Hola from this corner,

"Short and Sweet" on technology matrix for hoteliers..

Three tiers:

Tier 1: Technology for Increasing Rooms Sales

Count here with interfaces to Central Reservation Systems, Global Distribution Systems (typically through a CRS), IDS (Internet Distribution Systems), browser-based inventory tools to load rates and availability in hotel and travel web portals, and ideally a Channel Management tool to ensure revenue optimization on all above.

Tier 2: Technology for Hotel Operations

Count here with PMS (the Property Management System), POS (Point of Sales), RMS (Revenue and Yield Management) Sales & Catering Systems (group and banqueting modules and customer management), interfaces to switchboards, payment systems, door locking systems, accounting, pay TV etc... and -if the hotel is large enough- a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.

Tier 3: Technology for increasing guest loyalty

Count here with any and every technology device or solution that can enhance the guest experience and make the guest come back: from Wi-Fi in the rooms, to plasma TV, passing by Hi-Fi systems, Ionized systems to clean the air in the room, beds with ergonomy automation, laptop rental, cell-phone rental, virtual-laser key-boards for guest use...

Tier 1 and 3 are subject to revenue forecast, so you can build a P&L on them. Tier 2 is compulsory today for running the hotel smoothly (a must have if you wish to enter tier 1 & tier 2), and the amount of technology solutions needed will depend on your customer segmentation (lesiure, business, MICE...), hotel profile (resort, urban, full service etc...) and size/facilities (room inventory + dining and banqueting premises)
 
Cheers
Pedro.-
Received on Fri Jan 13 11:22:33 2006