5 Signs Your Hotel Tech Stack Needs Simplifying

You know the feeling: you’re trying to answer a simple question – “How’s next month pacing compared to this time last year?” – and suddenly you’re juggling five logins, two spreadsheets, and a half-hour delay while someone pulls the latest report.

Hotel technology promises clarity, but juggling disconnected systems has become a daily frustration for many hoteliers.

Tools that don’t communicate.

Data arriving too late.

Critical market insights frequently fail to reach sales, marketing, and revenue teams simultaneously, causing costly delays.

Tech solutions should make your workday smoother – not more fragmented.

But when everyday questions lead to delays, disjointed numbers, and missed opportunities, and the technology stack you already use is hindering rather than helping your business, it’s probably an indication something isn’t working.

Here are five clear signs it’s time to simplify.

1. No one can answer a simple question without a 30-minute data hunt

When commercial leaders sit down to review performance, they often can’t get the full story fast enough. Maybe the pickup report hasn’t been updated. Perhaps last year’s pacing numbers are buried in an old spreadsheet. Or maybe you’re waiting on someone to cross-check figures before you can make a call.

Ricardo Souza, Regional Growth Leader at Lighthouse, recalled this from his hotel days:

“One thing that was a huge struggle for me as a revenue manager is being able to collect data from multiple sources, compile it, treat it, and then report on it. Right now, that’s a very manual workload for a lot of teams throughout the hotel industry, and that takes time away from decision-making. If you’re not manually building reports, you have time to make more strategic decisions.”

In a recent Lighthouse survey of over 1200 hoteliers from across the globe, almost 1 in 2 pointed to data silos as a major hurdle. With information scattered across various systems, comprehensive analysis becomes impossible. The time spent juggling systems is time not spent on pricing strategy, planning, or improving performance.

2. You’re spending more time fixing data than analyzing it

If your team’s strategy relies on manually pulling reports from your property management system (PMS), checking OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia, and trying to sync data from your channel manager or revenue management system (RMS) and then combining everything in Excel, you’re setting yourself up for failure. 

Tech solutions need to support and optimize your processes.

“If I have a revenue manager that’s created their own spreadsheet, they’re going to be in their office, probably with no windows, looking into Excel spreadsheets that only they know how to operate,” explains Ricardo.

These inefficient workarounds often go unnoticed until critical data is missing, duplicated, or inaccurate where just a single oversight can derail your entire strategy and cause significant losses to your business.

The hours spent cleaning up data in spreadsheets and cross-referencing reports are a huge sap on resources and take away time that could be better spent on big-picture strategies, such as analyzing demand patterns, optimizing distribution channels, and developing upselling programs.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In the same Lighthouse survey (mentioned above), 49% of revenue managers cited a lack of time to analyze data as their primary challenge, with 79% spending less than three hours a day on analysis. 

The sheer volume of data and lack of efficient tools means many revenue managers are spending a disproportionate amount of time on menial tasks, such as creating reports and gathering data across silos, rather than strategic analysis.

When nearly half of revenue professionals say they don’t have enough time for thorough data analysis and a quarter report lack of access to actionable data and the tools to extract it, it highlights a clear gap in technology solutions that address revenue management needs.

The consequence? Manual work drains time from insight – and that cost is paid in missed revenue and ultimately profitability.

3. You’re making big decisions without a unified view – or a consistent approach

As your portfolio grows, so does the complexity of managing performance. But if each team or property is pulling different numbers, using different tools, or even defining key metrics differently, then you’re not operating from a single source of truth – you’re flying blind.

And misalignment isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s a quiet gap – marketing running one campaign, sales chasing another segment, and revenue managing for an entirely different forecast. Everyone has their own data set, and they rarely match.

“When you unify your analysis across different teams in different areas, you streamline the business,” says Ricardo. “Everyone’s collectively looking at the same metrics. They’re understanding different nuances of the business, and, as a result, they’re probably making better decisions.”

When there’s no consistency in how pricing, demand, or forecasting decisions are made – across teams or properties – it creates confusion, not cohesion. 

Instead of identifying opportunities or solving issues, teams spend time justifying why their data looks different.

A unified tech stack makes collaboration easier. It ensures that everyone – from property-level teams to central leadership – is speaking the same language, using the same data, and moving toward the same goals.

4. You’ve spent the budget, but you’re still running your business manually

When you look at your tech budget, it might seem like everything is covered. But if your team is still copying rates between systems, manually checking availability, or building their own reports outside the platform, then the return on that investment is questionable.

This usually happens when systems don’t connect properly. When your customer relationship management (CRM) platform, booking engine, and point-of-sale (POS) don’t integrate, for example, your tech stack creates friction instead of streamlining hotel operations. 

