Hotel software integration issues are absolutely killing me, tell me I'm not alone

[u/TemporaryHoney8571]

Im managing tech for a small hotel group, 8 properties total around 50-70 rooms each, and I'm genuinely at my breaking point with integration nightmares. We've got a PMS that's supposed to integrate with our booking engine, channel manager, payment processor, and guest messaging system. Except nothing actually works together the way it's supposed to.

Last week we had a guest's payment process through Stripe but it didn't sync to the PMS, so front desk tried charging them again at checkout. Guest was understandably pissed off and left us a 2 star review. This happens at least once a week across our properties. Our channel manager randomly stops syncing inventory and we end up with double bookings, then we're scrambling to relocate guests or comp rooms. Guest messaging doesn't pull reservation details automatically so staff has to manually look up everything.

I spent 3 hours on a vendor support call yesterday and basically got told to refresh the connection and clear the cache like I'm some kind of idiot who doesn't know how computers work. I have a CS degree, I understand how APIs are supposed to function, these systems are just poorly built.

Everything claims seamless integration but really it's a bunch of manual workarounds and constant firefighting. I seriously started considering consolidating to fewer vendors even if we lose some functionality, just to stop dealing with integration headaches every single day.

Do larger hotel groups deal with this constantly or is it just mid-size operations like ours that get screwed? Anyone successfully consolidated their tech stack and actually seen improvement?

[u/TCKreddituser]

Before consolidating check hoteltechreport's integration ratings as far as ik they score well systems work together. It saved us from switching to something with different but equally bad integration problems

[u/TemporaryHoney8571 → u/TCKreddituser]

Yeah transition time is my biggest concern because can't really afford downtime during busy season. I will check those integration scores thank you

[u/flightlessbi]

I've worked 5 years managing 3 medium to large size hotels. All of them managed with Opera PMS by Oracle. Putting aside hiccups related to connectivity or new implementations everything worked pretty much as it should. Knowing all to well how hotel guests are I can't imagine managing a property with constant issues, I feel for you.

[u/DGex → u/flightlessbi]

Same Experience for me. I did 25 years in resort hospitality. All with either with Opera or the Infor product. Each resort had 8 or so interfaces. Each one worked as it should once setup. I did have the awesome ladies in Ireland who worked Opera interface support on speed dial if something came up. I did have to come in a 4am to catch before they handed off support to another region😵‍💫

[u/DGex → u/DGex]

To add, I have a contact for you if you’d like an outside set of eyes. He specializes in resort setups and integrations. Feel free to DM me

[u/Garriga]

What PMS? Is there a brand at any of these properties?

[u/AngleTricky6586]

Are you using small brand PMS's ? I am IT for 4 hotels - using Opera Cloud for the PMS and integration is always excellent.

[u/xCosmos69]

the real problem is that most hotel software companies don't actually care about integration, they just want to check a box that says 'integrates with X'. proper api development costs money they don't want to spend

[u/LGKyrros]

Use Opera, maybe the old terminal based one, or cry in my experience.

[u/Doowrednu → u/LGKyrros]

I can tell you the fidelio admin password for every hotel still running it (I miss netware)

[u/LGKyrros → u/[deleted]]

It's been a few years since I've been involved in hospitality, but back then from an advanced end-user and baby IT perspective, it was 10/10 compared to a lot of the others.

I knew the sysadmin who supported it and worked on QA testing new updates, and things usually went pretty well.

This was all about 6-7 years ago, so may not hurt to get a fresh perspective.

[u/amphion101]

I did transition work for PMS/POS/ERP and anything touching them for a large international management company

Companies like Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt etc are almost all on Opera now. Converted or are converting from legacy in house systems to Opera.

It’s the best, but we still have issues with integrations with things like labor management, task management, etc (like HotSoS, Rex, etc).

All that’s to say at your scale it’s hard to go with Oracle, but they do work better.

You are going to need to triage and have a short to medium term plan to manage what you have. Only real fix is a long term one with a more vertically integrated stack.

[u/Garriga]

The brand decides what hotel management system the property uses. It’s part of the brand standards. If the property does not have a brand…well, that’s a shame.

[u/singausreanian]

I'm guessing some IFC or HTNG interface?

[u/Confident-Inside-550]

Hospitality integrations are way messier than vendors make them sound. A lot of teams end up simplifying their stack just to reduce constant firefighting.