Why Every Hospitality Operator Must Think Like a Hospitality Engineer

When I joined RMS about 18 months ago, I came from a marketing and software background, not hospitality. And almost immediately, I noticed something. We were constantly talking about guests, prices, rates, and availability. But underneath all that conversation was a tangled, complex ecosystem of systems that nobody seemed to fully own.

That observation planted a seed. And together with our partners at Room Price Genie, we set out to find out what was really going on across the industry. The result is the Hospitality Engineer Report, and what we found surprised even us.

The issue is experienced by operators of all sizes, and globally

Across the globe, hospitality operators, hotels, resorts, campsites, caravan parks, and glamping sites are running anywhere from four to ten-plus systems every single day. A PMS, a channel manager, a revenue management tool, a CRM, a booking engine, guest communication platforms, keyless entry systems... the list goes on.

And here's what's startling: 83% of the hospitality professionals we surveyed reported significant operational stress simply from monitoring and troubleshooting these systems. This is not a niche problem. It is now the industry's default state.

What struck me most, coming from marketing, is that we've been grappling with this exact challenge — how to connect data across platforms and ensure it flows correctly — for years. There's an entire marketing ops discipline built around solving it. Hospitality hasn't had that equivalent role. Until now.

The costs of the disconnection compound

The time drain is real. 42% of operators are spending one to three hours every week just fixing tech failures. 5% are spending an entire day. But the time itself isn't even the highest cost.

The real cost is what doesn't get done. When a team member is troubleshooting a sync error, they're not greeting a guest. They're not thinking about how to grow revenue. They're not training their team or finding creative ways to deliver a better experience. That opportunity cost adds up, quietly, persistently, and painfully.

And there's a human cost too. In many properties, there's no designated person responsible for tech connectivity. A quarter of the operators we spoke to had nobody accountable for this at all. So when something breaks, it falls on whoever finds it, often someone who didn't sign up to be a technical troubleshooter.

A not-so-accurate picture of someone trying to troubleshoot an API connection.

The solution isn't just fewer tools

I'll admit: going into this research, I thought simplification would be the answer. Fewer systems, fewer problems. But the data told us something different entirely.

Operators with just one to three systems reported the same issues as those running seven to ten. The number of tools isn't the problem. It's how well those tools talk to each other — and who's making sure that conversation is actually happening.

That insight led us to the concept of the Hospitality Engineer.

A new skill for a new era of hospitality

70% of the operators we spoke to agreed: the modern hospitality professional needs both service skills and technical skills. That's a profound shift in the role.

The hospitality engineer isn't a coder. They don't need to build systems. But they need to understand how systems connect, what good data flow looks like, where integration breaks down, and how to ask the right questions of their vendors when something isn't working.

This is not a distant-future skill set. It's needed right now.

Hire for skills that understand IT, technology, and API, and train them on hospitality skills later.

How to get started

If you're reading this and feeling a bit overwhelmed, you're not alone. Everyone is dealing with this. Here's what I'd recommend:

1. Audit your tech stack. Map out every system you use, what it does, and where it connects. Most operators don't have a clear picture of this, and you can't fix what you can't see.
2. Find your hospitality engineer. You may not need to hire anyone new. You probably already have someone on your team who is curious, interested, and capable of owning this. Find them. Equip them. Give them the responsibility.
3. Document everything. This sounds unglamorous, but it is one of the most valuable things you can do. When something breaks, write down what happened and how you fixed it. Build your institutional knowledge — don't leave it sitting in one person's head.
4. Lean on your vendors. We are here. Book a session with your customer success manager. Tell them what's frustrating you. Ask them to walk you through your integrations. Good vendors want to help — and the best ones have built their partnerships specifically to make your life easier.

Not all integrations are created equal. I learned that quickly when I joined RMS. You can be "integrated" with a partner, but only pushing one field of data. That's not the same as a deep, meaningful integration that actually serves your business. Ask your vendors the hard questions; they should be able to answer them.

A final thought on AI

Everyone is talking about AI, I bet your noticed that already. But here's the truth: if your data isn't clean, structured, and flowing correctly between systems, AI won't save you. In fact, nearly 20% of the operators we surveyed gave themselves a score of just one out of five for data quality. A third said they didn't feel ready for AI and didn't know where to start.

The prep work you do now, such as fixing integrations, cleaning your guest data, and building that strong data foundation, is directly linked to what you'll get out of AI in the future. Operators who do the hard foundational work today will see significantly better results when they do turn on AI. That's not a hypothesis. It's a logical certainty.

So, download the report. Pick one problem to fix this week, and go deep on it. You are not alone in this, and the industry is ready to help you move forward.