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This article firstly reviewed the development of the PMS. Twenty years ago, the value of a PMS was in its computerized capabilities as properties began to switch over from manual systems. Ten years ago, the more valid comparison was between a DOS and a Windows-based system. And today the PMS has more functions and can do better for the hotel. As a hotel director compared the new PMS with the old one. The old PMS allowed only 20 or 30 letters for notes while the new one allowed him to review guest histories after checkout as well as to write unlimited guest notes on reservations. Lisa Jane Gibson, director of revenue management for the six Vintage Hotel locations, concluded three main trends with front and back of house systems. First is the wider use of technology to enable properties to run more efficiently. Another trend is more personalized interaction with guests. Finally, Gibson notes the upcoming deadline for all businesses to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) mandate for specific security guidelines. The guest trend has an effect on the PMS, and the trend will lead the direction of the PMS product development. More and more people are becoming their own travel agents. The PMS is also very useful for the food and beverage management. The PMS can help the hotels or restaurants with tracking inventory and cost of sale as well as setting up and running reports for key areas of the business such as returns, refunds and promos. The new POS products can help the hotels save costs and cost saving becomes the hot topic for the new POS. For example, hotel management consultant Paul Lynch of PGL Consulting has been able to deliver a cost benefit of up to five to seven per cent on wage savings with H&L Canada Ltd.'s Workforce Management control system. Lynch initially used it to monitor staff rosters daily but now has embraced the package as a complete information and management tool for the sites that he controls.

Sceptre Hospitality Resources, one of the hospitality industries leading revenue enhancement service providers recently announced that they will be using voice activated services powered by Thing5 LLC. Their switch over to Thing5 is largely due to the fact that this company has been one of the leading telecommunication providers in the industry. Sceptre is hoping that the quality service Thing5 offers will help them achieve consistant sales revenue growth. Thing5 offers a wide array of services including complete reservation office support, after hours reservation call support, as well as concierge and loyalty program services to guests.  I think that by utilizing the services Thing5 have to offer, Sceptre will continue to be one of the bigger revenue enhancement service providers in the industry. The many features of Thing5 voice activation systems will allow for a better customer service experience. Guests will have full access to reservation services  as well as in-house staff and will also be able to book at any time of day or night with after- hours reservation call support. 

Sceptre is a company that provides useful resources to resorts and hotels to optimize performance and service; thus increasing revenues. Thing5 provides users with control over voice and online channels to provide better security and has better reporting tools. The two are among the most reliable and popular in their lines of business and are working together.

This article talks about a conference that took place in Las Vegas concerning how hospitality organizations should automate accounting processes. Representatives from BlackLine Systems, a financial software developer, alongside panelists from MGM Resorts Intl and Caesers Entertainment will be discussing how hospitality organizations should utilize technology to automate accounting processes. Technology and software can reduce the often frustrating feelings associated with spreadsheet accounting. Additionally these tools will help organizations run more efficiently especially for hotels that operate on a global level. These automated systems can increase productivity and reduce costs with the ultimate goal of achieving balance sheet integrity.

/This article was interesting because it talk about how the Regal Hotels Group was able to connect their custom built PMS to the world via Room Distribution Exchange, a direct connectivity platform. This new technology helped Regal Hotels to gain two-way access to the world's leading booking sites. Regal did not have to change its existing PMS system which could have been costly. RDX gives hotels with traditional PMS the opportunity to reach the world.

Building their own PMS puts Regal Hotels Group above everyone else; making them more efficient thus reducing cost and impacting their bottom line. Its interest how a company can see the big picture in technology advancements and implement those cost saving features.

