15-Point Hospitality Vendor Checklist for Enterprises

15 Must-Have Features: Vendor Selection Checklist for an Enterprise Hospitality Hub (hospitality vendor checklist)

Introduction

In a competitive market, a clear hospitality vendor checklist speeds shortlisting and ensures apples-to-apples comparisons. Teams that standardize evaluations against a prioritized 15-item list save procurement time and reduce post-launch rework. This article provides a practical, prioritized hospitality vendor checklist for enterprise hospitality hubs, with scoring guidance and an RFP question bank to convert requirements into decision-ready responses.

Use this checklist to compare functionality, integrations, security, offline behavior, localization, analytics, and vendor services so procurement can select a platform aligned to long-term goals. Selecting the wrong vendor can cost more than license fees—change orders, lost productivity, and delayed rollouts often increase TCO. Pilots that validate core workflows typically cut time-to-value by up to 35%. Whether one brand or multi-property, a reproducible hospitality vendor checklist protects ROI and operational continuity.

Functionality: SOP templates, task management and staff workflows

Begin evaluations with core operational functionality—vendors that meet basics reduce friction. Key items in this portion of the hospitality vendor checklist include:

• SOP and template library — editable, brand-mapped templates.
• Task and shift management — assignment, reminders, escalation, recurring tasks.
• Two-way communications — group and 1:1 messaging, attachments, read receipts.
• Digital checklists and audits — versioned, timestamped, photo-backed.
• Role-based dashboards — views for operations, housekeeping, F&B, maintenance.

A combined SOP/template and granular task-management approach typically reduces daily exceptions by 30–40% in pilots. Require vendors to demonstrate these features in a live sandbox, not slides. Practical tests should include the staff experience on device classes used in the field—this covers the key staff app features and answers “features to look for in hotel staff app vendor.” Ensure the mobile UI has large tap targets, offline forms, camera attachments for proof-of-work, configurable notification tiers, role-based quick actions, and embedded analytics so supervisors track completion rates without exports.

Validate use cases: morning room-turn workflows, wake-call and turndown coordination, preventative maintenance triggering asset work orders, and incident logging with SLA timers. Ask for a demo scenario that mirrors a high-volume check-in day to observe task throughput and escalations under load.

Integrations & Data Flow: PMS, CRM, HRIS and third-party systems

Integration capability is a common failure point: correct data mapping is critical to realizing value. Essential integration requirements for your hospitality vendor checklist:

• Two-way PMS sync — reservations, room status, guest profiles.
• CRM and guest insights — preferences, upsell triggers, stay history.
• HRIS and scheduling — roster sync, certification flags, time-off management.
• IoT and POS connections — minibar, POS, door locks, thermostats.

Ask vendors to show data models and latency: batch exports differ from event-driven sync. Many implementations use middleware or iPaaS; ensure your hospitality vendor checklist specifies acceptance criteria for reconciliation and error handling. When vendors demonstrate integrations, review transaction logs and request a case study showing the chain from PMS update to staff task creation.

Technical checks: request REST APIs, webhooks, common standards (OTA, HTNG where relevant), rate limits, retry logic, and idempotency. For vendor selection hospitality projects, require a plan for schema drift and versioning—how changes to PMS or CRM fields will be detected and handled without breaking workflows. This aligns selection with realistic hospitality platform requirements.

Security, offline capability and localization

Security and resilience are non-negotiable. Your enterprise platform must protect guest data and operate in low-connectivity environments. Include these items in the security portion of the hospitality vendor checklist:

1. Data encryption and certifications — at rest and in transit, SOC 2/ISO 27001 where applicable.
2. Role-based access control and audit logs — granular privileges and immutable histories.
3. Offline-first mobile behavior — caching, conflict resolution, queued sync on reconnect.
4. Localization and multi-property support — multi-language UI, local compliance, configurable SOPs per brand.

Insist on a live demo with connectivity removed to verify offline behavior. Require metrics for sync latency and conflict rates observed in pilots. Additional checks: penetration test summaries, MFA and SSO (SAML/OAuth2), data residency options, and PCI DSS handling if the platform touches POS/payment data. Ask for RTO/RPO targets and a recent incident post-mortem describing remediation timelines. Localization must cover compliance for GDPR, CCPA, and regional hospitality regulations.

