Exceptional hospitality requires collaboration. Not only between hotel teams, but with technology too. It’s important that hoteliers don’t think of their tech as a simple tool to perform a function, but as a strategic partner, essential to enhancing both operational efficiency and guest experience.
So how do you go about choosing the right partners? There are thousands of hospitality tools and integrations on the market, and it’s hard to know where to begin. This article offers helpful guidance on how to build the perfect tech stack.
Shifting Perspectives on Technology
For years, hotel technology was seen as a simple transaction: buy a system, install it and continue business as usual. Today’s most successful hoteliers are rethinking this approach. The key question is no longer just “Which system should we buy?” but rather, “What are we trying to achieve with our technology?”
Guest experience and operational efficiency are two distinct goals, each requiring a unique tech approach. A hotel’s technology ecosystem should be built around its customer journey, starting from travel inspiration to post-stay engagement. By understanding this journey and identifying gaps, hoteliers can select the right tools to enhance their brand promise.
Designing a Hotel Ecosystem
If you were building a hotel from the ground up, where would you start when designing its tech ecosystem?
The property management system (PMS) is the obvious foundation. It acts as the control center, managing reservations, check-ins, guest profiles and much more. Next comes distribution – ensuring that your property is connected to the right booking channels to reach potential guests. But beyond these essentials, what else belongs in a modern hotel tech stack?
Accounting: The Underrated Integration
Despite advancements in cloud technology, many hotels still manually export reports into Excel and painstakingly copy data from one sheet to another. This outdated practice persists even in an era where seamless integrations exist.
Accounting software should be a standard integration, yet adoption rates remain surprisingly low. A well-connected system such as Xero, which syncs invoices and financial data in real time, eliminates the need for manual number-crunching. Investing in this integration saves time and minimizes human error.
Revenue Management: Why Aren’t All Hotels Using It?
Another surprising statistic: only around 15-30% of hotels use a revenue management system (RMS), despite its proven ability to optimize pricing and drive profitability. The reason? A lack of education and awareness.
Many independent hoteliers still rely on static pricing models based on seasonal trends rather than real-time demand data. While setting high-season and low-season rates manually may seem sufficient, it overlooks the dynamic nature of hotel pricing. RMS solutions automate complex calculations, ensuring rates are optimized for every booking. Historical data consistently shows that hotels embracing autonomous pricing see above-average revenue growth.
Revenue management systems pay for themselves, yet many hoteliers hesitate due to a perceived loss of control. The reality, however, is that an RMS like Atomize enhances pricing strategies, rather than replace them. As more hoteliers experience the benefits firsthand, education will be key to increasing adoption.
Matching Technology to Your Brand Promise
While every hotel needs a core tech foundation (including PMS, distribution, accounting and revenue management) the differentiating factor lies in the additional tools layered on top.
But with thousands of integrations available, how should hotels prioritize which solutions to implement? The answer lies in a hotel’s brand promise. A boutique luxury resort will have vastly different technology needs compared to a business hotel. The key is aligning tech investments with the desired guest experience.
For example, self-check-in kiosks may work well in high-traffic urban hotels but could feel impersonal at a five-star retreat focused on personalized service. Similarly, a leisure resort may benefit from advanced CRM and pre-arrival communication tools to enhance the guest experience, whereas a business hotel will prioritize MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) functionality to maximize group bookings.
The Power of Small, Thoughtful Touches
Personalization has long been a buzzword in hospitality, but what does it really mean for guests and hoteliers today? In many cases, it has amounted to little more than inserting a guest’s name into an email or offering a pre-programmed upsell. But as technology advances, so does the opportunity to create genuinely meaningful, frictionless experiences that leave a lasting impression.
Imagine checking into a hotel and, without making a special request, finding a bottle of lactose-free milk in your minibar, just because you once noted your dietary restriction in a pre-stay survey. It provides an unexpected moment of unexpected delight.
This level of personalization isn’t just about exceeding expectations, it’s about eliminating friction. Guests with dietary restrictions know the struggle of finding suitable options while traveling. A hotel anticipating and acting on that need transforms a routine stay into an experience that builds loyalty.
