Introduction
A hospitality app isn’t just a ‘mobile project.’ The world of hospitality is full of messy realities – such as an influx of late guests, key/lock failures and dead Wi-Fi zones during guest check-in, staff shift changes before guests arrive, running multiple properties, different PMS configurations, or the way integrations are implemented, just to name a few of the issues that you will face as you implement your app and support your guests while they’re in your hotel.
This is why it is so important to select the right software development company for your hospitality app – you’re not just hiring people to develop features; you’re hiring a partner who knows how to deal with all of these issues that are unique to hospitality, particularly on-property, during peak periods of time, when there is a lot of pressure from your guests and from your team to support your guests as they check into and out of your hotel.
In the sections below, I will share an easy vendor selection checklist for hospitality apps based on four key success factors within the hospitality industry for hospitality app projects. The four key success factors for hospitality app projects are:
1. Hospitality domain experience
2. Integration expertise
3. Ability to roll out the app on-property
4. Support model post-launch that actually works
I will also provide an easy scoring rubric and identify the common red flags that usually arise during the vendor selection process, before signing a contract.
Why Vendor Selection Is More Important to Hospitality than Most Other Industries
In hospitality, “done” means the service/services of the vendor must:
- Function on the hotel network, guest devices, as well as perfect office Wi-Fi.
- Provide seamless integration with PMS, booking engine, channel manager, payment systems, guest messaging, ng and operational tools.
- Be easy for employees to use, as opposed tolookingk impressive during a demonstration.
- Perform well at busy check-in periods when every second counts.
Vendors without expertise in hospitality may create an extremely attractive application, but will not know how it will perform when there are real guests present, and things become complicated.
Vendor Selection Checklist
1. Hospitality Experience (not “we made an app once”)
Look for:
- Clarity on product thinking as far as both guest-facing UX and Staff operation workflows.
- Asking about brands, properties, how they package things differently, and standardized vs. localized.
- Reservations tied to a Profile, Loyalty, Device handoff, how will you handle (the guest name on the reservation is not the same as the actual guest).
- Housekeeping, Maintenance, Front Desk, Concierge, and F&B workflows, not just “a form for requests”.
- Evidence – case studies, architecture write-ups, or detailed examples with constraints and outcomes.
How to Quickly Verify (Questions to Ask)
- “What edge case specific to the hospitality industry have you planned for?”
- “I know there was an issue with the PMS integration. Give me an example of a project that was behind schedule as a result. How did you solve this issue?”
- “How do you configure multi-properties without forking the code?”
Green Flag Response – specific examples, trade-offs made, and lessons learned.
Red Flag Response – vague statements like “we can be very flexible” with no substantiating examples.
2. Integration expertise (top drivers of Total Cost)
Most hotel operations end with integration errors that create both timeline and budget surprises (PMS).
Integration should be a seamless process between your provider and the hotel system that you’re integrating. Your provider should be able to integrate with:
- PMS integration service (keep in mind that each PMS has a different type of configuration)
- Booking engine integration
- Channel manager integration
- PMS payment integration (PCI compliance)
- Messaging, upselling, loyalty programs, analytics, CRM/CDP, and more.
How to assess and validate vendor readiness to provide PMS integrations
- Vendor Discovery process – Are they using a single-line request to determine the estimated cost of a PMS Integration? Do they ask you about the vendor, version, infrastructure access, credentials, and test data?
- Realistic Planning for Integration – Do they talk about the different types of environments, sandboxes, how they will validate full transactions, and what to expect when doing the testing (sandbox vs PROD)?
- Failover Design – Do they understand the different ways in which the integration will fail and thus design for each type of failure? Examples include retrying, idempotent writes, backup UX, and the worst-case scenario for PMS down time
- Clear Ownership – Will the vendor clarify who will be the contact person for your PMS vendor,r including who will maintain the integration documentation, manage integration credentials, ls and provide technical support?
Must-have deliverables
- An integration map of the systems and data flows will be produced
- The unknowns will be identified and assigned
- A comprehensive testing plan will be produced,ced complete with the test reservations and the sandbox strategy.
