Alexey Lebedev / Shelter PMS: The main thing for a hotelier in 2022 is to realize the change in the economy of the hotel.
Alexey Lebedev, CEO of Shelter PMS, shared about what influenced the hotel industry the most in 2021, what awaits hoteliers and the industry in 2022 - economically and technologically, how and with what Shelter enters during market changes.
Question: The year 2021 - under what hashtag did its domestic hoteliers live, what was it marked for the hotel industry, what phenomena can be noted as the most influential on the industry?
Alexey Lebedev / Shelter PMS: Last year, the entire hotel community started with a certain hope that the pandemic factor would finally be overcome. Careful plans were made, based on this, budgets were drawn up. However, a miracle did not happen, and the entire tourism industry, and accordingly, the hotel sector, lived 2021 with the hashtag #covid, alas. Survival mode became routine, and although financial indicators bounced from the "bottom point", they did not please with significant dynamics (except for suburban and resort hotels). Working with completely different segments of hotels averaged, this is how we see a cross-section of the moods of our partners. Yes, certain waves of revival have swept through the industry, but in general, the situation with both tourist and business traffic and the MICE segment has not yet returned to pre-pandemic times - in terms of profit for sure. Actually,
The pandemic remained the main factor influencing all processes in the hotel industry in 2021.
The outflow of line staff and the subsequent severe personnel starvation, increased costs for security measures (sanitizers, recirculators, disinfection), increased competition for a reduced volume of guests - all these are natural consequences of the spread of the disease and acticoid measures to prevent it. But, most importantly, if we do not talk about some rare exceptions, -
The marginality of the hotel business in 2021 has not increased, prices have remained the same, and the burden on the budget of hotels has increased significantly in comparison with pre-pandemic times.
Stops and interruptions in logistics resulted in an increase in prices for goods, products and consumables. The wage fund has grown due to the outflow of migrants and the need to pay above the market due to competition with other industries (retail and delivery). At the same time, the total financial volume of money in the hotel sector has greatly decreased, and competition for it has become tougher. These are the realities of today's market.
Question: How much has the pandemic affected the domestic hotel high-tech and in what way (if any)?
Alexey Lebedev / Shelter PMS: Indeed, a number of industries under the pressure of pandemic restrictions on markets have made a serious breakthrough over the past one and a half to two years in terms of information technology, primarily e-commerce and everything related to online and contactless services. However,
Self-registration and contactless check-in systems - self check-in - failed to "shoot" in Russia in 2021 due to a number of barriers.
Within the framework of the ConnectOne service partnered with Shelter, several pilot projects of self-registration kiosks were implemented, but these are isolated implementations, self check-in has not yet become a mass history in the country. At the same time, speaking of hi-tech in hotels,
It must be admitted that QR codes were "fired" - and, massively - an example of how the phenomenon "takes root" at the direction of "from above". The population had to get acquainted with QR codes as a means of access control (confirmation of vaccination), and then such codes spread to various add-ons.hotel services, promotions, etc.
Today QR codes are the norm for any high-quality hotel, a common communication tool: it is enough to point the camera and the guest will be "transferred" to the menu of the room service, the schedule of SPA treatments and other services.
By the way, support for QR codes is fully implemented within the Shelter PMS ecosystem, information about any guest actions gets directly into the system, "settling" in the guest profile. This is especially convenient to use in conjunction with the room service - orders are placed automatically, notifications are sent to all employees involved in the service chain in any variants - email, sms, push notification on mobile, etc.
Question: What was the year 2021 for Shelter PMS? What does the chronology of changes, main achievements and events look like?
Alexey Lebedev / Shelter PMS: Over the past year, we have released seven major updates of our Shelter PMS product, in which we implemented more than a thousand different changes and additions. Therefore,
An important achievement of Shelter in 2021 is the almost complete repayment of the technological debt.
What is technology debt? This is a combination of various "imperfections", undeveloped or not fully disclosed functions, "bugs", promised integrations, optimizations, etc. This is present in any IT product of any developer, the only question is how and how well it is controlled. For me personally, this item has been one of the priorities since my appointment to the position of project manager.
Closing this debt allowed us to focus on new functionality and improving the performance of the platform itself - as the heart of all business processes in the hotel. Accordingly,
In 2021, Shelter PMS significantly expanded its integration potential - these are "bundles" with Sberbank and Bnovo, and deep integration with Travelline, and connection with Hotellab, Revinate and other services.
Now our product is able to work with a very wide range of third-party applications, allowing the hotelier to increase its functionality almost indefinitely. Besides,
In 2021, Shelter PMS technical support was transferred to a separate department and is now being provided in 7x24 mode - both in relation to dealer partners and to hotels serviced directly by us.
Of course, in 2021, there was also
A landmark event for the company and our partners is the merger of Shelter with Frontdesk24, a cloud-based PMS.
Now Shelter PMS users can expand their functionality with a channel manager, a booking module with card payment acceptance on the hotel's website, or switching to a fully cloud-based Shelter Clouds solution. And in terms of "clouds", what is innovative first of all is that, unlike many cloud-based PMS, our solution is designed for full-fledged operation of both small and large hotels - with a room stock of 100 rooms and above - not only in the classic mini-chess mode, but also in the standard "boxed" format." PMS is only in the cloud.
Merging and entering the cloud segment for Shelter is not so much a matter of some kind of market ambitions, as a natural step within the framework of serving its customers. We understand that one way or another, migration to the "clouds" is an inevitable process, if not right now, then with the advent of the era of the "Internet of things" - for sure. And in order for hotels currently operating under Shelter PMS to make this transition painless, in a familiar environment, it is necessary to prepare the ground in advance.
