A hotel technology integrator typically owns the guest-room control system, meeting and ballroom AV, the PMS-linked access control rollout, and the guest/back-of-house network design — the systems that touch the guest experience and talk to the property management system. Electrical rough-in, backbone conduit, and permanent power stay with the electrical contractor and the GC; the brand's own IT standards and any mandated vendor list stay with the hotel's IT and brand teams. The punch package at opening should include as-built drawings, PMS interface configuration records, lock/PMS authorization settings, and a network IP schedule — without those four documents, a transition to in-house operation or a different support vendor gets harder than it needs to be. The split between those two buckets narrows considerably on an independent 40-120 room property, where the integrator often absorbs more of the IT planning that a branded flag would otherwise dictate.
This scope question matters most at handover, when the general contractor is closing out trades, the brand's IT team is auditing network compliance, and the operator wants documentation that survives staff turnover. Getting the split wrong early — assuming MEP will run a cable path, or assuming IT will configure the PMS interface — shows up as a punch-list item nobody owns.
What does the integrator actually design and commission?
The integrator's core deliverables are the guest-room control system, meeting/ballroom AV, access control integrated with the PMS, and the network that both of those systems run on. Crestron describes a guest-room system that spans door signage and lock integration, automated welcome scenes on entry (lighting, shades, and audio triggered by presence sensors), in-room keypads for Do Not Disturb and Make-Up-Room requests, and an automated checkout sequence that reports occupancy back to the Guest Room Management System — see Hospitality Guest Rooms. On the access side, the lock platform's PMS interface is a licensed, protocol-specific configuration item: Salto's Space platform documents separate protocol options (Industry Standard, Oracle Hospitality PMS/FIAS, FOLS) each with its own communication-channel setup, and notes that "PMS functionality is license-dependent" — see PMS tab in Salto Space General options. That licensing and protocol selection is a decision the integrator should carry into the design phase, not something IT discovers at go-live.
On the network side, the integrator typically owns Wi-Fi design, VLAN segmentation for guest, staff, and PMS/POS traffic, and the physical cabling that the control and access systems ride on. Cave Group's hospitality practice builds this stack on Crestron for custom guest-room systems or Lutron myRoom for a packaged platform, alongside the PMS integration, networking, and access work underneath it.
What stays with MEP, electrical, IT, or the GC?
Permanent electrical service, backbone conduit pathways, and panel capacity for low-voltage racks are electrical-contractor and MEP scope — the integrator specifies requirements but does not typically pull electrical permits or run line-voltage circuits. Brand-mandated IT infrastructure (approved switch models, firewall rules, PCI segmentation standards specific to the flag) stays with the brand's IT team on a branded property; the integrator works to those standards rather than setting them. The PMS platform choice itself — whether the property runs on a cloud API-driven system or a legacy on-premises PMS — is typically an operator and IT decision that the integrator then integrates against; Mews, for example, documents separate connector, channel-manager, booking-engine, and point-of-sale APIs, all built in parallel with new platform features, which an integrator consumes rather than specifies — see Hospitality API for Hotels. The GC retains overall schedule authority and trade coordination, even where the integrator's own install sequence depends on when walls close and when the PMS environment is ready to test against.
What belongs in the opening punch package?
Four document types belong in the handover package regardless of property size: as-built drawings showing final device locations and wiring runs; PMS interface configuration records documenting which protocol and channel settings were used (so the next vendor does not have to reverse-engineer the Salto or lock-vendor PMS tab from scratch); lock/PMS authorization configuration showing how guest credentials, encoder names, and key formats were set; and a network IP schedule listing VLANs, static addresses, and device assignments. Missing documentation is the single most common reason a property struggles to bring on a new support vendor or in-house IT hire after opening.
How does the split change for an independent property versus a branded flag?
A branded flag usually arrives with a mandated vendor list, brand IT security standards, and a PMS platform the brand has already selected — narrowing the integrator's design discretion but adding a compliance-review layer to the schedule. An independent 40-120 room property typically gives the integrator more latitude on PMS choice, network architecture, and guest-room platform, but it also means the integrator absorbs planning work (IT standards, network segmentation policy, vendor selection) that a brand's own technology team would otherwise hand down. Either way, the PMS interface and lock authorization settings need to be documented in the same level of detail — the brand review doesn't replace that paperwork, it adds to it.
Ask your contractor during design, not at opening, which trade owns backbone conduit runs and whether the PMS platform decision is locked before the network VLAN plan is finalized — both change what shows up on the punch list.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns the guest-room control system in a hotel project?
The technology integrator typically designs and commissions the guest-room control system, whether built custom on a platform like Crestron or deployed as a packaged system, including the presence-triggered welcome scenes and the Do Not Disturb/Make-Up-Room keypad logic described in Crestron's hospitality guest-room documentation.
Does the integrator configure the PMS interface, or does hotel IT do it?
The integrator typically configures the PMS interface as part of the access-control and guest-room rollout, since platforms like Salto Space require protocol-specific licensing and channel setup tied directly to the lock system; hotel IT is usually involved in approving network access for that interface rather than configuring it.
What documents should be in the opening punch package?
As-built drawings, PMS interface configuration records, lock/PMS authorization settings, and a network IP schedule are the four document types that belong in the handover package so a future support vendor or in-house team can take over without re-discovering the system from scratch.
Does scope change for a branded hotel versus an independent boutique property?
Yes — a branded flag usually mandates a vendor list, IT security standards, and sometimes the PMS platform itself, narrowing integrator discretion, while an independent 40-120 room property typically leaves more of that planning to the integrator.
Which PMS platforms does a hospitality integrator typically need to support?
Integrators commonly need to support cloud-API platforms such as Mews, which documents open connector, channel-manager, booking-engine, and point-of-sale APIs, alongside legacy on-premises systems that connect to lock platforms through protocols like Oracle Hospitality PMS (FIAS) or Industry Standard.