These moments don’t require massive investment, just a well-connected PMS that integrates guest data seamlessly. Dietary preferences stored in the PMS can be accessed by other systems, like point-of-sale (POS) platforms or housekeeping, enabling staff to proactively cater to guests’ needs. This is where personalization becomes more than a marketing gimmick. It becomes operational excellence.
The Evolution of Guest Profiles and Revenue Optimization
For years, hospitality systems have relied on reservation notes, alerts and guest profiles to track preferences. However, these details were often disconnected, requiring manual effort to interpret and act upon them. Today, the integration of advanced guest profiling and reporting capabilities is changing that.
By leveraging technology that can match and merge guest profiles across different touchpoints (such as restaurant visits, spa bookings and in-room purchases) hotels can gain a holistic view of their guests. This allows for smarter personalization and revenue optimization.
For example, hotels can now track modern metrics like total guest revenue (TRevPAR) or revenue per available guest (RevPAG) rather than just room revenue. Knowing how much a guest spends across various outlets helps hoteliers tailor offers and services, encouraging additional spending while enhancing the guest experience.
The Best-of-Breed vs Single-Vendor Debate
When considering a tech stack, hoteliers often face a key decision: adopt a best-of-breed approach, integrating specialized tools, or opt for a single-vendor solution that consolidates multiple functionalities. Both have their merits.
A best-of-breed approach ensures access to cutting-edge technology in each category, as providers focus solely on perfecting their niche. However, challenges arise when these tools struggle to communicate seamlessly, leading to inefficiencies and data silos. And of course, a best-of-breed approach is only possible if you’re using a PMS that allows true connectivity – ideally, a hotel tech marketplace where solutions can be added with just a few clicks.
On the other hand, single-vendor solutions offer better integration, with products designed to work together harmoniously. The trade-off, however, is that some functionalities may not be as advanced as those of specialized providers. The key is finding the right balance based on a hotel’s size, operational complexity and specific needs.
For smaller hotels with limited resources, a single-vendor approach may streamline operations and reduce vendor management headaches. Larger hotel groups, however, may benefit from selecting best-in-class solutions for specific areas, particularly where customization and advanced capabilities are crucial.
Building a Tech Stack for the Future
Regardless of the approach, the ultimate goal is to create a seamless guest experience by integrating technology effectively. Successful personalization hinges on a well-mapped guest journey and understanding how each system contributes to that experience.
A practical exercise for hoteliers is to visualize the entire guest journey, from inspiration to post-stay engagement, and identify touchpoints where technology can enhance the experience. Tools like Miro (an online collaborative whiteboard) can help map out these interactions, ensuring the right tech solutions are in place to deliver the desired outcomes.
Additionally, when upgrading systems, order of implementation matters. For example, changing a sales and catering tool before switching the PMS may lead to redundant configurations and inefficiencies. Prioritizing core systems first and building around them ensures a smoother transition.
The Road Ahead
As our industry continues to evolve, the real winners will be hoteliers who embrace technology not just as a feature, but as a fundamental pillar of hospitality. Choosing the best partners for your tech stack should not only be uncomplicated and easy to achieve – it should be exciting. After all, it will go a long way in helping you achieve your brand’s vision of exceptional hospitality.
If you’d like to explore hotel tech ecosystems in more detail, watch episode 17 of Matt Talks. In it, Matt Welle, Mews CEO, is joined by Solutions Architect Timur Dikmen to discuss how the right set-up can transform hotel efficiency and profitability.
Watch the episode
About Mews
Mews is the leading platform for the new era of hospitality. Powering over 5,500 customers across more than 85 countries, Mews Hospitality Cloud is designed to streamline operations for modern hoteliers, transform the guest experience and create more profitable businesses. Customers include BWH Hotels, Strawberry, The Social Hub and Airelles Collection. Mews was named Best PMS (2024, 2025) and listed among the Best Places to Work in Hotel Tech (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) by Hotel Tech Report, and won the Tech Hero 2024 Award at CIODAY. Mews has raised $335 million from investors including Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Kinnevik and Notion to transform hospitality.
www.mews.com
