Choose the right hospitality tech companies: 5 steps to narrow your options

Hotel owners must ensure that the hospitality tech company they partner with shares their vision. Otherwise, their digitization efforts will become obsolete.

Despite the turmoil, many hotel owners, both large and small, have adopted technology in an attempt to remain afloat and maintain contact with their guests. But as we take a breather before the resumption of travel, hotels must move toward a tech-first system that will enable them to tap into new revenue sources and survive beyond crisis recovery.

Before cooperating with a hospitality software development company, hotel owners must ask themselves several questions and take into account some factors to evaluate potential solutions. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to choose the correct hospitality tech company to digitize your hospitality business.

A step-by-step guide to choosing the perfect hospitality tech company

Step 1: How flexible is the hotel technology solution you have found?

The first step a hotel company can take is partnering with hospitality tech companies that are agile, lean, and willing to work swiftly. This will be the best partnership because it will last and provide the hotelier with unique capabilities.

In your initial research, request examples of how this potential hospitality tech company has helped hotels pivot and adapt in the past. Because COVID-19 taught us that anything can happen, you should avoid selecting a cloud provider or technology suite that cannot be easily reconfigured to meet your requirements. Your current situation may change, and you need a hospitality tech company that can adapt to you.

Ask yourself: Can the hospitality tech company demonstrate its capacity for innovation? Is this hospitality tech company industry pioneers or market followers? And as a customer, will you have input into future product roadmaps?

Step 2: Have a look at the verticals

Flexibility may be one of the most essential factors to consider during your research, but you must ask if their product offering is suitable for your organization. If you manage a resort, does this hospitality tech company comprehend the unique needs of resorts, or are they primarily concerned with standard hotels? Will you be a small creature in a large pond? Or will this hospitality tech company ensure you receive the necessary and deserved attention?

Inquire about the specific products that hospitality tech company offers and the customs arrangements they can create to meet your hotel’s specific requirements.

Step 3: You need a mini business plan to work with the tech provider on customer mapping

After finding a hospitality tech company that will work flexibly with your needs and that specializes in the type of establishment you operate, you must now ask "what" and "why" rather than immediately focusing on how your hotel will go tech-first.

Ask yourself, "What do I anticipate the impact of this technology to be on my hotel's bottom line?" and "How will implementing this benefit my operations, employees, and visitors?"

When you have the answers to these questions, you can outline the transformation's execution. However, you should not have to map out these requirements on your own. Based on a solid business plan, excellent hospitality tech companies will gladly assist you in analyzing the data you already possess and in mapping the customer journey. You will benefit from additional viewpoints and inputs if you do not act alone.

Step 4: Choose the right hotel tech for the back office

Many back-office hotel technology products, like property-management systems, point-of-sale systems, and even accounting software, work as closed systems. Even though the idea of open application programming interfaces and tighter integration with external systems is becoming more popular in the hospitality industry, there is still a long way to go. 

If you need to choose a back-office solution, you should think about two things: Does it meet your operational needs? (like check-in, check-out, housekeeping, etc.) Does it use available APIs to connect to other systems and build complex marketing and data analytics platforms outside of the back office?

Critically, it is important to know what each layer of technology is for and what it can do. The property-management system may be great at managing rooms, housekeeping, and inventory. 

However, it might not be able to personalize rates and promotions across sales channels or allow upselling and cross-selling of different types of products (like rooms, flights, rental cars, activities, show tickets, etc.) through both internal and external channels. Inquire about the specific products that hospitality tech company offers and the customs arrangements they can create to meet your hotel’s specific requirements.

How widely a hotel can share its capabilities will depend on where the systems that run the hotel, its guests, and its marketing online, in the call center, and with online travel agents, wholesalers, and travel agents connect. The idea that one solution will meet all the needs of a complex property or chain of hotels has been proven wrong over and over again.

An efficient hospitality tech company will assist you in making the best decisions to prevent you from forming unrealistic expectations.

Step 5: Choose the right hospitality technology for your visitors

It's important to remember that your guests don't care about what your systems can't do. Their expectations are based on what they have seen and done. So, your hotel booking engine is compared to how easy it is to book on Amazon, whether you like it or not. 

People say that the customer service part of your website is like Alexa or Google Home. When a traveler interacts with a company online, they expect and feel like they deserve automation, searchability, and care.

They don't like that they have to do two separate things to book a hotel room and a trip to swim with dolphins. This is both a blessing and a curse because it means you have to keep coming up with new ideas and breaking down barriers to give users a better experience. 

On the other hand, you have a lot of models to use when coming up with solutions. Discuss with your hospitality tech company. Don’t worry, an efficient hospitality tech company will assist you in making the best decisions to prevent you from forming unrealistic expectations.

Using digital tools to manage a hotel doesn't have to be hard. Taking this step-by-step approach could be the best way to start your trip to your hotel while you're recovering. The goal here is to make sure that people come back year after year and that their digital experience is as quick as placing an order on Amazon. 

Let's make hotel management easier in the long run by putting money into the right hospitality tech company now.

Adamo Software - A leading hospitality saas company can be your solution

There are numerous options, organizations must maximize their investments by incorporating the most upcoming hospitality tech solution. Here is where Adamo Software - a top Vietnam software development company can serve as your differentiator. Contact us today to learn how our hospitality tech services may assist you in surviving and thriving in the era of digital disruption.