Hotel Booking Engine

What is a Hotel Booking Engine?
A hotel booking engine is a widget that appears on a hotel’s website or social media and can be utilize by travelers to make their reservations online.
An online hotel booking engine is your key to commission-free direct bookings which maximizes your profits while optimizing your property’s sales strategy.
With most travelers preferring to make their reservations online, hotels have become heavily reliant on online travel agents to deliver them bookings. These listings by agents enable hotels to reach new and larger target audiences.
A hotel online booking engine is an easy way for hotels to directly compete with online travel agents to maximize profits and increase their ROI.
Travelopro hotel booking engine can be simply added to your existing website enabling customers to book rooms directly from your hotel’s website.
Travelopro Web booking engine is mobile-optimized - allows visitors to book rooms from their smartphone or tablet. Get more commission free direct bookings and boost more top-line revenue per booking from Travelopro hotel booking software.
How a Hotel Booking Engine Works
An online booking system works by installing a tool onto your hotel’s website which permits your website to process secure online bookings. The data is then passed to your property management system where staff can access and manage client’s reservations, and where other sales channels can also be notified of the changes to current availability. Nobody likes to be double-booked, right?
The quality thing with the online booking engine is that it can be combined into your social media pages to facilitate reservations. This means that customers can comfortably reserve rooms without necessarily being on your website or any other travel site.
The online hotel booking engine displays the rates permits your potential guests to select their dates, number of people, process payments and receive an automated confirmation email in real-time, making for a seamless booking experience.
Why You Need an Online Booking Engine
Despite your hotel’s size, you have to make your hotel visible online if you want to maintain a competitive edge and stay open for business.
Customers want hospitality in all its shapes and forms and one of those forms is having a great customer experience when making online reservations. Top hotel chains using the latest hotel management software have created an expectation from customers that all online booking engines should function as well as the top booking sites (like booking.com). As such your guests expect:
Self Service
Traveler’s require a one-time booking process without the hitches and hassles of being redirected to other websites, need to pick up the phone, or writing long-winded emails. An online hotel booking system enables them to make direct online bookings quickly and easily by using a “booking button” a quick-click, book-now option.
Trustworthy Online Booking
Online booking offers a fast and secure way to accept credit card payments while still protecting and safely storing your customer’s data. Your hospitality business depends on the fact that your hotel technology is safe and secure, especially when it comes to personalised data collection and secure payment systems.
Fast Booking Process
The hotel booking system and online booking engine must be smoothly integrated and be able to transact in real-time. Instantaneous availability, room types and up to date pricing presented as experienced as sites like Tripadvisor are currently doing. Special provides and the option to insert promo codes should also be displayed so that customers can take advantage of them.
Professionalism
Modern customers will be surprised if they do not find a way to make their reservations on your official website and this can have a negative impact on your hotel revenue. One way of ensuring a professional look and feel is by having an online booking engine integration that is fully tailor-made so that the look and feel of the booking engine fully meets the look and feel of your property website.
Direct Booking Perks
With so many booking channels available these days many customers visit your website with the expectation of getting something extra in return for making a direct booking. This is a trade-off many hotels have to make on saving third party commissions.
Features to Look for in a Hotel Online Booking System
Here’s a number of things you should be looking out for in a great online booking engine:
Number of Images in the Gallery
After doing all the hard work of setting up your beautiful hotel and its rooms, you have to showcase them to potential customers. It’s a widely known fact that visual images are appealing to customers and are more likely to entice customers and generate conversions.
Facebook Integration
Your customers don’t necessarily have to be converted to clients on your website. You could get potential customers from social media. Check that the booking engine permits you to include the “Book Now” button on your Facebook page to make it easier for your customers to find your hotel and make bookings.
Room Type Auto Optimization
The only way to help your guests navigate your website is by providing them with the results they’re looking for. This feature allows you to display rooms according to your guests’ search criteria – making it quicker and easier for them to make a reservation.
Google Analytics Integration
You definitely need to understand where your bookings are coming from and where your visitors are exiting. Google Analytics gives you the chance to analyze this information and make concrete decisions based on crucial data.
Mobile Friendly
Regardless of the device, your customer is using, the experience should be smooth and seamless. If the booking engine is slow on some devices such as mobile phones, it will be a significant deterrent to your visitors and hurt your returns.
Promotion codes
This is a sure-fire way to step ahead of the competition by attracting more clients through giveaways and promotions. A booking engine should help you create your own promotions for your customers and offer a discount option.
Payment Gateway
When the customer completes their online reservation via the online hotel booking engine the customer should be given the choice of how they would like to make payment. PayPal, Check Card, Credit card or other online payments should be available so that customers can choose their preferred payment method.
Benefits of booking engine software
While the core message around booking engine software is direct bookings, there’s a whole lot more potential than that.
With the right booking engine in place:
• You can increase conversions with a simple guest booking experience
• You can save time with quick and easy setup
• You can eliminate manual entry with instant integration
• You can make better decisions with data
• You can gain an advantage over competitors who don’t have one
How to choose hotel booking software
The hotel technology space can be quite a saturated market and many more hotel booking system providers exist. You have to ask yourself questions about what you require, and then ask hotel booking software vendors if they can meet what you require. Value for money is always top of mind when making an investment of this kind.
There are the hotel booking engine best practices that you have to consider when you are comparing your hotel booking engine design with other booking engines that are on the market.
So, what should you look for in your booking engine when surveying your options?
• Customisation to your hotel’s brand to ensure the reservation experience is seamless
• A simple booking process (no more than two steps)
• Multi-language and currency capabilities to convert international guests
• Mobile-friendly and able to reach travellers on-the-go
• The ability to upsell so you can offer a more personalised stay and increase revenue per guest
• Google Maps integration so guests know how to find you
• Customisable emails – confirmation, pre-arrival, during and post departure
• Payment gateway options to facilitate real-time payments directly into your bank account
• Integration with all of your booking sites through a channel manager
• Google Analytics, Google AdWords and eCommerce tracking so you can analyse direct booking trends
• There should be a visible, eye-catching ‘Book Now’ button that is followed by a short, simple form that includes a payment processing component
Choose Travelopro for the Best Hotel Booking Engine?
At Travelopro, we value fast, efficient and effective service and your guests’ satisfaction above all else. Our hotel management system is all you need to run your hotel efficiently.
Travelopro is a leading Travel Software Development Company provides the best Hotel Booking Software with the key role of Hotel Extranet, OTH, Hotel XML IN, Hotel XML Out and Hotel Channel Manager for hotels to automate regular hotel management operations and increase revenues.
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For more details, please visit our website: https://www.travelopro.com/hotel-booking-engine.php