Digitalising a hospitality business is a process that must be approached in an orderly way to avoid disrupting daily operations. This guide provides the complete map: from POS selection to implementing a revenue management system and building a differentiating digital customer experience.
The Technology Ecosystem of Modern Hospitality
A modern hospitality business simultaneously manages multiple technology systems that must be integrated with each other: the POS (table management and payments), the reservations system (own website and third-party channels), inventory and purchasing management, customer CRM (history, loyalty), hotel management system if applicable (PMS, channel manager, revenue management), and digital marketing and online reputation tools. The key to success is that all these systems share data and eliminate manual data transfer work between them.
Cloud POS for Food Service
Systems like Cover Manager, Agora, or Revo allow managing tables, orders, digital menus, and payments from a single cloud system with real-time reports.
Booking Engine
Cover Manager, TheFork Manager, or Resy for restaurants; Cloudbeds, Mews, or Roomkey for hotels. Integration with Google Reserve is key for visibility.
Hospitality Inventory Management
Mapal, Apicbase, or Gastroranking for recipe costing, waste management, and automatic supplier orders based on forecast sales.
Revenue Management (Hotels)
RoomPriceGenie, Duetto, or Atomize automatically adjust rates based on historical occupancy, local events, and real-time competitive analysis.
Digitalisation Plan for Restaurants: 12 Weeks
Weeks 1–3: Selection and implementation of a cloud POS (including QR digital menu, table management, and cash register). Weeks 4–6: Integration of the online booking engine with the POS and configuration of the Google Maps profile and review platforms. Weeks 7–9: Implementation of the inventory management and recipe costing system, with kitchen team training. Weeks 10–12: Activation of the loyalty programme, post-visit email marketing setup, and profitability dashboard.
Restaurants with QR digital menus report an average ticket 11% higher than those with physical menus. Customers explore the menu more when they can do so on their own device.
Digitalisation Plan for Hotels: 16 Weeks
Digitalising a hotel is more complex due to the greater number of systems involved. The recommended order is: PMS (core hotel management), channel manager integrated with the PMS (for availability and rate synchronisation across all OTAs), direct booking engine (for the commission-free own website channel), guest communication system (online check-in, messaging, post-stay satisfaction survey), and finally a Revenue Management tool for rate optimisation.
Key Digitalisation Metrics in Hospitality
Table Turnover
Average table occupancy time per service. Target: 10–15% reduction with digital table management.
Average Ticket
Average spend per customer. Cross-selling suggestions in digital menus can increase it by 8–15%.
RevPAR (Hotels)
Revenue Per Available Room. Automatic Revenue Management improves this indicator by 10–20% in the first year.
Waste Cost
Percentage of food cost wasted. Digital inventory management can reduce it from the typical 8–12% to 3–5%.
Want to design and implement the digitalisation plan for your hospitality business with a team specialised in the sector? Request a free consultation .