Academy
The everyday craft: departments that have to talk to each other, processes that hold up when someone calls in sick, staffing and Italian regulation. The things usually learned by getting them wrong, written down instead.
Hotel management software: what it must do, and how to choose
5 articles
Almost everywhere, staffing is planned off a single number: expected occupancy. But two days at 80% can demand very different amounts of work — in housekeeping the driver is the ratio of departures to stayovers, in F&B it is guests present, at the front desk it is the arrivals curve. How to estimate the load department by department, and why forecasting it is there to give notice, not to cut shifts at the last minute.
Operational modules are sold as a way to make departments talk to each other — in a thirty-room hotel they already do, on the stairs. What they are actually for is turning a conversation into a state with a timestamp, an owner and a history. And the obstacle to adopting them is not the price, it is training the housekeeping team.
The software every hotel calls «the management system» records transactions rather than running the business: it knows everything about revenue and almost nothing about cost. Why the distinction matters now — adequate organisational arrangements, access to credit, Italian compliance — and what to actually ask before signing.
The Italian accommodation market is having one of its best seasons in a decade. A favourable cycle does something insidious, though: it hides the difference between a hotel that is well run and a hotel that is merely full.
Rising staff costs and the difficulty of finding qualified people are pushing many hoteliers to close the in-house restaurant and move to a B&B model. It can be a winning strategy — or a risk, depending on a handful of decisive factors.