- Milestones will be noted on a timeline that presents the integration milestones (the overall process for building an application and then the later phase of integrating it with the PMS).
For assistance in verifying premise development fundamentals (including multi-property environments; guest’s identity, and the guest request lifecycle), please refer to our Hotel Architecture Primer.
3. Capabilities for launching directly on site (Because, Launching is different from Clicking “Publish!”)
More often than not, software launches fail because of the rollout and adoption issues as opposed to code problems.
Here’s what to look for:
- Debt Pilot First – They have a pilot property (or small group) prior to launching everything at once.
- Real World Device / Network – They provide a plan that includes device matrices (iOS/Android versions, common guest devices) and real-world on-site network limitations.
- Training Materials – Short playbooks for all staff, onboarding scripts, and directions on what to do when something goes wrong.
- Operational Tools – Admin panels, content controls, feature flags, and configuration settings, so the team will not rely on developers for every change
- Measurement Plan – Defined success metrics (adoption/request completion time/upsell conversion/less front desk load, etc.)
A practical rollout roadmap is very important. This guide shows the flow of MVP to rollout that we recommend:
Questions to Ask
- “What’s the process for running a pilot rollout, then determining if we are ready to go to scale?”
- “What does training for both the desk operations and front desk look like?”
- “What kind of telemetry will exist on day one (e.g, crashes, number of requests, drop off from the funnel)?”
4. Support Model
The support model is often an afterthought to many vendors when delivering solutions to hotels and hospitality-related businesses. In hospitality, you cannot “ship it and forget about it”. Your guests do not care if it is your or another software vendor’s bug; when digital keys fail at 11:00 PM, they want a response.
Some things to look for in a support model include:
- Provide Clear Support Tiers: Identify what is included, what is paid for, and what constitutes an emergency.
- Establish Defined SLAs (Service Level Agreements): Responsiveness and resolution expectations, how to escalate an issue, and weekend coverage if necessary.
- Have a Defined Release Discipline: Identify your patch policy and hotfix process to ensure that updates do not break any integrated connections with other systems.
- Clearly Assigning Who Is Responsible for Monitoring: Identify who will monitor logs, alerts, uptime, and integration errors for your solutions.
Some examples of a Good Support Model Include:
- Complete monitoring and alerting.
- A defined bug triage process and severity definitions.
- An established frequency for regular maintenance windows.
- An established frequency for providing security updates (mobile and all dependencies).
- A development cadence that allows the delivery of revisions to existing features and functionalitypromptlyr.
When developing guest-facing applications, your hotel partners should consider security and privacy in their vendor support as well; it should not be added later. If accepting credit cards, you should be compliant with PCI DSS.
Vendor fit scorecard that is simple to use.
You will also be assigning a weight to each category to determine which category is the most important in your decision-making process.
Categories that can be used to score your vendor include:
- Experience in the hospitality domain
- Ability to integrate
- Ability to roll out and adopt the solution
- Maturity of support model
- Transparency of delivery (ie, how you track progress)
- Quality approach (ie, QA/testing/release)
- Communication and ownership (who makes the decisions/and how they document it)
Weighting Examples:
- НаIntegration = 25%
- Rollout = 20%
- Support = 20%
- Domain experience = 15%
- Delivery transparency = 10%
- Quality = 10%
Be sure to ask each vendor to provide their own score for each category so that you can compare it to your score. This will help you identify potential differences between your score and theirs.
Main Red Flags To Avoid (Save Yourself Time)
- The vendor says they can integrate with any PMS without asking which one, which version, or if the right environment will be available to do it.
- They’re not offering a pilot plan and are going right to full rollout.
- The vendor does not discuss operational tooling (admin/Config/feature flags) at all.
- The vendor’s support is very vague; they will only be available on an as-needed basis without any SLA being established to indicate when they can expect support.
- The vendor is deflecting away from any discussions about the unknowns. Hospitality projects always carry unknowns, so a vendor who has been around a long time will keep a record of what those are.
