6 reasons why automating hotel operations is a game changer
By Tatiana Vanvelzor | Head of Global Sales for Nuvola
As travel expectations continue to evolve, hoteliers face some big challenges ahead to keep up with the trends. It´s not a secret that the industry has had a hard road to recovery, mainly driven by staff shortages and high attrition amongst the operational teams.
According to a 2023 survey conducted by the American Hotel & Logging Association, 97% of hotels in the United States have reported they are facing a staff shortage. Financially, hoteliers on average lose half of their experienced line-level staff every year at a replacement cost of around $6,000 per staff member due to recruitment efforts, training, and productivity losses, according to a recent study by Cornell University.
Hotel operations have evolved from paper and radio, then to Excel sheets and radio, and only in the last 5 to 10 years to automated solutions. Manually managing and logging daily hotel operations gives you limited data to monitor and streamline the processes in the hotel.
A task management system not only enables the teams to deliver high-quality services beyond guests’ expectations, but it also allows hoteliers to make well-educated decisions, based on data while filling the gap with staffing challenges. Ultimately it makes hotels a better place to work, with solid tools that enable the staff to deliver experiences that drive positive reviews. And we all know positive reviews are directly correlated with booking performance, driving higher ADR and revenue for the property.
While all these points are true, hoteliers still struggle to justify investments in tools that drive operational efficiency.
Here are the 6 top reasons why hoteliers should invest in a task management tool in 2024:
1. Drive ADR and Revenue Growth
- Data from Travelocity illustrates that if a hotel increases its review scores by 1 point on a 5-point scale (e.g., from 3.3 to 4.3), the hotel can increase its price by 11.2% and still maintain the same occupancy or market share
- Analysis also finds that even a 1% increase in a hotel’s online reputation score can support up to a 0.89% increase in average daily rate (ADR) and up to a 1.42% in revenue per available room (RevPAR)
- 1% increase in reputation also leads to an occupancy increase of up to 0.54%
2. Elevate Guest Engagement
- Today’s guests want to be able to communicate directly with the hotel while on property using multiple methods including mobile messaging
- Guests expect a fast response time to their requests on property, but it’s hard to measure “fast” when you are relying on radios and sticky notes
- With the right tools you can ensure Guest requests are completed on time, resulting in happy guests and good reviews
3. Streamline Communication
- Help hotel staff communicate more effectively between front-of-house and back-of-house teams, as well as your day shift and night shift, ensuring key information gets to the right people
- Select a task management solution that includes a staff mobile application, so that employees can update statuses on the go (e.g. – confirming when extra pillows are delivered to room 205)
4. Increase Staff Accountability
- Track staff productivity with comprehensive reports and real-time status updates/alerts
- You can increase your staff’s adoption of a task management solution by picking one that is easy to learn and use
- Configure escalation to leaders when a task takes longer than it’s target time to complete
5. Boost Team Productivity
- Address and resolve guest requests and issues quickly an integrated solution rather than relying on different tools for housekeeping, front desk, and guest chat
- Hoteliers need methods to track staff productivity and ensure smooth operations. If there is nothing in place to assist with this, a hotel team is unable to see gaps in service and understand why guests are unhappy
- Embracing automation can reduce the time your staff spends on manual tasks and improve morale
6. Achieve Brand Standards
- Task management systems ensure a quality experience and consistent guest experience
- Manage preferences and brand tiers of service delivery without complicating the operations or overloading staff members
As a leader in hospitality technology, Sabre Hospitality is investing in tools that automate hotel operations and help you deliver service that will keep guests coming back.
Learn more about Nuvola from Silverado Resort’s success story!