Study shows 70 percent of hotels are embracing cloud solutions; Isn’t it time you made the switch?
[SAN DIEGO, CALIF.— October 18, 2016] — Nearly 70 percent of hotels are embracing some form of cloud-based solutions, according to the 2016 Lodging Technology Study. Experts say that new migrations will most likely occur for property-management systems leading into 2017. Hoteliers looking to upgrade their property systems, such as PMS, point of sale, central reservations, E-Mail, customer-relationship management, event management, sales and catering and more, can turn to a single source for all cloud-based solutions: RMS – The Hospitality Cloud. More than 4,000 properties in 25 countries already rely on this popular cloud-based platform.
"RMS is one of the first hospitality software companies to embrace cloud-based computing," said Todd Sabo, RMS North America President & General Manager. “RMS – The Hospitality Cloud takes the worry out of managing a hotel's information systems. With this platform, hoteliers can spend more time on running their businesses and less time worrying about managing an IT system. Rather than load property software onto a hotel's network, we load it on ours. RMS takes care of all installation, configuration and system management. All a property needs is a computer or computers with access to the Internet. Simply log on and start using it. Hoteliers can access the data from anywhere on any computer that has access to the Internet."
The 2016 Lodging Technology Study shows that 35 percent of hotels are running their PMSs in the cloud, with another 17 percent planning to migrate to the cloud in 2016/2017. The study further shows that 33 percent of hotels plan to upgrade their PMS technology altogether. POS migration is also on the rise, with 24 percent of hotels running their systems in the cloud and 14 percent planning cloud migration in the near future. Of those properties that have a cloud-based system, email is the most widely adopted (54%) followed by central-reservations systems (46%) and accounting / financial systems (43%).
One-Stop-Shop in the Cloud
“The beauty of RMS – The Hospitality Cloud is that it serves as a one-stop-shop in the cloud for all these property systems,” Sabo said. “The platform is comprised of a group of web-based modules that can be used independently or in concert to help make any hospitality business more profitable. Hoteliers can start with one cloud solution and add others as contracts come up for renewal or as the business need arises.”
The following elements reside on RMS – The Hospitality Cloud:
- Property Management System — improves reservation management efficiencies and increases bookings via seamless, real-time online bookings and channel management integration.
- Point-of-Sale System — improves efficiency and profitability by streamlining tasks, increasing accuracy and producing reports when needed.
- Channel Management System — connects operators directly to online travel agents for easier and more efficient inventory distribution.
- Booking Engine — RMS Book Now Button offers real-time, instantly-confirmed online reservations.
- Guest Marketing — generates emails and SMS/text messages for triggered campaigns based on pre-defined rules. Provides tracking and reporting to measure the success of each campaign.
- Business Intelligence — analyzes preferences and buying behaviors to develop predictable data.
- Tour Desk — facilitates partnerships with theme parks and local attractions to generate incremental revenues through ticket sales.
- Coming Soon – Email, CRM, Events Management and Sales & Catering
Mobile Strategy in the Cloud
RMS – The Hospitality Cloud is also equipped with a mobile component designed to increase staff productivity and improve guest satisfaction. The PMS facilitates paperless registration for curbside check, while the POS processes food-and-beverage orders remotely. RMS mobile can also be used to support a hotel's preventive maintenance program, and it adds efficiencies to housekeeping tasks. For example, housekeepers can retrieve their daily room assignments on their personal mobile devices even before they arrive at the hotel, knowing the instant they walk in the door how many rooms they need to clean and where they need to start. The mobile tool can send notifications to housekeepers when occupied rooms become vacant and in return housekeepers can notify the front desk when rooms are cleaned and ready to be occupied. There’s even a security component: If a person on property is acting in a peculiar way, staff equipped with a mobile device can access the guest search tool to validate that he or she is a guest or determine if the person is a threat who needs to be removed from the premises.
“Hoteliers who are considering upgrading their property systems in 2017 and migrating them to the cloud need to experience the RMS platform,” Sabo said. “Our function-rich, cloud-based system enables hoteliers to improve reservation management efficiencies and increase bookings via seamless, real-time online bookings and channel management integration.”
