Evolving hospitality software is stretching beyond its own boundaries, expanding its capabilities and supporting operators with more of their daily tasks.

Guests are everywhere, but traditional point of sale solutions are in one place. Mobile tablets enhance property-wide guest service. Take poolside for example - servers take food and beverage orders and enter them into the POS via a handheld device, while they continue to engage the guest in conversation. Implemented well, the order might just arrive before the conversation is over. Bringing service to the guest wherever that guest wants to be, which opens new revenue opportunities from little more than meeting existing, unmet demand. The outcome is more orders, happier guests and a cost-effective operation.

It’s all about frictionless guest experiences. It’s about being where the guest is, meeting their needs, and doing it again and again. It’s also about understanding the guest in ways the industry hasn’t been able to previously. Business analytics tools are perfect for building your own dashboard. Illuminate guest spending, loss prevention, getting quickly to the bottom of fraudulent activity, for staff performance metrics, identifying team champions and opportunities for training, and on-demand data to monitor guest traffic, table turns, tips and tender types. Such tools leverage existing data. It’s about using that data to make better decisions around what to sell, to whom, and even what not to offer. The ideal solution requires little to no infrastructure outside of a web browser and an internet connection, and interfaces with your POS.

Operators blending hotel and gaming interests consider such technology invaluable. The details help solve their day-to-day challenges - to make quick decisions necessary to affects the bottom line in ‘real-time’. It’s all about technology that helps operators meet, and even anticipate, guest needs. As we march toward that goal, we’re seeing more smiling guests along the way.

Two things have been identified. The first is that evolving hospitality solutions enables the delivery of personalized guest experiences. The second - and arguably most important -- change is happening. The advancement of technology, expansion of demographic expectations and tougher competition mean that flexibility is paramount. Change is inevitable and we must evolve. We must plan for it.