The property management system (PMS) may be considered the “Swiss Army knife” of hotel management software, with multiple basic functions including reservations and website booking, revenue management, customer data collection, reporting and analytics, front- and back-office services, and point-of-sale services. Since consolidating systems yields more efficiencies, hotel operators often look to integrate other software tools with their PMS, such as door-lock systems, mobile apps that facilitate the guest journey, and various AI tools. “What you see as a bigger trend is hotel companies wanting to integrate with systems that their PMSs weren’t initially built for,” said Richard Valtr, founder of Mews. “Many PMSs weren’t built for that robustness. So, we don’t try to limit the kinds of integrations that you can do with our platform. And I think that [enhanced integration capability] is the biggest sea change that you see in the different types of systems.”
Integrations require a PMS that supports the necessary APIs (application programming interfaces), which are programming codes that allow data to be communicated between software products. Valtr makes an analogy between APIs and doors that a hotel has to other venues (a convention center, retail outlets, etc.), letting guests traverse in and out and creating a single building, in effect. In this analogy, the hotel would be the main PMS, the other venues would be the integrated systems, and the guests would be the data.
Facilitating Integration
Cloud-based PMSs are easier to integrate with other software products, in addition to other benefits such as cost-effectiveness and capability for constant updating. But there is an important difference between a legacy PMS with cloud user interface and the cloud-native PMS, which entered the market in the early 2010s. “With the cloud-native solutions, like ourselves, or Stayntouch, Cloudbeds, etc., we’re born in the cloud, so we have a cloud-first perspective,” said Valtr. “That makes it much easier to have that open-API thinking—a way for you to integrate other solutions in real time. We have over 1,000 integrations in our marketplace, enabling our customers to customize their tech stack to perfectly fit their needs.” In addition, cloud-native PMSs are more convenient in that they do not require onsite installations and trainings. The systems for “all of our clients that we have worldwide—about 1,200 hotels—have been implemented remotely,” noted Ulrich Pillau, founder & CEO of Apaleo, a cloud-native PMS. “The platform is also 100 percent self-service,” with apps that can be integrated by those with zero to little coding experience. “No-code/low-code” automation platforms thus eschew the expense of hiring developers.
The “API First” PMS
A kind of cloud PMS that is specifically designed to maximize integration potential utilizes what is known as “API first” technology, which became available in many verticals around 2014. According to Pillau, Apaleo introduced the technology for the hospitality sector. “Instead of putting partial APIs on top of the PMS software, any function in our API-first platform is available immediately to any third party to use for integrations—it is 100 percent API availability,” he explained. “One impact is that the integrations are much faster, easier, and less costly, because we don’t charge for any integration to our system. We’ve also got lots of third-party apps, software companies, and even hotel groups developing their own components, modules, and apps on top of the platform. So, the huge advantage of API first is not only a PMS platform with unmatched integration capabilities, but it’s also a development platform where anybody can go ahead and develop their own components on top of it.”
Shopping for a System
Valtr and Pillau shared several tips for hoteliers seeking an integrable, high-quality PMS:
- Focus on the number of APIs, not endpoints or connections. “The amount of API endpoints that a PMS has doesn’t show you the robustness of the integration capability,” said Valtr. An endpoint is the site where an API receives requests and accesses resources from another system. Since one API can have multiple endpoints, the number of endpoints does not necessarily reflect the number of APIs. “We also don’t talk about the number of connections that we have. Because you can have a way to connect to every single printer in the world, for example, but it’s basically just one API,” he explained. What the consumer really needs to know is the number of systems or apps can be integrated with the PMS, of those that are available in the hotel operator’s region, Valtr advised.
- Ask about the system’s uptime. PMS downtime can prevent access to critical data and compromise services, so it important that the vendor’s system have a track record of reliable uptime. The inability of integrated systems to communicate with the PMS for extended periods is “one of the worst problems you can have” in running a PMS, said Valtr. “It’s like somebody comes to your door and knocks for a really long time, but no one is there to answer. So, you need to ask about the system’s uptime statistics.”
- Try out the system prior to purchase. “In the past, hoteliers had to rely on presentations by the PMS vendors, and you never knew what the true outcome would be until you had it up and running at your property,” Pillau said. “Nowadays, this is completely different. I would strongly recom`mend to any hotelier to try out everything you want to try out in a live sandbox environment made available by the cloud provider, including the use of third-party apps that could be connected.” He added that setting up the trial is an expedient process and should come at no additional cost. It’s rather like the test drive—a familiar and very prudent practice for shoppers in the auto market.
Sellable Spaces: Mews Adds Parking Management Capability and Booking Engine
The functionality of a PMS can not only be enhanced through integrations, but also via an expansion of the core system itself. Mews, for example, has recently added parking management to its platform, allowing a hotel operator to manage parking spaces just as they manage their guestroom and meeting room inventory. Spaces can be offered to guests on an hourly, daily, or overnight basis, and they can be offered to non-guests (at a different price if desired) via a dedicated parking booking engine on the hotel website, thus diversifying the revenue stream. “Through the booking engine, travelers can see the parking spaces that that hotel has available and book them. It’s essentially like an OTA for parking,” explained Richard Valtr, founder of Mews. “Our unique architecture allows you to connect to every type of space that you’re selling, be it parking spaces, meeting rooms, or even a karaoke booth.” Currently, about 3,000 parking spaces at nearly 200 hotels are managed with Mews.
A Mews parking system integration with Netherlands-based AVUTEC (currently available only in Europe) enables a fully automated parking experience for guests. The Gatekeeper, AVUTEC’s LPR camera, scans the license plates of incoming vehicles and searches the Mews reservation system for a matching booking; if found, The Gatekeeper opens the gate. Multiple license plates can be added under a group booking, and early arrival times can be set for certain guests within the system.