It is also worth noting that over the past year we have replenished our portfolio with 94 new hotels - where Shelter PMS installations took place. At the same time, it is not so much the vertical quantitative growth that is important for us, as the horizontal expansion of the applicability of our software. The variety of client solutions based on Shelter PMS is what we discovered in 2021. Yes, the company used to have IT sub-products for working with fitness centers, the food sector, and other territories and spaces, but last year we learned how to combine all this under the umbrella of Shelter into one solution.
As an example, automation of a shift camp in Tengiz, which serves the operation of an oil and gas field in the Atyrau region (Kazakhstan). Thousands of employees of completely different jurisdictions, access levels, settlement conditions and food packages - and it is on the basis of Shelter PMS that the transparent movement of their digital profiles is implemented - access control to the territory, visibility of accommodation and food accounting. A seamless bundle of "CHECKPOINT - cabins - catering" - now Shelter PMS can do this, and with thousands of people living in completely different-format units.
Question: The year 2022 and the short-term future of hotel IT technologies - what is the market waiting for, what are the developers of hotel software thinking about in the world, what trends are beginning to dominate?
Alexey Lebedev / Shelter PMS: Absolutely,
The Russian market is waiting for "clouds" - this is both the arrival of classic hotel IT products in the cloud segment, and the expansion of the range of various online tools that enrich the functionality of hoteliers.
Accordingly, our IT sector is waiting for an explosive growth of services that will integrate with cloud-based PMS platforms, which in turn will become similar to a market place of functions with a single control center. In one way or another, this can already be observed in individual companies - both Travelline and Bnovo, and Oracle Hospitality, and Shelter Clouds are already on this path, it's just that now each of them has more of their own service modules than third-party integrations, but this will change soon.
All this comes from the natural desire of companies to satisfy the maximum needs of their customers - within the hotel turnover, but already outside their PMS.
The transition from providing one service to covering all possible requests is an intersectoral trend, which is why Sberbank has turned into Sber and now sells its users not only a banking product, but also entertainment, smart home, travel and much more.
In relation to the hotel, this means a change in the center of the economy.
How was it before? The hotel is a building with standard rooms, a defined set of services and a fixedexchange rates. They are the rooms, services and rates - the center of the hotel economy in the past. Today, the hotel is a market place/designer of the guest's "wishlist" with variable properties of rooms, variable packages of services and situational personalized prices.
And the main competition in the market now is for the mechanisms of the unit economy around the guest, not for the sales funnel or the compliance of the guest with the hotel (and vice versa), but for the ability of management to maximize the guest's payment potential. Sberbank is no longer fighting for its banking business, it is fighting for all areas of the client's life.
And in this perspective, the assessment of how the hotel considers its effectiveness should also change... Traditional RevPAR and ADR are no longer enough, you need to operate with terms such as CPU (cost per unit). Why? Because the hotel earns not only on the room. The guest has not arrived yet, but has already bought from the hotel, conditionally, a transfer, a visa, an interpreter, a meeting room, a table in a restaurant and SPA treatments. Or he will buy it on arrival, and this is not necessarily related to the room or the overnight stay as such.
One more
An important trend in the context of the new unit economy is the modernization of the room stock with smart devices and sensors.
By the way, we have a whole department in Shelter doing this - integrating the widest range of sensors with PMS. Humidity, temperature, volume (presence/movement sensor), lighting, noise, air composition in the room - all this becomes very important when operating the room fund, calculating expenses, processing complaints, preventing breakdowns, etc. Smart numbers in Russia are still rare, but the fact that they are the future is unequivocal.
In general, all the listed industrial trends mean one thing -
If the automation of the hotel is carried out incorrectly in relation to the realities and requirements of the market, the hotel loses its competitiveness. Why? Because if you do not describe, store, process, and maintain the history of the guest's digital profile, it is impossible to effectively realize his payment potential.
In other words, the hotel will not be able to offer, convince, sell anything at an adequate price for his understanding of the guest.
Question: What does Shelter plan to add to its software and services in 2022? What are the key proposed changes?
Alexey Lebedev / Shelter PMS: In connection with the merger with Frontdesk24, the development of Shelter Clouds is a huge layer of work that the company will have to do this year.
The unification of interfaces and the creation of a single environment - both within Shelter PMS and in Shelter Clouds (i.e. Frontdesk24) - is what we have to implement in the near future.
The goal is the same "seamless" transition from boxed software to a cloud solution and back, both at the visual level and at the data level.
An important priority for us this year will be deep integration with the EPSU (Unified Portal of Public Services) - first of all in the context of transmitting data about guests to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The loyalty program management system is another important tool that Shelter has already developed, but this year it will be, let's say, put on the market publicly and, I am sure, will be a good marketing tool for many hotels.
Smart locks with feedback and access to the room without a key card is another big project that the company has a whole department working on. Proprietary technology, full integration with Shelter PMS. We are also implementing this within the framework of the unit-economy trend, which requires a lot of different information from access systems - who opened it, when, with what key, for what period, how long he stayed in the room, etc. This is also the inevitable future of all hotels, Russian ones are no exception. By the way, in 2021 Accor implemented the Accor Key program - a digital key on a guest's smartphone - in 20,000 rooms around the world. The number of rooms whose doors open daily in hotels managed by Shelter PMS is approaching one hundred thousand. Therefore, optimizing the management of access control systems is not an empty phrase for us.
Of course, our work front is much wider than what is indicated above. In any case, we believe that 2022 will be a breakthrough year in many ways - both for Shelter and for our partners, to whom we wish in the New Year maximum load, stable guest flow, solvent audience and professional employees!
