This summer has been big for travel so far, and it seems like that momentum won’t be slowing down any time soon. In fact, 75% of travelers claim to be planning at least one weekend getaway this coming winter. With gas prices at an even keel, more people are deciding to get away for a while, even if only for a few days. If you’re in the hospitality business, this news should excite you. It should also cause you to reexamine the technology you’re using to conduct business in the best possible way. After all, travelers are finding better ways to book hotels, compare rates, and more.
As the technology for traveling guests improves, the technology for hotel management must follow suit. For instance, people now have access to loads of relevant information on where they’d like to stay, including reviews from other customers and potential deals or discounts. If you own a hotel, bed and breakfast, or the like, there are a few things to keep in mind when considering your hotel management solutions.
1) Visuals are Key
Before the days of computer software, managing a hotel meant writing down a lot of things on a lot of charts. Today, this process can be simplified in several ways. Visual aids are at the foundation of understanding something as hectic and complex and hotel management. Just as maps have keys to make navigating simpler and more elegant, so too should hotel grids. Let’s say you’re looking for a new bed and breakfast reservation software. If the software doesn’t feature symbols and colors, look elsewhere. The best bed and breakfast reservation software is one that clearly indicates each room, days of the week, reservations, arrivals, departures, necessary repairs, waiting lists, and more. The clearer all these variables are in a visual way, the easier it will be to manage all the moving parts.
2) Keeping Up With Housekeeping
Of course, one of the most important parts of a hotel stay for guests is cleanliness. Today it is expected that the hotel room is properly cleaned before arriving and maintained during the stay. For bigger hotels it can be a big task to keep track of which rooms need cleaning, and when to clean them. Fortunately, hotel management systems have improved with the help of new technology. Today these systems can be monitored by hotel management and updated by the housekeeping staff. Each time a room is cleaned it can be logged into the system with the room number, date, time of cleaning, and number of guests staying in the room. This way if a room needs to be cleaned but is currently occupied, the housekeeping staff can make note of it in the system and prioritize this room for cleaning as soon as it becomes available.
3) Understanding and Complying with Guests’ Needs
If you run a hotel or bed and breakfast you undoubtedly want your guests to come back at a later date. Making a good impression is everything, then. Of course, a large factor of making a good impression is how your staff conducts itself and treats guests. Beyond these niceties, however, is having a detailed record of the needs of your guests, their complaints, compliments, suggestions, and more. All of these things can be stored through a hotel management system or bed and breakfast reservation software. For instance, if a guest has a dietary concern, you can note this in the system so that during their stay they don’t encounter any ingredients harmful to them. Should this guest return in the future this information will already be there for you and them. As far as return guests go in general, keeping track of this also allows you to offer certain perks for those who come back to keep them as regular customers.
The hospitality business is a competitive one, especially during seasons where travel is seeing a surge. In order to stay ahead of the curve, it’s important to make sure your place has the best hotel or bed and breakfast reservation software an management system possible. Keeping things in mind like visual aids, housekeeping logs, and detailed accounts of guest preferences are all crucial to being the best place to stay and the easiest place to work for.
