REDWOOD SHORES, CA—Now, more than ever, sales teams are working furiously to book meetings and events for later this year and beyond in order to recoup some of the losses incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important for them to have an organized, easy-to-manage system to know what’s on the schedule to maximize the potential of their event space.
Oracle Hospitality’s Opera Sales and Event Management (OSEM) in the cloud helps properties increase their event revenue by streamlining logistics in one unified system and a single database. Integrated with Opera Cloud Service, it also allows the hotel management, sales and catering teams to increase communication and cooperation across departments, and respond faster to customers.
“Historically, event management, hotel management, operations and sales have always worked in silos and relied on individual software and systems. This created massive inefficiencies and a substantial amount of missed opportunities, especially in the event space,” said Tanya Pratt, VP of strategy and product management, Oracle Hospitality. “Naturally, hotel operators desired seamless integration that could streamline all of their operations and tasks. And as all hotels are unique, customization became a rising challenge for hoteliers. Our Opera OSEM gives operators a single view of all event booking details and revenue across rooms and event spaces.”
She continued, “In addition, it eliminates extra time spent inputting duplicate data entries into the property management system (PMS) while realizing operational efficiencies through increased productivity. It also eases integrations with e-proposals and other applications that help hoteliers better serve customers.”
Since Oracle OSEM, which is compliant across more than 200 countries, is in the cloud, hotel event and catering managers are able to do business anywhere, including on their mobile devices.
“They have full access to the system while offsite at customer visits or they can roam the property with prospects and event hosts during site inspections,” noted Pratt. “They are also able to easily share available space options and setups; check available inventory; create a room block; and make changes to or complete bookings, all while on the go.”
As with all other software in the Opera suite, Oracle offers a stringent training program to get clients up to speed on OSEM.
“Our Oracle consultants are well-trained and well-equipped with lesson plans that detail the inner workings of our suite of solutions. The training can be done on site or virtually, which is an important offering during this challenging time,” said Pratt. “We also offer training through our hospitality resource center’s e-learning and training video library. Our e-Learning and videos have been designed to help and assist hotel operators and their teams unlock the full functionality of Oracle Hospitality’s suite of solutions.”
Pratt pointed to Banff Park Lodge in Banff, Alberta, Canada, and the University Plaza Waterfront Hotel in Stockton, CA, as early adopters of Opera OSEM.
“Banff Park Lodge credited the service for minimizing heavy administrative and manual work, while ensuring security and meeting their customers’ evolving needs,” she said. “University Plaza Waterfront Hotel was able to expeditiously migrate to Opera Cloud and OSEM after being forced to change platforms. As a result, all of property’s systems are now streamlined and centralized, giving staff access to accurate, real-time information in the cloud.”
Since it is a new release that builds on the previous on-premise version of the service, there haven’t yet been any upgrades to the software, noted Platt, who added, “Because it’s in the cloud, updates and improvements aimed at improving workflows for sales and events teams are pushed out on a regular basis in real time.”