Newfangled Hotel PMS: does 'Best of Breed' mean 'One Trick Pony'?
It's 2009. NASA launches Kepler, James Cameron launches Avatar and a certain Donald Trump endorses action on climate change. The number of people online is quickly approaching 2 billion and the likes of booking.com and Expedia have been properly gaining traction for about 10 years. So called hotel property management systems are, in every sense of the word, offline and with their naturally diplomatic sense of urgency, hoteliers are frequently telling those willing to listen that things have to change.
Wherever major stakeholders in the world's arguably largest industry come to this (eventual) conclusion, others are of course paying attention. Exciting startup ideas take shape, fueled by the promise of new technologies finally lifting us beyond the era of control-alt-delete. Having to proverbially 'start somewhere', the good old functionality that looks after the management of rooms and reservations shall finally be available anywhere and at any time, rightly killing off ludicrous network and hardware requirements and perhaps even 'good old' paper working methods surrounding room ledgers and what have you.
During the course of the noughties and early twenty-tens, what must be considered opportunists in the best sense of the word have erected clip-ons and add-ons like 'booking engines', 'channel managers', 'up selling tools' and even ‘housekeeping apps’. This forces the hotelier into a world of compatibility, data that needs to be connected, experimentation and dependability on a plethora of vendors and their continuing, successful coordination and cooperation. These new components even relate to some functionalities that were in fact part of the old world PMS the hoteliers are parting with. Along with the ‘reborn’ PMS that enables them, they understandably put themselves forward as specialists, gaining the credo ‘Best of Breed’.
It’s 2018. A certain Elon Musk launches a car, airlines introduce near twenty hour flights and the flat earth movement enjoys a revival. The number of people online has passed the 4 billion mark and the likes of booking.com and Expedia have become household names, each with a loyal following. Hotel property management systems largely come in two flavours, with one still closely resembling those of the previous decade and the ‘Best of Breed’ newcomers touting new rather than old capabilities, which they in many cases simply lack.
Some hoteliers end up pondering: will there be any cross breeding of what they can’t help but feel are one trick ponies and what else is out there?