Recent developments in the modern hospitality business have shown that villas can hardly be run without a Property Management System (PMS).
The reasons are numerous, but here are a few more important ones.
A PMS saves a lot of time and effort, increases revenue and handles most villa operations with ease. But how to choose the right PMS for your property among so many offers?
Let us give you a few hints here.
What is a Property Management System and why is it important to have it?
In simple terms, a property management system, or PMS for short, is an all-in-one software solution, which assists those in the villa industry with core tasks, like sales, distribution, synchronization, planning and other day-to-day operations. In modern hospitality, these softwares solutions have largely replaced traditional paper based methods.
The use of property management systems within villa management has grown significantly over the past decade, especially since cloud technology became mainstream.
There are a number of key benefits for using a PMS, including the ability to easily manage your calendar, resulting in fewer double bookings or costly errors. A property management system will allow staff members to carry out many of their essential tasks quickly.
With so many villas opting to use a PMS, those who choose to rely on manual management processes instead are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. The key to selecting the right PMS is to understand what your villa needs.
With an abundance of different PMS solutions on the market, each offering slightly different features, it is important to select the right one for your property. Below, you find some tips to assist you with your decision making process.
1. Carry Out a Needs Assessment
The first step when choosing a property management system is to carry out a needs assessment and establish precisely what your requirements are. You have to create a list of the different requirements for your property management system.
This can then serve as a list of priorities to search for when actually seeking out your PMS solution.
2. Establish a Clear Budget
Before you begin the process of actually choosing your property management system from the various options out there, you need to work with the finance department and establish how much money you actually have to spend. It is important to know how far you can stretch.
3. Read Reviews From Real Customers
Then, it is important that you do not simply take providers at their word when it comes to their PMS solutions.
Instead, you should take the time to carry out some independent research on their products and find out what their existing users or customers have to say about them.
Check online reviews, have a look at their social media accounts and get a feel for what experiences people have actually had with them. If you are only seeing negative feedback, complaints about customer support, or an abundance of software issues, it may be sensible to look elsewhere instead.
4. Use the Cloud
Another requirement you should have towards a PMS is to be cloud-based.
This has become an essential feature that eases your life as a manager. Now everything is done automatically in the cloud by your PMS provider. Besides, cloud-based systems are more flexible, more reliable, more affordable and can be easily scaled in case of need
5. Look for All the Key Features of Property Management System
Finally, the PMS sits at the heart of your villa operations. This is the reason why it should come with a lot of useful features that are essential for running your villa at its optimum. For instance, it should provide you with:
Key Features of Property Management System.
- Booking Engine.
- Central Reservations System.
- Payment Processing.
- Channel Manager.
- Restaurant & Bar POS.
- Event Management.
The PMS should also have an analytics tool that helps you track performance and make conclusions about customer behavior and current trends.
What good is a PMS that is too hard to use?
A PMS acts like the brain behind a villa’s entire operation. That’s why it’s important not to rush the process.
Choosing the wrong PMS can have a tremendous negative impact on your hotel. A high-quality property management system (PMS) can be extremely useful in assisting villa owners with the implementation of a robust revenue management strategy.
However, what is good for a sophisticated property management system without the men behind the gun? Good resources with a great team behind it equals to the revenue uplift.
By following the tips above, you should be able to seek out a PMS solution that suits the specific requirements of your villa.
