Traditionally, hotel front desk officers used to manage hotel operations using pen and paper or Microsoft excel files until the emergence of the hotel property management system (PMS). A Hotel PMS is defined as software that hotels use to manage front-office tasks. For example, to create a reservation, handle guests' check-in and check-out, assign a room to the reservation, and arrange for room housekeeping tasks. Hotel PMS, hence, is a replacement for those time-consuming processes which require a lot of manual tasks from hotel front desk officers.

Today, hotel PMS solutions have evolved significantly to provide many benefits to the hotel which are beyond the front-office tasks. It has become a critical software that is important not only to 5-star hotels but also to the 4-star or below.

Tracking the rental income and expenses of an Airbnb business takes up 25% of a host time. On top of answering the booking inquiries and housekeeping, bookkeeping ranks third most time-consuming task for an Airbnb host.

For the Airbnb management company that manages someone else's properties, the need for a bookkeeping system is inevitable. As you can read in this thread on the Airbnb forum, the Airbnb management companies are looking for bookkeeping software. The common requirements of accounting software for Airbnb are:

• to track expenses and rental income,
• to auto-generate reports for each property owner.

As the Airbnb property owner or operator, you might be looking for the easiest way to keep track of the money in and out. You realize the crucial need to have Airbnb accounting software instead of record and keep track of them manually. With the right Airbnb accounting software, you will be able to handle the cash flow with ease.

A property management system or in short term, PMS, is a system used by hoteliers to manage day-to-day operations like check-in and check-out the guests, manage all the bookings list coming from several channels in one dashboard, save customer data, track room status, manage availability, reporting and many more. 

Imagine a hotel without PMS, all the day-to-day tasks are being done manually. This will cause overbookings, time wasted, and inefficient operations that lead to an unpleasant customers experience. If you are now without a Hotel PMS and thinking to get one, do check on the Most Important Features of PMS. This will be helpful for you before you decide on which PMS you want to go for.

A Hotel checklist shows the required items, things to be done, points to be considered, and also can be used as a reminder for different hotel management departments.

Good use of Checklist can help hotels in standardization workflow and help hotel worker use their time more efficiently. In most hotels, the use of checklists in hotels not limited to only housekeeping but also use in the cafeteria, front desk, guest management, and marketing.

The outbreak and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic have affected the tourism and hotel industry badly. In the mid of February 2021, we conducted a survey of hoteliers with the objective of gaining some insights into how the pandemic is affecting their hotel businesses.

Below is the summary of the survey result on how hoteliers deal with the pandemic. 

Hotel self-service kiosk comes in four varieties - standing kiosk, wall-mounted kiosk, vending kiosk / hybrid kiosk, andtable-top kiosk. Each offers a different space utilization and a different touchpoint at your hotel lobby. It also comes at different price points.

Before going into the price range, if you haven't, read the articles we've compiled covering points that you will need to consider while sourcing your hotel kiosk hardware and hotel kiosk hardware and hotel kiosk software. These articles will serve as a reference point for the pricing table below.

In general, a complete set of hotel self-service kiosk prices ranges from RM 15,000 to RM 70,000 (USD 3,700 to USD 17,000). Do factor in the retaining fees (e.g. software, maintenance) if you are sourcing for a hotel kiosk.

I've blogged about why hotels should consider using a hotel kiosk in my previous blog. In this article, I'm going to talk about hotel kiosk software. Assuming you're able to source for the kiosk hardware on Alibaba, the next item you will need after getting the hardware is the software that runs on it.

What you will need to consider while choosing your hotel kiosk software? First, the compatibility with your kiosk; second, the integration with your hotel PMS. It's hard to find a hotel kiosk software that is fully compatible with both your kiosk hardware and your hotel PMS, that is why most of the kiosk solutions sell in a bundle (both kiosk hardware and kiosk software and very often along with hotel PMS). In this article, we will find out what you will need to know before choosing your kiosk app and also discover what additional features you may want to consider.

Self-service kiosks were invented in the year 1977 by Murray Lappe, a pre-med student at the University of Illinois. Students and campus visitors used the kiosk to find movies, maps, directories, and bus schedules. Over the years, new innovations like touch screens, the internet, and embedded computing have helped bring kiosks to the mass market. It's now being used in shopping malls as an interactive directory, government offices as a 24/7 counter service, etc. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has fostered the adoption of kiosks in the hospitality business. 

A self-service kiosk system is a digital touch screen application where guests are able to complete the check-in process themselves without relying on hotel front desk staff. With this, the hotel also provides additional options to your guests to check in or out at any time without interacting with hotel staff and it gives more time for your staff to handle other hotel operations tasks. 

How Hotels Can Implement a Contactless Guest Experience?

These days contactless is the way to go and is practiced by many services in multiple fields, especially the food industry. Hotels too can implement a contactless guest experience. The popularity of contactless services can be attributed to the recent pandemic, with the intention of reducing human contact as much as possible. Here are a few ways that hotels can or are implementing a contactless guest experience.