The Hotel Technology Checklist

How to use this

Go through each section and mark it as working, partly working, or absent. The aim is not to score highly — it is to find the one or two gaps that are costing the most, and fix those first.

1. Taking the booking

• A guest can see live availability for their dates without emailing you
• The rate is visible before personal details are requested
• The booking flow works one-handed on a phone
• A confirmation reaches the guest immediately
• Bookings from every source land in one place, not several

2. Running the day

• Today's arrivals and departures are visible on one screen
• Reception can see whether a room is ready without phoning housekeeping
• Walk-ins can be handled without leaving the reservation view
• A guest extending a stay does not require a second reservation
• Anyone on shift can answer "what is happening today" in under a minute

3. Rooms and housekeeping

• Every room has a current status that both teams can see
• The cleaning queue is ordered by arrival time, not by floor
• Each room in progress has a named owner
• Inspection is a distinct step with its own state
• Maintenance issues become tracked tasks, not verbal messages

4. The guest record

• A returning guest is recognised as the same person
• Preferences from a previous stay are visible at check-in
• Guest communication history is attached to the profile
• You know which channel each guest relationship came from
• Retention and consent follow the rules in your market

5. Communication

• Enquiries have an owner and an expected response time
• Whoever replies can see availability while replying
• An agreed booking becomes a reservation without re-typing
• Pre-arrival information is sent consistently
• Out-of-hours expectations are stated honestly to the guest

6. Reporting

• Occupancy is available without building it by hand
• Booking source mix is visible over time
• Open operational items can be seen without walking the property
• The owner can check the hotel without interrupting staff
• Figures trace back to the records they came from

What can wait

Revenue management automation, loyalty programmes, upsell engines, in-room tablets and guest apps are all real products that solve real problems — usually at a scale above an independent property's current one. If any of the six sections above are still failing, those tools will sit on top of a broken foundation and be blamed for it.

Fix the section with the most gaps first. Almost always it is rooms and housekeeping, and almost always the cause is that room status lives somewhere the front desk cannot see.