You add one tool to manage distribution, another to track competitors, and another for forecasting – but without seamless API integrations or central reservation system (CRS) connectivity, for example, much of the core functionality is lost, creating more complexity instead of solving it. 

Many hoteliers turn to multiple providers for each piece of functionality – but unless those tools connect seamlessly, you’re left stitching together a puzzle that doesn’t quite fit. Instead of increasing efficiency, these tools generate more work. Valuable time is wasted chasing metrics, rectifying errors, and exporting data just to get a full view.

The real cost isn’t just licensing fees; it’s also the time wasted fixing problems, mistakes from systems that don’t talk to each other, and missed opportunities.

If your tech stack still requires your team to rely on manual checks, or spend hours cleaning data, it’s not doing its job. 

Simplifying your stack means choosing tools that work together seamlessly – so your team can spend less time fixing things and more time improving performance.

5. Your team isn’t using the tools you’ve invested in

If people aren’t logging in, don’t trust the data, or only use one part of the system, that’s a clear sign something isn’t working.

Maybe the platform is too complex. 

Maybe the platform isn’t user-friendly enough, or doesn’t support a seamless integration with your hotel’s existing tech ecosystem. 

Maybe the insights come too late to act on. 

Or maybe your team still prefers their own reports and processes because they’re faster and more reliable. 

Whatever the reason, if your tools aren’t being used as intended, you’re not getting the value you paid for.

The resulting waste isn’t just the money pouring down the drain – it’s the wasted time of your most capable people. If your most experienced revenue manager is spending two hours a day updating comp sets or pulling data into spreadsheets, that’s not resourcefulness – it’s wasted expertise. The same goes for any team member whose talent is buried under repetitive admin.

Automation, AI, and connected systems exist to give people back their time and focus. When those systems aren’t in place – or aren’t properly integrated – your smartest people spend their day firefighting instead of leading.

A tool that sits unused isn’t just wasted spend – it’s a missed opportunity. If adoption is low, the solution isn’t more training. It’s choosing tools that are intuitive, trusted, and genuinely helpful in the flow of daily work.

That means investing in hotel management software that’s built for how your teams actually work – solutions that streamline operations rather than complicate them.

Final thoughts: Complexity is the symptom – simplification, the solution

If your team spends more time building reports than acting on them, if systems don’t talk to each other, and if departments are working from different data sets – your tech stack is holding you back.

Mid-Continent Hospitality recognised those signs. As their portfolio grew, so did the strain on their team’s time. Reports were taking hours. Insights were buried. By simplifying how data was accessed and standardised across properties – using Lighthouse – they turned that around.

“It’s fantastic to have data from all properties cohesively organised in a single platform,” said Donna Paraliticci, Regional Director of Sales and Revenue Management.

“No matter which brand or hotel we’re looking at, the information is ready in our standard format.”

Lotte Hotels & Resorts faced a different version of the same problem: misalignment across countries and teams, and delayed decisions due to fragmented tools. With a simplified system in place, revenue, sales, and marketing now meet with shared numbers, shared goals, and a shared view of performance – enabling faster, more focused decisions at every level.

“Lighthouse is our most essential revenue management tool. It saves time, ensures accuracy, and serves as the foundation for all our strategy meetings,” notes Jenny Jung, Revenue Manager at Lotte Hotels & Resorts Head Quarters, “Before, when management needed data, they had to request reports from the sales or revenue team. Now, they can access everything themselves, allowing them to focus on strategy rather than data collection.”

When teams work from the same real-time data, it doesn’t just boost internal alignment – it improves the guest journey. With quicker access to guest preferences, centralized communication, and more accurate forecasting, your hotel is better equipped to meet evolving guest expectations and drive satisfaction.

Whether it’s a cloud-based PMS, a future-proof business intelligence platform, or integrated software solutions that centralise all your performance data, the right tools should enhance drive decision-making and operational efficiency – not add complexity.

Simplification doesn’t mean starting from scratch. It means removing the barriers that are slowing you down – so your team can focus on what moves the business forward. 

Because when your teams are aligned, your data is clear, and your decisions are timely and data-driven – that’s not just simplification. 

That’s strategy.

About Lighthouse

Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight) is the leading commercial platform for the travel & hospitality industry. We transform complexity into confidence by providing actionable market insights, business intelligence, and pricing tools that maximize revenue growth. We continually innovate to deliver the best platform for hospitality professionals to price more effectively, measure performance more efficiently, and understand the market in new ways.

Trusted by over 65,000 hotels in 185 countries, Lighthouse is the only solution that provides real-time hotel and short-term rental data in a single platform. We strive to deliver the best possible experience with unmatched customer service. We consider our clients as true partners – their success is our success.

This article originally appeared on Lighthouse.