A new race has started in the hotel technology industry, the race to shifting PMS from legacy to cloud. After more than a decade, the industry has finally accepted that PMS is going cloud. In the cloud space there are three main contenders, Opera Cloud, Shiji and Mews*. They’re the three who have proven they can scale globally and can cater to groups, chains, luxury and limited service hotels and across fiscal regions. See original post here
The PMS Wars is the race that these companies have engaged in in switching everyone from legacy solutions to cloud solutions. That’s the first phase. And the race isn’t just about independent hotels, this time the race is for the global industry. In fact one can argue that Independent hotels have a head start on chains as they’ve been switching for some years now. Chains have the added hurdle that not only do owners need to approve the costs, head office needs to over-come the long and painful testing and research on which systems they can use. Legal and fiscal requirements across continents, security and privacy regulations across regions, integrations etc. Which makes the choice quite limited. Hence the three companies mentioned above.
I believe this will start the first global upgrade of the hotel tech industry, which has been mired in PMS confusion for the last 30+ years. Tons of small local players that can’t be aggregated (merging legacy PMS systems isn’t possible so aggregation meant switching system and customers moving away). Thus no economic opportunity, thus no industry aggregation. But now that almost everyone will need to switch to cloud now, the real race is on.
One could say this shift has been happening for a while now, why is it suddenly a big thing? In 2015 I wrote what I think it takes for some hotel tech to go “mainstream” what is the tipping point. In our industry it takes one of the market leaders to adopt it (I will put a link to that article in the comments). Many great PMS companies have been cloud for over a decade, but it was still segment of the industry.
Over the coming years the race will accelerate heavily, vendors will be rushing to grab market share, hotels will need to decide who they go with. What are the key criteria? Most connections? Best service? Easiest to install? Largest on the market? Is the safest bet today the best bet for tomorrow? The old joke nobody got fired for going with IBM was true, until it wasnt.
There is no perfect answer to this, people who are risk intolerant will go with what they know, they would rather regret for 8 years than take a risk today. No matter how good the sales person it, that will not change. But a younger generation is coming in. They’ve live with technology, version upgrades don’t scare them.
The race is on and our industry will be better for it.
(* note I work with Shiji, and am friends with the founder of Mews. These thoughts are my own and not influenced, vetted or approved by anyone else.)