SLA, support, pricing model and implementation services

Misaligned commercial and implementation expectations cause procurement mistakes—build these into your vendor checklist early. Commercial and service items to include:

• Deployment model — SaaS, private cloud, or on-prem options and migration support.
• Implementation services — data migration, SOP configuration, training, change management.
• SLA and support tiers — uptime guarantees, response times, escalation paths.
• Pricing transparency — per-seat vs per-property vs feature bundles and hidden costs for integrations.

Selecting on headline price alone often leads to scope creep. Require a prospective 90-day and 12-month rollout plan with milestones and customer commitments. Demand a resource matrix listing customer vs vendor responsibilities, training hours per role, and acceptance criteria for each phase. Clarify agile pilot-to-scale vs big-bang approaches. Watch pricing pitfalls: per-API-call fees, connector setup charges, and premium pricing for mobile SDKs or custom offline features. Request a sample SOW and change-order rate card so finance models TCO conservatively.

Scoring, weighting and how to compare apples-to-apples

Shortlisting is easier when trade-offs are quantified. A weighted scoring model aligns business and IT.

Recommended weighting for your hospitality vendor checklist (example):

Category	Weight
Functionality	30%
Integrations	20%
Security & Offline	15%
Implementation & Support	20%
Pricing & TCO	15%

Scoring steps:

1. Define evaluator roles — ops, IT, finance, HR each score relevant categories.
2. Run normalized demos — same dataset and scenario for every vendor.
3. Apply weights and calculate composite scores — document assumptions and variance.

Best practice: require two live day-in-the-life demos and at least one pilot site before final signoff. Convert the hospitality vendor checklist into a one-page scorecard so stakeholders can audit the decision trail and reduce bias. Conduct sensitivity analysis to see how weight changes affect ranking and define hard pass/fail gates (e.g., two-way PMS sync demonstrated live) to eliminate vendors early and focus on realistic contenders. This produces a defensible, traceable recommendation for vendor selection hospitality.

RFP question bank: What to ask to reveal true capabilities

Use the RFP to force vendors to show—not tell—capabilities. The question bank maps directly to the checklist.

Core RFP items for your hospitality vendor checklist:

• Functionality demo: Recorded scenario where a guest request creates tasks across housekeeping, maintenance and F&B; show audit trail and SLA enforcement.
• Integration details: Schema samples for PMS and CRM syncs and a list of existing connectors with reference installations.
• Security & compliance: Certification documents, encryption approach, backup frequency and incident response plan.
• Offline and localization: Demonstrate mobile app operation without connectivity and provide language/local settings examples.
• Implementation timeline: Phased rollout with resource commitments and training plans.

Example vendor scoring questions (short format):

1. How do you handle conflicting checklist entries when devices sync after offline work?
2. Provide an example SLA breach and remediation from a customer reference.
3. List third-party connectors and current production customers using them.

Additional RFP probes tailored to vendor checklist for hospitality mobile hub and enterprise feature checklist:

• Provide three customer references of similar size/brand complexity and one contact who can share pilot metrics.
• Demonstrate how the platform supports role-based training and competency tracking for seasonal staffing peaks.
• Submit a demo tenant pre-populated with sample SOPs, guest profiles, and a week of synthetic PMS events for hands-on evaluation.

Translate top answers into pass/fail items and score remaining fields numerically. This clarifies differences between “feature-rich” claims and production-proven solutions and shortens negotiation cycles when used as the vendor selection hospitality baseline.

Conclusion & next steps

Final selection should be driven by operational fit, integration maturity, and realistic implementation services. Use the prioritized 15-item hospitality vendor checklist as your procurement baseline: require standardized responses, equivalent demos, and pilot metrics. Teams following this process reduce time-to-value and lower implementation risk.

Next steps: convert this checklist into a scored RFP, assign stakeholder evaluators for each weighted category, and require at least one pilot property before enterprise rollout. Suggested timeline: 4–6 weeks to shortlist, 6–8 weeks for demos and pilots, and a 90-day phased rollout for the first cluster of properties.

Call to action: Download your printable, editable version of this hospitality vendor checklist and apply the scoring matrix to your top three vendors to generate a procurement recommendation. Use this as your vendor selection hospitality baseline and as the features-to-look-for guide when evaluating staff app features and enterprise feature checklist requirements.