Choosing a hotel PMS: what to look for

You do not choose a new PMS every year. The system touches almost every process in your hotel, so a wrong choice is felt for years. Yet many hotels choose based on a demo and a price quote. A good choice starts earlier: with your own processes, and with the question of what the PMS needs to do with your other systems.

What is a PMS in a hotel?

A PMS (property management system) is the central system of your hotel. It manages bookings, rooms, rates, check-in and check-out, and the guest’s bill. Housekeeping sees which rooms need cleaning. Front office sees who arrives today.

Other systems run around the PMS: a channel manager, a booking engine, a POS system, revenue management and your accounting. The PMS is where that data comes together.

Choosing a hotel PMS: start with your processes

First map out how your hotel works. How many rooms and locations do you have? Do you work with groups and events? Do you have a restaurant or spa? Which tasks does your team still do by hand?

Write down per department what the PMS needs to do. That becomes your list of requirements. Without one, you compare demos, and the vendor with the nicest presentation wins. Read how to approach that in a digital foundation that holds up.

Comparing hotel PMS software: questions for vendors

Ask every vendor the same questions. That way you compare answers instead of presentations.

Hotel PMS integrations and migration

Which systems do you connect as standard, and does the PMS have an open API? Who pays for an integration that does not exist yet? Also ask how your current bookings, guest profiles and history are moved over. Who does the migration, and how long do you run two systems side by side?

Cost, support and ownership of your data

Do you pay per room, per location or per user? What do integrations, payments and support cost, and what happens to the price after the first contract? Check whether support is available when your hotel is running, including nights and weekends. And ask whether you can export all your data if you ever switch.

Hotel PMS: cloud or on-premise?

Most new hotel PMS systems run in the cloud. You do not need a server in the hotel and you can work from anywhere. Updates happen automatically. Older systems often run locally and are harder to connect.

If you choose the cloud, check how the system behaves when the internet goes down. And whether the vendor has an open API, so you can add systems later and automate processes.

Score every hotel PMS on the same criteria

Put your requirements in a table and give each vendor a score per requirement. Indicate which requirements weigh more heavily. That way you compare on substance, and the best demo does not win by default. Use our vendor scorecard for this.

Want to see how a hotel group chose and set up its systems again? Read the case. More on software and AI for hotels on our hospitality page.