How Integrating Visitor Management Systems Impacts the Hospitality Industry?

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, 1.2 billion people travel every year for tourism. These people enjoy the facilities like food, accommodation, transportation, traveling, etc. of the hospitality industry. Managing and catering to this huge number of people is a complex task. This is increasing the reliance of the industry owners on digitalized solutions to manage a vast client base and promote business, avoiding risk factors.

Integrating a Visitor Management System in Dubai, UAE can help the hospitality industry in managing facilities used by visitors. A VMS in the hospitality industry makes visitor management easy by providing relevant documentation such as permits, and visitor badges, seamless.

In this blog, let us learn about the impact of VMS in the hotel industry.

What is a Visitor Management System?

A Visitor Management System is a system that allows hospitality businesses to record visitor data in their database. This database can be accessed by others in the management and can be shared easily.

If a visitor has ever been convicted by the law, this information will stay in the system and another chain of the same enterprise can take it up when the guest visits their establishment.

Common Problems Faced by the Hospitality Industry

Before we can move on to how VMS impacts hospitality businesses, let us discuss the common visitor management problems faced by them. To keep the premises safe, hotels and restaurants keep logs of the guests visiting the hotel. However, these logs are mostly paper-based and kept manually. This type of manual visitor management setup is outdated and lacks privacy.

Here are the various problems faced by the hospitality businesses in managing visitors:

• Businesses operating in a manual mode fail to create a good first impression. Receptionists are not aware of the visitors until their arrival. The guests often have to stand in queues if the footfall is huge for the day, making the check-in process hectic.

• The outdated visitor management process lacks security. Everything that is done by a hotel or restaurant business to manage visitors is for security. However, using a paper-based logbook is not secure. Hotel employees do not come to know who is present inside the building if a guest forgets to put a check-out entry. This can be a huge problem in the case of emergencies.

• Lack of communication is another significant problem faced by businesses. By using a manual log process, an employee has to always be present at the front desk to attend to the visitors. If the hosts step away from the desk even for a minute, they will never know about the visitor’s arrival. This inability to communicate with the guests upon their arrival can further cause problems in catering to them as per their expectations.

• Waiting in a queue after arrival is a hectic and time-consuming process. The visitor has to stand in line to get their ID proofs approved. Dealing with this process can be tiresome after a road journey to arrive at the establishment.

• Lack of guest independence is also a common issue that both the business and the guests deal with. Since the time of their arrival, they get occupied by the front desk employees for registration and check-in purposes. Thereafter, they have to depend on other hotel staff to take them to their room.

Advantages of VMS in the Hospitality Industry

The hospitality industry is competitive. Every hotel in Dubai wants to stay ahead of the competition by providing the best customer service to its clients. This is where the need to improve visitor experience with an automated Visitor Management System (VMS) comes in. By incorporating the automated Visitor Management System in Dubai, hospitality businesses can enjoy the following advantages:

1. Data Entry Automation:

It is an automated system for handling guests on the premises. VMS software allows digitalized data entry. These data can include visitor names, entry and exit dates, etc.

Automated data entry saves money by reducing the need for a receptionist. The average salary of a hotel receptionist in Dubai is AED 20,309 per month. Moreover, this automation process also helps in keeping track of who is inside the premises, simplifying the work of security personnel. This benefit can be significant for hospitals when handling critical patients.

2. Facilitates Customization:

VMS allows massive customization. You can either make your template or revitalize the existing one as per your business needs.

It also facilitates creating submissions for visitor actions like check-ins, guest requests, reservations, etc. This allows employees to give more time to the guests, ensuring their involvement in maintaining healthy guest relations. VMS integration reduces paperwork, allowing employees to invest time in attending to guests and solving their queries promptly.

3. Allows Pre-registration:

Having a visitor management system on-premise will enable you to pre-register the visitors without the need for manual reception. The guests can simply check in with their room number via their mobile application.

The pre-registration feature also allows hotel owners or employees to know who is coming before the guest arrives. So, incorporating an automated Visitor Management system makes the check-in process easy and less time-consuming.

4. Simplifies Signing In and Signing Out:

VMS simplifies the process of signing in and signing out by sending data of the right people. It helps eliminate the hectic process of waiting in a queue at the reception.

An automatic signing-in and out process can prevent bottlenecks in occasions like a large event where multiple guests are trying to sign in. This also helps in eliminating errors that can otherwise happen in the case of manual data entry.

5. Access Control and Easy Integration into Different Systems:

Using a Visitor Management System in Dubai is a flexible choice for hospitality businesses offering features like access control and easy integration. It allows access control, ensuring only authorized individuals and registered guests can access the property.

VMS can be easily integrated into other systems such as phone, reservation, or sales systems to manage all business aspects. If the VMS is integrated into the reservation system, guests will be able to book their reservations online and will be provided with a virtual key before their arrival. After they check in the guest details will be transferred to the business’s system, allowing the employees to track during their stay with the hotel.

6. Tracking the Movement of Items:

Real-time tracking of hotel possession inside and outside the premises is another unique advantage of using VMS. The software can provide information about the type of items, count and the location of the receiver. This not only secures the possessions of the establishment, but also ensures the required items reach the guests on-time, increasing the chances of guest satisfaction.

Essential Features of Visitor Management Software for Hospitality Businesses

Other than serving as an automatic reception for hotels, VMS has the following features:

• An automated Visitor Management System allows checking in a large number of guests in no time. The hotel management can provide a professional experience to guests, greeting them uniquely and smartly.

• Seamless check-in for guests who have previously stayed in the hotel is another beneficial feature of VMS. These guests can easily check in whenever required by entering their previously registered phone number or email ID.

• The face recognition feature of VMS further simplifies the process of visitor identification. Once the guest has checked in, their face is recognised by the system, avoiding the need to go through security checks every time to re-enter the premises.

• Timely host alerts allow employees to get notified of the arrival of an expected guest. This further helps prevent the challenge of timely coordination.

• Live guest logs help in analyzing the performance of the business. The guest log always remains updated displaying the guest details.

• VMS allows tracking monthly guest footfall to track business performance and growth every month.

• VMS ensures the safe and secure functioning of businesses as all the visitors check in as per legal automation. Guest data remains secured and saved in the system for future audit and analysis.

• A Visitor Management System in Dubai is economical. The software is easy to use and maintain and thus is worth the investment.

Wrap Up

In this digital age, a strong visitor management strategy is necessary for hospitality businesses to thrive.  Using an outdated paper-based manual registration system has multiple disadvantages, causing inconveniences for hosts and visitors.

Integrating an enterprise visitor management system has various significant benefits for the business and the clients. It automates the entire process of guest registration, making the process seamless. It eliminates the need for waiting in line for registration after arrival, making guests feel relaxed and comfortable. VMS also helps hotel employees keep track of check-ins, check-outs, and monthly footfall to track business performance.

Moreover, with digital registration, Visitor Management Systems in Dubai ensures guest information is securely saved in the system for future use. VMS increases the efficiency of hospitality employees and guarantees ultimate customer satisfaction.