The Essential Guide to Choosing Lodge Management Software

The Essential Guide to Choosing

LODGE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

SOUTHERN AND EAST AFRICA

Lodges are the perfect choice for local and international travellers seeking to immerse themselves in the beauty of African nature and wildlife. From luxurious full-board to self-catering, visitors can find a variety of rustic, cosy, and natural lodgings.

Today, lodge management software has become increasingly popular as lodges strive to remain competitive and benefit from technological advancements. This software can address the common issues faced by independent lodges, such as limited online visibility, time-consuming front desk operations, inefficient distribution and lack of guest satisfaction.

Are you part of a lodge team and searching for the perfect management software? We’ve got you covered in this Buyer’s Guide with all the information you need to make an informed decision.

This guide is for you if you are a

General Manager

Revenue Manager

Sales

Manager

Operations

Manager

Marketing Manager

What is Lodge Management Software?

Lodge management software is a suite of tools designed to optimise occupancy rates and revenue while simplifying the daily tasks associated with running a successful lodge.

It typically includes features such as booking management, channel management, housekeeping management, revenue management, and more. The software helps streamline operations, increase visibility, and improve the guest journey, allowing lodge managers more time to focus on curating the unique African experiences that guests expect.

The Role of Technology in the Industry’s Recovery

Technology has taken an essential role during the Covid-19 pandemic to help accommodation businesses remain competitive and increase their visibility. In South Africa, lodges that have embraced software solutions enjoy improved revenue and occupancy rates.

Trends in the South African Accommodation Industry

South African accommodation businesses are not merely recovering but exceeding their levels of performance prior to the onset of the pandemic. We deep-dived into the key performance metrics of RoomRaccoon HMS users across South Africa. In particular, we looked at the average occupancy rates, Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) and Average Daily Rates (ADR). The data is focused on the month of January 2020 to January 2023.

The Raccoon Scoop

In January 2023, occupancy rates were recorded at a higher rate than pre-pandemic levels. An average of 58% was reported compared to 50% in January 2020, signifying that the desire to travel is stronger than ever. It was no surprise to see a decrease in occupancy rates when travel restrictions were enforced in 2021, with an average of 33%. However, as travel restrictions started to lift in 2022 , there was a healthy occupancy bump reaching 54%.

For the first time in four years, the industry experienced a boost in revenue per available room (RevPAR), which is calculated from the combination of occupancy rate and average daily rate (ADR). RevPAR saw an 8% increase this January compared to the same month in 2020. Despite global inflation, ADR has slightly decreased from R2431.69 in January 2020 to R2304.85 in January 2023 - a decrease of R126.84.

Buyer’s Checklist

1 . Property Management System (PMS)

Take control of your back and front-end operations with a robust Property Management System (PMS). This powerful tool provides efficient automation and an intuitive interface that simplifies everyday tasks associated with managing a lodge. This includes everything from booking management and guest communication down to payment processing.

Investing in a cloud-based PMS with multiple user permissions is recommended. This way, you can monitor your business using any device and give team members different access levels.

Key features

Cloud-based

Easy-view calendar dashboard

Online check-in and self-check-out

Emails: booking confirmation, post-and pre-stay

Invoicing

Group booking management

Housekeeping management

Online payments

Reporting and insights

Upselling ancillary services

Many lodges rely on sales from ancillary services such as game drives, guided walks, braai packets, and F&B. Yet, there is often a lack of promotion, which means guests are not aware of these add-ons. As a result, lodges miss out on increasing their total revenue per available room (TRevPAR).

Look out for software like RaccoonUpsell. This digital guest service menu engages arriving guests during online check-in with exciting ancillary services and room upgrades to enhance their stay.

BUYER’S TIP #1

BUYER’S TIP #2

2 . Booking Engine

Turn your website visitors into paid guests with a Booking Engine, complete with powerful features designed to increase your direct bookings. Features such as yield management, direct booking discount codes, package creation and Google Hotel Ads listing encourage guests to book through your website rather than an online travel agent. And as we know, more direct bookings lead to significant cost reduction on commissions!

BUYER’STIP #3

Not all booking engines are commission-free.

Be sure to invest in a software vendor that won’t take a cut out of your direct booking revenue.

Key features

Commission-free

Discount codes

Google Hotel Ads compatible

Yield management (dynamic rates)

Conversion tracking (Google Analytics and Facebook)

Language and currency converter

Rate Shopper

A booking engine that can convert the currency and language fosters trust between the guest and your lodge. International travellers often don’t even know what the ‘R’ for rand stands for and will usually revert straight back to the OTA, where they can understand the pricing.

RoomRaccoon’s Rate Shopper

A great way to guarantee a smooth booking process for your guests is by having a user-friendly booking page. Potential guests should be able to quickly and effortlessly find the days you have open, directly compare your direct rates with those listed on your OTAs and complete the checkout without difficulty.

Unembeza Boutique Lodge & Spa

3 . Channel Manager

Promote and sell your lodge through multiple sales channels with a high-performance Channel Manager that simplifies and speeds up the administration of different booking channels through API connections. The powerful tool automatically updates room availability in real-time when a booking is made and when you make any rate changes to your listings. More importantly, it keeps your reservations calendar synced across your sales channels.

Key features

Zero-added commissions

Global and local booking channels

Channel reports Import VCCs

Competitive channel rates (CompSet dashboard)

Why are VCCs important?

Lodge operators are very familiar with the hassle of chargebacks.