RFP-style questions you can copy-paste
Below are RFP-style questions that can be copied and pasted to ask prospective vendors re: their experience in hospitality, integrations, rollout, and support:
Hospitality
- Which hospitality applications have you developed and delivered, at what scale, and what were the measurable results?
- What were the top 5 edge cases you solved in your last hospitality project?
Integrations
- What PMS/Booking/Channel/Payment Integrations Have You Worked On / Delivered?
- What Do You Do For Integration Discovery?
- How do you handle Sandbox Limitations and Test Reservations?
Rollout
- How do you plan and execute a pilot rollout at a property?
- How do you test your devices?
- What training documentation do you provide for your staff?
Support
- What are your support SLAs and escalation procedures?
- How do you monitor the status of your integrations and respond when they fail?
- What does your Release Cycle / Maintenance Schedule Look Like?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How Do I Decide Between A Boutique Agency And A Large Vendor?
There is no inherent safety in the larger entity. Tight family-owned relationships, communication channels, and team members who are familiar with delivering these types of integrations are of the utmost importance to a successful Hospitality solution. The best fit will usually have proven their ability to consistently deliver results and execute upon scheduled rollouts.
What Do I Need To Ask For Before Signing A Contract?
Specifically, a delivery plan (with milestones) and a clear integration discovery phase. Additionally, you will want to know what type of support will be provided and if they have defined service level agreements (SLAs). If they cannot clearly articulate these, then you are purchasing uncertainty.
How Can We Protect Ourselves From Budget Overruns?
Be very clear on what is expected out of the integration and subsequent rollout. Request a list of “unknowns” that have been identified by the respective parties (the owners), and require that all scope trade-offs be clearly documented when there are changes to requirements.
How Appricotsoft Works with Hospitality Vendors
Appricotsoft has a clear vision: to create software that we love to use, that is functional, authentic, and reliable. This approach is especially important in Hospitality where “almost working” is equal to “not working” when a guest is involved.
We use our Unison Framework to deliver our projects, leveraging an AI-first workflow focusing on predictable outcomes, visible risk, and providing weekly demonstrations to clients for visibility into the functionality of the product through working theatres.
Here’s how this framework provides benefits to our hospitality customers:
- Align: In the “Align” phase, the guest journey is mapped, as is the staff workflow, the systems that are used (PMS/Booking/Channel/Payment) are identified, ed and definitions of success are developed.
- Plan: Moving into “Planning”, we take the requirements that we gathered and create a backlog of features, including acceptance criteria for each feature, as well as a risk register.
- Build & Validate: In the “Build & Validate” phase, we conduct weekly reviews with the client, provide true integration checkpoints with other systems, ms and the emphasis is placed on the property where the operations and devices are located and how the operations flow through the property.
- Launch & Grow: Finally, launch by rolling out a pilot of the product to the property, developing all necessary training materials for the staff, momonitoringand devdevelopingsupport model that fits the needs of the property.
Lastly, hospitality projects require speaking the language of hospitality. For example, if you are developing a hotel app, there are generally keywords and integration areas associated with the development of the app with which we typically work – hospitality software development company, hotel guest experience app, digital concierge app, PMS integration services, booking engine integration, channel manager integration, hotel payment gateway integration.
Conclusion
In conclusion, selecting a hospitality software development firm is not so much about selecting the highest quality engineers; on the contrary, it relates to selecting an engineering team that is experienced at dealing with the following items:
- hospitality edge cases
- integrations (not based on guesswork)
- rollout on property (with a focus on them adopting at the property level)
A strong technical team does not imply that you have made a successful choice – however, if you utilize the check list above, you will avoid many of the most common traps and therefore will have selected an organisation that can deliver, integrate, rollout and support your product in much the same manner as it was designed for use as an operational system (because it was designed for use as a true operational system).
If you’d like to see how vendors compare against a practical rollout plan and feature roadmap before making a final decision, this (What hotel features will be a “Must-Have” vs. a “Can-Wait” guide for hotel app features) can be used in this regard.