Hotel spa management software: how to choose the right one

Why a hotel spa needs dedicated software

Most software on the market was designed for salons and day spas, or for hotels. A hotel spa sits in between: it welcomes hotel guests and outside clients, shares information with the front desk, and reports both to hotel management and to the group.

Ill-fitting software is easy to spot: treatments written on paper and then copied onto the room bill, a schedule kept in a spreadsheet next to the software, reports rebuilt by hand at the end of every month. Every double entry is a source of mistakes and lost time.

A schedule that knows your rooms and your team

The schedule is the most used screen of the day. It must show the day by therapist and by treatment room, take each therapist’s hours and breaks into account, and respect the real capacity of each room.

• Couples treatments are booked in one go: one couples room and two therapists in the same slot.
• Room reset time between two treatments is counted automatically.
• Leave and absences block bookings without anyone having to remember.
• Moving a booking is a drag and drop, and the software refuses what is not possible.

To go further on this point, read our article on scheduling couples treatments.

The connection to the hotel software (PMS)

This is the criterion that sets hotel spa software apart. Connected to the PMS, the software finds the guests staying at the hotel, their room number and stay dates, and posts treatments straight to the room bill. The front desk has nothing to re-enter, and the guest pays everything at check-out.

Ask which PMS are already connected, whether data flows both ways, and what happens when a posting fails. We cover these questions in our article on room charges.

One client record, with the client’s source

Each client should have a single record, with preferences, contraindications and history. For a hotel spa, one field makes all the difference: the source. Hotel guest, outside client or guest of another property in the group: without it, you cannot tell who keeps the spa busy. More on this in our article on client sources.

Checkout, retail and gift cards in one place

Checkout must handle every everyday case: room charge, card, cash, payment link, gift card, discount with a reason, tip credited to the right therapist. Retail must update stock with every sale and warn you before you run out. And gift cards must be tracked until they are used.

Reliable reports, without spreadsheets

Revenue by treatment and product, room occupancy, share of hotel guests, results per therapist: these figures should come out in one click, for any period, and compare with last year. Our article on the KPIs to track every month covers the most useful ones.

Practical criteria not to forget

• Role-based access: a therapist does not need to see the spa’s revenue.
• Mobile: each therapist should see their schedule and be told about changes.
• Data hosting in Europe and GDPR compliance, especially for health information.
• Importing your data from your current software.
• Support: setup, team training, a contact after go-live.
• Multi-property if you are part of a group.

In short

The right hotel spa software is the one that makes double entry disappear: a schedule that knows your rooms, a connection to the hotel software, a single client record and reliable figures. That is exactly what we designed SpaPlanner for. Discover its scheduling or let’s build your pricing together.