, namely Expedia, Booking.com, etc. Also, it helps hoteliers avoid overbooking and obsolete information on prices, rates, and inventory.

Booking Engine for direct reservations

As hotels need time to get back on their feet after coronavirus, the focus on the increase of direct bookings will be one of the effective steps hoteliers have to take to move forward once they are allowed to reopen. The reason is clear: they will be able to save up to 20% paid as a commission to third-parties. Here is where a Booking Engine comes first. This small button on the homepage provides a seamless booking process where guests view rates, room types, and complete a booking easily (for example).

As a huge part of sales is carried out online directly or via OTA systems, hoteliers need to post relevant information on their website and partners' sites. Because there are many OTAs and it is hard to constantly update information in each of them, hoteliers prefer to keep information in one system, known as Property Management System. Today, a PMS becomes key to the automated multi-channel sales process. It synchronizes basic and key data with Channel Manager and updates information on OTA systems automatically. A hotelier only has to download/print the registration form, which has been already filled out by the guest via the app and provide service upon arrival.

Property Management System to control everything

With cloud-based PMS software, hoteliers can manage and control all operations at any time from anywhere. There is no need for personal contact as the system provides full automation for the hotel. Addressing the current demand for a simple yet efficient solution for working remotely, the PMS helps deal with every hotel process from the booking request to invoicing — Front Desk, Reports, Department Manager, Billing, and Payments.

The hotel owner has full control over the operations and gets access to the entire system:

• bookings list;
• invoices and payments;
• various reports, including sales forecasting and choosing what tariff plans should be revised;
• access to information on sales of additional services;
• the ability to generate and sell package offers, deals, and vouchers;
• growing guest base and working on repeat visits;
• service orders using a mobile concierge. With it, guests scan the code, pay, and get the service.

Concierge apps for services and orders management and better delivery

Mobile Concierge apps offer better self-service opportunities that make them a good example of tools best-suited for remote work. Guests can use an app to check-in, order meals or room service without even talking to someone. It's especially important when guests try to keep away from anyone during the COVID-19 crisis. You can find more details by the link: https://hotelfriend.com/b/hotel-mobile-app.

In today's world, all business processes are conducted online. For hoteliers, working in such an environment requires the most suitable PMS system for a specific type of hotel accommodation, laptop, the Internet, and knowledge.

Talking about the features, HotelFriend PMS includes:

• The basic setup of the account does not take much time (it depends on the number of modules that must be configured).
• Smart booking overview.
• Easy reservation management.
• Communication module (push notifications for guests who use the mobile app, can be used to send targeted offers to guests who are staying or about to check-in).
• Personal data protection.
• Simple and fast functional interface.
• No APIs between the products.
• No additional server/IT costs.

Trends for working remotely and lessening personal contact will vastly change the hotel experiences for guests with new hotel management tools and innovations to prevail. Get a head start and begin to implement hospitality software today.

About HotelFriend

HotelFriend is a global provider of business software with offices across Europe. The company specializes in R&D in the travel and hospitality sectors, cloud computing, e-commerce, CRM, ERP, and the development of mobile and desktop apps.

Mitch Bondarchuk
Business Development Manager
+4930 311 98385
HotelFriend AG