The definition of electronic distribution is, the speed of light transmitting of information to ensure that the hotels can provide its rate, inventory and property information into the customers who are going to buy. The most effectively represented place for the hotels' information is online. Electronic distribution allows the hotels to put themselves on the "menu", where can reach many potential customers with buying power. When a hotel is present itself on majority of the websites searched, customers' purchase increases based on the exposure. Actually exposure means sales. There are two important aspects for electronic distribution. The first one is "Connectivity is the Key ". The hotels should make sure that, your hotels' information can be seen in any point of demand, such as website, travel agent, tour operator, receptive company, visitor bureau and others. And the hotels' availability and price can be changed with the electronic connectivity options. There are two ways of getting inventory and rates in these demand points: one is looking within own systems and infrastructure, other is querying the hotel company's system for availability and rate. The second one is "streaming the booking process". Once the customer's purchase decision has been decided, a booking gets created, and then the booking details will be transferred from a third-party system to the hotel's system. In the hotel's own website, the booking will generally be created by the hotel's CRS platform. Once the CRS receives the booking message, a confirmation number response message is sent back using the same pathway to give the demand touch point the assurance that the message has been received and processed. Hotels should make sure that you are in front of your customers, which means that your products is on the electronic distribution is all about. The information should be truthful and unbiased.

The GlobRes support team is very helpful and efficient. GlobRes gives us easy and efficient access to the GDS and IDS worlds. GlobRes works to ensure your hotel gets the best from GDS connections guaranteeing you receive the maximum number of hotel reservations. GlobRes provide an advanced training session available for hoteliers in 5 languages, full consultation when you sign up for GlobRes GDS, controlling your hotel rates and room availability from one simple web-based control centre. Each hotel is assigned a dedicated account manager to lead the hotel through implementation and is available at all times should there be any questions or concerns.

One of the greatest challenges a hotel faces is ensuring that all of its booking channels are updated on a real-time basis. With this tool, a Revenue Manager can quickly manage all inventory from a single place. With instant 2-way integration, On the property side, changes can be made easily and efficiently and applied to all sites. The reservations will also be dropped directly into the PMS or CRS so there is no more manual input necessary. On the consumer side, every booking will reduce inventory across all sites so that there is no chance of overbooking. This is a very valuable tool.

Luxuryres GDS brand - How it is extremely simple for hotels to use, and ends up saving them time and money

This article sums up that the internet has changed a lot over the years and it helps hotels get more online exposure. It is a system where travel agents can book quick and easy. It does cost money for hotels or an industry to use GDS for business but in the long run it does pay off. This helps the hotel marketing especially if the hotel has a site online. It is saying that it is important for a hotel company because GDS will pay out with all of the customers the hotel gets and also it helps with getting the hotel out there more.

Beginning in 2018 the financial accounting standards for hotel business are changing. One of the changes is the way OTAs charge for the rooms. Typically the OTAs operate under two methods the retail model and merchant model. The retail model uses the OTA to reserve the room but the final payment is made to the hotel. The hotel then gives a commission back to the OTA. Under The merchant model the payment is made to the OTA. Then the OTA takes the commission off and sends the remaining payment to the hotel for the price of the room. This comes out as a net transaction. The new standard is saying that the company that controls the transaction for the room has to mark the transaction or sale as a gross transaction. The new model forces the hotels to record the transaction on a gross basis. This can be a big difference for hotels because now they will have to increase the amount of costs and reduce the hotels bottom line.

This article makes some key assertions regarding points of consideration when choosing a PMS software. Getting the right PMS software is absolutely critical for any property, as it is at the core of the operation. According to this author, the necessary considerations involve asking six questions: -Does the solution offer flexibility in functionality, including data access and performance reporting? -How easily and seamlessly does the PMS integrate with third-party technologies and data? -How long will it take for problems to be resolved? -What is the total cost of ownership? Are there "hidden" costs? -What return on investment (ROI) can be expected? -What is the PMS solution provider's track record of success? The inception of cloud computing and faster data processing has led to a number of choices in PMS software. Obviously these questions are not a fool-proof path to picking the perfect PMS software out of the multitude of options, but obviously being able to answer these with a level of confidence is a step in the right direction.

Relatively speaking, GDS's have been around for a while now, with iterations stretching back a few decades now. SiteMinder has worked to integrate cloud technology into traditional GDS models to streamline distribution. They have had strong success, powering over 200,000 reservations in the past year, generating over $60 million in hotel revenue. Over 900 hotels are now poised to receive SiteMinder services, making them the industry leading GDS cloud platform. To date, SiteMinder is represented in the globe's most influential cities, including New York, Los Angeles, London, Honk Kong, Paris, Munich, and Sydney. GDS technology has come a long way from the early models that airlines used solely for in-house purposes. New GDS's such as SiteMinder are both a testament to adaptation and the appeal of cloud technology.

