Frustrated with your current property management system? You're not alone. Many hoteliers are frustrated with outdated legacy systems. A hotel's PMS is it's single most important sofftware because it's the enabler of all other systems you use and it's mission critical. Think of the PMS as the nucleus of your hotel - it's where all the reservations and room assignments live. Below we'll share a shortlist of the best vendors in the market. These are the players with modern engineering, consumer grade usability, great customer support, powerful features and arguably most important - a variety of low cost integrations to level up your business.
Our research team has surveyed 3764 hoteliers across more than 122 countries to understand which are the best Property Management Systems vendors, along with everything you need to know in order to buy the right Property Management Systems for your hotel (including our 2022 Property Management Systems Guide). We also aggregate key decision criteria data including integration availability, partner ecosystem, expert recommendations and more (learn more about HTR’s ranking methodology).
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A property management system (PMS) is a hotel management software suite that property owners and front desk workers use to manage their business by coordinating reservations, online booking availability, payments, and reporting in one central place. The Hotel PMS streamlines operations for front office staff and guest services in a hotel business to check-in and check-out guests, see room availability, make adjustments to existing reservations, and even can have back office functionality (schedule housekeeping or maintenance ). With a central system, hoteliers can better manage and monitor the key metrics needed to run their business (e.g. average daily rate, occupancy, and RevPAR).
Property management software or hotel PMS is the backbone of hospitality industry operations; the PMS eliminates costly overbookings by managing room availability, coordinates with any connected channel managers to improve room occupancy, accepts payments, and performs key day-to-day functions such as transferring guests, updating room rates, and managing housekeeping tasks. The PMS can automate and improve a hotel’s business operations by providing competitive intelligence, automatically adjusting prices based on availability, and providing analytics and reporting functionality. The PMS enhances the guest experience by remembering customer preferences and sending pre and post-stay communications. Many PMS systems can also integrate with other technologies such as point of sale systems, payment processors, hardware manufacturers, and guest experience software.
Pricing for cloud-based PMS products are typically based on how many rooms or properties utilize that system. Many PMS products have calculators on their website that will help you better understand what to expect for pricing. Be wary that some PMS systems will charge additional fees on top of monthly fees. These additional fees can include percentage commission on direct bookings, implementation/setup fees, interface fees to connect to 3rd party systems, etc.
A budget PMS starts at around $50 per month and scales upward based on occupancy and/or number of rooms. Premium pricing for a PMS starts around $200 per month for the smallest properties and scales upward based on occupancy and/or number of rooms.
For most cloud-based systems, implementation can take one to three weeks depending on: how many reservations need to be imported and who is importing the data (some PMS will offer services to do this for you), the number of properties and rooms you have and any customizations you would like to add.
Implementation will typically start by setting up the application - setting up rooms, room types, adding rates, and importing/adding existing and future reservations. An implementation coach or representative may work with you through the setup process, and verify your setup. Finally, you will connect your channels or channel manager to start taking reservations. Done correctly, there is no downtime between switching systems. A good PMS will also provide access to a video training library and knowledge base of its features to help new users get started.
A successful implementation requires an initial investment in time to configure your property properly - it’s an investment that has a direct impact to the efficiency of your operations later. For example, setting up your cancellations policy now will allow you to enforce that policy later.
How do I know when it’s time for my hotel to move onto a new cloud PMS?Purchasing a new PMS is an investment in time and resources; however, there is considerable opportunity cost that needs to be considered. The right PMS can improve the customer experience by reducing errors like overbookings, improve occupancy rates by connecting your available inventory to your booking engine and channel managers, and help make your more money by letting you adjust your rates quickly- across all of your channels based on market conditions. On average, our customers enjoy an average profit margin increase of 15% after only three months. This more than pays for the investment and effort involved with migrating to a new system.
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