Yet, they may not be aware that built-in VCC management can help to mitigate this risk. With a channel manager that imports VCCs, this transfers the risk of a chargeback away from you and places that responsibility onto the acquiring bank and the OTA. At the same time, you can conveniently automate the charging of VCC before the expiration date.

Keeping a close eye on neighbouring lodges’ pricing is an important revenue management strategy. Investing in software with features like a Competitive Set (CompSet) dashboard is highly beneficial to maintain competitive rates. If your competition sells out of rooms, you’ll want to price slightly higher for those last-minute guest bookings.

4 . Revenue Management System (RMS)

Instead of relying on outdated and uncompetitive static rates, make the most of every opportunity with a Revenue Management System. Functionalities such as yield management monitor your property and optimise rates based on room-sell probability. For instance, if your lodge occupancy is at a respectable 70%, you can set a yield rule that automatically increases your rates by 10% to take advantage of the high demand.

How could you use it?

With RoomRaccoon, you can create your own set-and-forget yield rules from scratch or select from a list of tried & tested common yield rules that we pre-load for you to benefit from. A few examples are yield rules for early-bird booker rates and last-minute deals.

Key features

Intuitive rate updates

Yield management with pre-set rules

CompSet dashboard

5. Online payment processing system

Guests now expect payments to be seamlessly woven into their stay, and lodges that can deliver modern payment technology are in line to receive big rewards. Automating payments is essential for streamlining processes, and storing payment data in a centralised location ensures easy reconciliations, whether with your accountant or your accountancy software.

Key features

Online payment requests

Pre-payments

VCC management

InstantEFT

Refunds

Chargeback support

Tokenisation

3D Secure authentication

RoomRaccoon’s robust Marketplace connects you to third party services. Through our platform, users can connect to top-tier payment service providers like Peach Payments and DPO. In addition, we offer compatibility with Xero accounting software.

The nature of payments in the accommodation industry is unique, and the software you use should handle the different stages of the guest journey. Many lodges prefer to take pre-payments on their website in order to secure bookings, while others might want more control over VCC payments. Additionally, popular local payment options such as InstantEFT should also be provided for guests’ convenience. BUYER’S TIP

Find an all-in-one solution

Independent properties that have capped budgets and limited IT resources should consider an all-in-one cloud lodge management system. This type of platform allows managers to access the property management system, revenue management system, online payment gateway, channel manager and booking engine in one convenient platform.

All-in-one system

Plug-and-play

All-in-one system VS Single-use solutions

Single-use solutions

Time-consuming API integrations

One contract

One support line

Affordable all-in-one platform with customisable packages.

One powerful platform complemented with native features and tools plus a marketplace that offers local integrations like Xero, Peach Payments and TabletPOS.

Multiple contracts

Multiple support lines

The software is priced individually and works out more expensive.

Easy staff adoption to a central dashboard.

A collection of proven tools, components, and systems that seamlessly work together.

One platform assembled through multiple disparate software, tools and features, each with a different underlying tech stack.

Staff take longer to adapt to different extranets and interfaces.

Poor integration is the most prominent issue.

Costs to consider

In the crowded world of property management software, you need to consider your specific needs and budget when choosing the right solution. What cost do you have to keep in mind when shopping for the right technological solution for your lodge?

Here are the costs you need to consider

Subscription fees: When selecting a payment plan, you typically have three options: annual billing, monthly billing or commission-based subscription. It’s beneficial to choose either a yearly or monthly subscription model. These two plans offer better predictability when budgeting and allow you to reinvest the money into your property as you grow.

Set-up fees: Getting started with new software should not be taken lightly. Protecting sensitive information is a key priority when transferring your lodge data to a new system or if you’re a first-time software user. For this reason, software providers typically charge an initial set-up fee. The software’s implementation cost will be billable hours or a once-off set-up fee based on your property’s size. Tech-savvy lodge managers prefer billable hours.

Additional connectivities: You might want to customise your lodge management system with the tools you already use, like accounting software, which will come at an additional cost. Find out if your software provider can connect to third-party companies you may already use.

Additional staff training: Utilizing your lodge management system to its fullest extent can greatly enhance your business efficiency and bring in more revenue. Leveraging its features and tools will help you make sure that you are capitalising on every potential opportunity. Find out if your software provider offers training programs and webinars. Pick the solution that can expand with your needs, especially regarding flexibility and cost.

Conclusion

As the world increasingly moves online, don’t get left behind with outdated processes and legacy software. Your guests use technology to streamline how they book accommodation and expect businesses to keep up. With the right tools, you can put your lodge on the map, empower your staff with more time to dedicate to guests and get more eyeballs on your offerings.

Before you take the plunge, be sure to request a convenient online demo. This will allow you to experience the system first-hand and understand how it operates.

At RoomRaccoon, one of our friendly representatives would love to chat with you about how you run your property to analyze where we can enhance the guest experience and automate time-consuming manual tasks.

We’re passionate about understanding your unique operating environment so we can directly tailor our system to your setup. RoomRaccoon also offers a free 30-day trial period to explore the system at your own pace.

RoomRaccoon is an innovative all-in-one Hotel Management System that empowers independent hoteliers and lodge operators with powerful cloud technology to boost operations, maximise profitability and deliver a memorable guest experience. The system is intuitive and simple to use and offers outstanding support, should you need it.

Based in Cape Town, RoomRaccoon is trusted by thousands of independent properties in Southern and East Africa and was voted as the #1 hotel management system by hotel operators and industry experts in the 2020 and 2021 Hotel Tech Awards.