Custom Software for Hospitality: Make It Fit Your Business, Not the Other Way Round

You run a restaurant, a beach bar, a hotel or an events venue, and every part of the business lives on a different platform. Bookings come in through one that decides what your shifts look like. Tickets are sold by another that keeps the customer. The menu sits in an app that won’t let you show allergens the way you want. Each one charges its commission, each one has its fixed workflows, and your customers’ data ends up scattered across all of them. Bit by bit, your team works the way the platforms want, not the way your business runs.

In short: custom software adapts to the way you work: your shifts, your ticket types, your menu and your customers, built into your website whenever possible. It’s time for software to adapt to what the customer needs, not the other way round. You usually don’t need a new website or to do everything at once: you start with whatever holds you back the most.

Why does your business end up working the way the platform wants?

Because generic platforms are built to serve thousands of different businesses with the same product. To do that, they need everyone to work the same way: the same booking steps, the same ticket types, the same way of showing the menu. If your business doesn’t fit, you are the one who adapts.

Day to day, it shows in small things that keep coming back:

• Rules that aren’t yours. The booking platform doesn’t understand that the terrace keeps different hours, that large groups only come in on the first sitting, or that one day a week the kitchen closes earlier.
• The customer belongs to the platform. Whoever buys a ticket or books a table through someone else’s site gets that site’s emails and, next time, may end up with your competitors.
• Commissions that grow with you. The better you do, the more you pay for every booking or every ticket sold.
• Scattered data. Sales are in the POS, bookings on one platform and tickets on another. To see how the week went, you have to open three dashboards and add it all up by hand.

What does it mean for software to fit your business?

It means the tools are built around the way you work, not the other way round. First you understand the problem (how your customers book, what you sell, what you need to know every day), and then you build exactly that, inside the website you already have whenever possible.

The difference runs deep: with a generic platform you adapt to its way of working; with custom software, or with a service configured around how you operate, the software follows yours. If tomorrow you change a shift, add a ticket type or open a new area, the software changes, not the way you do things.

What can be custom-built for hospitality and tourism?

Each piece solves a specific day-to-day problem. You don’t need all of them: you can start with one and add the rest when it makes sense.

Bookings with your rules and your shifts

Your customers book from your website, with your shifts, your tables and your rules, without paying a platform for every diner. You get a notice for every booking and the day’s list on your phone.

Tickets with your types and your capacity

If you run events, shows or excursions, you sell tickets on your website, with the ticket types you decide, your payment gateway and capacity control. The customer buys on your website and the relationship stays with you.

A menu that’s always up to date, with its allergens

Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires information on the 14 allergens in its Annex II to be given for food offered without prepackaging too (Article 44(1)(a), which refers to Article 9(1)(c)), and restaurants are included (Article 2(2)(d)).

A custom-built menu can show those allergens on every dish and keep them up to date whenever a recipe changes. You change dishes, prices and allergens instantly, with no reprinting, and your customers open it from the table with a QR code, in several languages if you need them.

Sun loungers and parasols, with Reserva de Hamacas

If you run a hotel, a beach club or a beach bar, your customers can book sun loungers, deck chairs and parasols from your website with Reserva de Hamacas, our subscription service: a platform we design, build and maintain ourselves, which adapts to how each business operates and runs on a fixed fee, with no booking commission.

A dashboard with your sales and your bookings

A custom dashboard brings your sales, bookings, tickets and occupancy together in one place, with data from your website, your POS and your payment gateway. You check it without logging into your website’s admin and without adding up by hand what three different systems tell you.

Your customers’ data, with their consent

When the booking or the purchase happens on your website, you can store, with your customers’ consent, their direct bookings, their email and their preferences. That way you get to know them, you see who comes back, and you can reach them again without relying on intermediaries or third-party cookies.

Do you need a new website?

Usually not. What we build fits into the website you already have, whether it’s your restaurant’s, your hotel’s or your holiday apartments’, and your customers keep coming to the same address. If your website doesn’t allow it (for example, a closed website builder), we’ll tell you before we start and work out the alternative together.

If your website has reached its limits, it can be rebuilt too, but that’s a decision made once we’ve seen what you need, not a requirement to get started.

How much does it cost?

Every project is quoted individually, because it depends on what needs building and which systems it has to connect to (your POS, your payment gateway, your booking engine). Reserva de Hamacas, on the other hand, has its plans published on its website. The usual approach is to start with the piece that holds you back the most today and leave the rest for when it’s needed.

To give you a price, we need to know how you work: tell us about your business and we’ll tell you what makes sense to do first.

Your business, with software that fits it

Bookings, tickets, menu, sun loungers, a dashboard with your numbers and your customers’ data: all made for your business, with your rules. Our hospitality page has every service and how to ask for a quote.

Custom software for hospitality and tourism

Bookings, tickets, menu, data dashboard and your customers' data, custom-built for your business.