This article explains the booking trend of hotel in 2017 and afterward. Even though online booking tools such as website, mobile apps have made tourists easier to book the hotel in the world, in hotel's perspective, GDS is still the main contributor to increasing bookings and enhancing the hotel revenue. According to the article, GDS booking increased by 11.6 percent between the year 2015 and 2016, and around 60 percent of bookings at hotel were made through offline sources including CRS, walk-in, call or GDS. Among these, the major tool was GDS. Furthermore, the change of economic and political environment has caused hotels to have the right tools to decrease the loss. Thus, hotels should be equipped with the technology platform to monitor and support inventory and distribution channels. Every hotel has different situation and different booking channel. For example, when I was working at reservation department, our main booking source was an online. In other words, each hotel should find out what their main booking channel is, and based on that, suitable strategy to improve revenue should be developed even though this article emphasizes the importance of GDS booking.

The article "How technology Will Reshape the Hotel Industry Post COVID 19 Pandemic" talks about how this industry is taking necessary measures in order to promote safety and security within their companies while implementing new technologies. It states that this pandemic has impulsed the implementation of new technologies into hotel operations. Contactless solutions, hotel check ins, mobile room keys, etc.. are just some of the examples hotels are taking in order to minimize contact and enhance customer experiences

This article mainly describes how the hotel industry can use technology to help it recover after COVID-19, and how to enhance the confidence of employees and customers. With the development of the epidemic, the hotel industry and even the entire hospitality industry are widely promoting contactless technologies. Therefore, various mobile and self-service AI technologies are integrated with hotel operations. In the future, with the development of this normalization, reasonable monitoring technology, non-contact communication technology, location detection technology, super sterilization, and robotics technology will all become important aspects of the future development of the hotel industry.

This article overall talks about the the different entities within a property management system. First, it goes over the details of what a property management system is which is described as a software that facilitates a hotel's reservation management and administrative task. In more detail these functions include front-desk operations, reservations, channel management, housekeeping, rate and occupancy management, and payment processing.Most PMS nowadays are able to combine multiple work environments into one software. Depending on the type of software the company is using, they are able to combine modules and functions, and the functionality of one module can be slightly different. The reservations side of the PMS is essential because online booking is the main way people book their reservations nowadays. The key modules of reservations consist of room bookings, collections of e-payments, management of room inventory and allocations, reservation emails, and activities bookings. I believe the most crucial operation of the PMS is the front office module which allows for front-desk manager to view and update room reservation status, check guests in and out, and process payments. I do work in a hotel as a guest service agent and we closely work with the PMS in every aspect. When our system went down it seemed almost impossible to check in/check out guests. It was extremely difficult to allocate rooms because we weren't able to use our system to see if housekeeping had punched rooms clean or to see if the room was vacant or occupied. The PMS makes the whole process of a hotel run smoothly. Another important aspect of the PMS is room management which allows us to see up to date reservations and which rooms they are allocated to, also allows us to move around those reservations and modify them.

Property Management systems has been the backbone for many hotel for numerous year. Due to its length of service we are constantly seeing major updates that helps to secure the business sensitive information while assessing the administrative tasks of daily functions to ensure smooth process of operations. PMS functions for all departments of the hotel from front desk to housekeeping to accommodate the guests request.

Hotel Property Management Systems: Products and Features

The article "GDS- is it relevant for you in 2023" discusses GDS and their benefits and relevancy for the upcoming year. GDS provide "real-time rates" and "availability" which is important in this competitive market. GDS provide unmatched, personalized service tailored for each customer and it also ensures you have "effective channel mix" of both tourist and corporates. This article is great in understanding how one of the oldest distribution platforms is still so relevant almost 50 years later!

This study was about adoption and automation of AI in hospitality. It gives great insight on the process as well as what people think of AI and their opinions. In addition to that, this study goes into different techniques that were used to understand how and why AI should be implemented. Human interaction cannot be beat, along with personal touch and humans can't remember everything a computer can, but if you have robots and humans working together you can get the best of both worlds. Smart technologies are now and the future.