In the old days, creators of property management software had an easy time identifying the type of customers they were targeting — there was usually only one.
It might have been hotels, or maybe it was student accommodation. Whatever the use case, it was the software that set the parameters of what was possible. Clients were typically locked into a closed environment that did the basics well enough to stop them from shopping around. And that was it.
But that expectation is now being turned on its head completely thanks to a new revolution in the way hospitality platforms are created — and everyone stands to benefit.
MACH architecture is endlessly customizable. It is characterized by limitless flexibility where companies can have the best of all worlds — a combination of the smartest third-party solutions, a mixture of their own and a core property management platform that will always speak to the next generation of tools.
As hospitality businesses diversify like never before and countless operators seek to take advantage of the freedom that MACH principles allow, it’s clear that status quo in hospitality is a thing of the past, opening the doors to a world of possibilities.
Dog hotel, anyone?
Let’s take Raus, for example, a luxury outdoor hospitality brand offering remote getaways in countryside cabins. The challenges Raus faces are totally different from a traditional hotel setup. They need a seamless user experience that mirrors the one they’d receive in a modern apartment or hotel setting. They have a multi-property infrastructure where no two locations or properties are the same – they have different amenities and different services. To use a legacy property management system built for a traditional midscale hotel business would be totally impractical, if not impossible. Raus needed the freedom to create the tools that work for them and the ability to build a totally unique guest experience. In short, they need what’s being called “composable hospitality” — a property management platform that can be endlessly customized.
It’s the reason that despite building our platform with the intention of catering to every possibility, we’ve recently been approached by a host of hospitality verticals that were not always front of mind, from hostels and campgrounds to student accommodation operators and co-living providers. But as you move away from tradition, things get more complicated. Campers, for instance, want to feel completely off the grid but also expect to be catered to. How do you do both?
For us, these kinds of conversations are happening more and more, with many operators desperate to find a solution that works for a business that is either diversifying heavily or wanting to use technology to enhance the guest experience in unusual ways. Perhaps most surprising of all were the approaches from firms with airport parking lots, senior living assets, glamping pods — and, yes, even a dog hotel — all looking for a flexible solution to managing their properties.
Gone are the days when traditional hotel operators with hundreds of bedrooms would satisfy the market – it’s the smaller, more unique brands that are stealing the spotlight, with guests’ desires for individual experiences, spacious accommodation, personal touches and flexibility holding sway.
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As a hospitality platform, in a world where the traveler’s demands are constantly changing, we never wanted to be married to one particular segment of hospitality. So despite serviced apartments and hotel operators representing the core of our customer base, composable hospitality means we have a platform that can flex in the same way that a hospitality provider can flex what they’re offering or sell completely different hospitality products that sit alongside their main offering.
This is the consequence of an innovation that’s taking place in the software industry that parallels the desire of many operators to cater to the evolving preferences of guests. It’s the technology principle that makes all this customization and diversification possible — MACH architecture.
MACH-based platforms are disrupting industries all over the world – there’s Contentful for content management, Commercetools for e-commerce, Stripe and Ayden for payment. As the popularity of MACH architecture grows, it’s clear that traditional technology is no longer adequate for the fast-paced environment of the future and the hospitality industry is experiencing this firsthand.
MACH stands for Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless and, for hospitality, it means you can plug in the best third-party tools available whenever you want from any vendor or add your own. It’s hybrid and future-proof — the opposite of legacy and traditional hospitality software — so operators aren’t trapped with the same services and software partners forever. They get to shape what it looks like and what it can do.
In many cases, diversification isn’t so extreme, but the property management piece still needs to flex. More and more hotels are offering fully furnished apartments or suites with kitchenettes and other amenities, catering to guests looking for home comforts alongside the more traditional hotel services. They are embracing the growing popularity of outdoor hospitality, using outdoor space creatively and adding glamping “pods” or cabins to their offering and, recognizing the rise of remote work, incorporating co-working spaces within properties.
What exactly is a hotel these days anyway? In the past month alone, hotel giants Hilton and Marriott have both announced a new extended-stay brand, racing to make inroads in the booming “bleisure” sector – and they’re not alone.
The days when hospitality companies stayed in their lane are well and truly behind us. There’s a wave of diversification taking place, and proof of concept for us is that we’re now being swept along with it.