Hotel and Hospitality Management Software Market

Market Overview

Hotel and hospitality management software (HMS) helps hotels in daily operations, such as manage reservations, point of sale transactions, guest check-ins, and coordinate housekeeping. It also enhances the guest experience using CRM (customer relationship management). Currently, it has become crucial for the hotel and hospitality industry to improve its tourism services.

To establish a place in the competitive e-market, it has become imperative for the hotels to build a correct IT infrastructure for the hotel management systems. Furthermore, the hospitality and tourism sectors have emerged as the key drivers in the competitive economy, especially in emerging economies where growth has shifted from goods and products towards the services sector.

With increasing tourism, the burden of hotel management operations such as booking reservations, transactions overload, restaurant and catering management and, customer relationship management is anticipated to surge. To ease such operational overload, hotel and hospitality management software (HMS) has gained traction in the hospitality industry. HMS market is imperative and likely to gain great importance in the coming years.

The Rise in the Tourism Industry

According to UNWTO, total international tourist arrivals registered around 1.4 billionin 2018. A 5% growth was observed from the previous year owing to prominent factors such as increasing growth of the middle class in developing markets, technical innovations, innovative business models, inexpensive travel expenses and visa facilitation, international visitor arrivals. This led to a relatively strong global economy, further bolstering the hotel and hospitality management software market.

The Asia Pacific recorded the highest growth in tourist arrivals followed by Africa. However, Europe accounts for more than half of the world’s international arrivals. 

The Rise in Hospitality Technology

Technological advancement in hotel management offers competitive advantages to the hotel and hospitality industry. The hotel management technology caters to the needs of both guests and staff. Business travelers are demanding access to email and the internet. Provision of hotel information, site maps, restaurant menus, and guides to local attractions, message retrieval, and room service can all be facilitated with the right integration of technology.

Since technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace, the hotels and hospitality industry is trying to adopt new technologies available in the market to remain competitive in the industry.

According to TripAdvisor’s survey in 2013, 87% of travelers use smartphones, and 44% use tablets while traveling. Therefore, hotels are rethinking the aspects of the hotel experience offered to the customers. Compatibility of such devices and connecting them with hotel infrastructure through management software has become important.

Deployment and Integration of the Software Systems

Deployment of the software systems can become a hassle with a lack of correct IT infrastructure in the hotels. For instance, for the deployment of nation-wide hotel reservation systems, there is a long road ahead for the hotel industry to get IT standardization put in place. Nowadays, amid hotel alliances, organizations do not agree upon data exchanges between them. If such issues about hotel industry standards are settled by agreements, then B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to customer) systems would provide benefits to both enterprises and customers.

HMS integrates many hotel industry systems such as Property Management system, Front Office system, Enterprise Information Portal(EIP), Enterprise Information System (EIS), Customer Relationship Management(CRM), and Supply Chain Management system (SCM). Such integration would be an immense task unless a robust IT infrastructure to handle unpredictability is installed.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism

The pandemic had compelled a lockdown across the world. Initially, it had temporarily shut down public places such as hotels, tourist spots, clubs, restaurants, and others. Further, the tremendous travel restrictions both domestic and international across the globe restrained the growth of the market. As stated by the UNWTO, International arrivals dropped by 72% over the first ten months of 2020 and caused a loss of approximately 1.1 trillion USD in International receipts thereby, significantly hampering the adoption of the hotel and hospitality management software market.

Regional Analysis

Tourism has grown enormously in the last two decades and has become one of the fastest-growing economic sectors, especially the hotel and hospitality sectors. The year 2018 would be the beginning of the next phase of growth for hotels in Asia due to initiatives taken by various government organizations for smart hotels that include various technologies, workflows, talents, and services. Moreover, hoteliers that are having an exploratory mindset, cultivating relevant talents, and leveraging ready-to-deploy solutions are showing interest in adopting innovative solutions in the hospitality industry.

According to United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the arrival of around 324 million tourists registered in the Asia Pacific region in 2017 which is the second-highest and popular region in the world for tourism after China. Moreover, according to Grant Thornton, countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia in the Asia Pacific region are rapidly adopting cloud-PMS software due to younger hotel infrastructure and a high number of new hotel openings.

Segmental Analysis

By Product Type

• CRS (Central Reservation System)
• Channel Manager
• Booking Engine
• Digital Services
• Property Management
• Other

Digital Services in the hotel and hospitality industry offers innovative guest experiences. Digital services such as virtual concierge provide guests with conversational and contextual assistance. It can record guests’ needs and preferences, such as room temperature preference, cab booking, or wake-up call, and enter any special dietary requirements. It can also optimize hotel website designs, search engine optimization, social media integration, and content management system to enhance digital solutions.

A property management system (PMS) facilitates the hotel’s reservation management and administrative tasks. It simplifies the main processes of hotels related to internal and external operations including front-desk operations, reservations, channel management, guest check-in/check-out, housekeeping, rate and occupancy management, and payment processing. Today's hotel PMS solutions help hoteliers deliver the experience that guests are expecting along with efficient management of their business.

By Hotel Type

• Business Hotel
• Resorts and Spas
• Boutique Hotel
• Others

Business hotels are designed in a way to suits the needs of business travelers. Business hotels are generally located in favorable places, in the center of the city, and have established transport links with railway stations, airports, exhibitions, and business areas of the city.

The hotels offer easy accessibility, Wi-Fi, and quick check in\out procedures, complimentary newspapers, and free local telephone calls. Hotel and hospitality management software provide exceptional service to satisfy the demands of today's corporate travelers. It enables a seamless check-in and check-out process, easy to navigate, and offers corporate rate logins, upgrades, and loyalty options to business travelers.

Impact of covid-19

The pandemic had compelled a lockdown across the world. Initially, it had temporarily shut down public places such as hotels, tourist spots, clubs, restaurants, and others. Further, the tremendous travel restrictions both domestic and international across the globe restrained the growth of the market. As stated by the UNWTO, International arrivals dropped by 72% over the first ten months of 2020 and caused a loss of approximately 1.1 trillion USD in International receipts thereby, significantly hampering the adoption of the hotel and hospitality management software market.

Recent Developments

In 2018, Sabre Corporation announced the launch of business travel services, the new consolidated solution suite that offers hoteliers easy-to-use tools, automation, simplified process, and unlimited access to travel management companies all in one place.

In 2018, TravelClick announced a partnership with The GuestBook, a guest financial rewards network for independent and boutique brand hotels, to further increase direct bookings for TravelClick's independent hotels.