Hotel booking engines are pretty well established in the industry at this point. Many hotel owners and operators know about and use them. In this article, we’ll talk about hotel booking engines in detail. We’ll explain what they are. We’ll also cover how they work, what features you can expect to find integrated with them, and how much they typically cost. We’ll also mention 10 of the best ones on the market today.
Let’s start with an explanation of this term. A hotel booking engine is sometimes described as the shopping cart and checkout flow for a hotel’s website. It is a software application that allows potential guests to book a hotel stay directly on your website or social media pages.
You might also sometimes hear the terms “online booking engine” or “booking system” used to describe hotel booking engines. Since a hotel booking engine is where transactions happen that directly influence your hotel’s profitability, it’s vital to have the right one in place.
How much the booking engines you’re looking at cost will impact which one you decide to get as well. There are some that allow you to pay a flat rate for the one you align with. For instance, you might pay $99 per month for one, regardless of how many successful bookings you get through it.
You may also find ones that charge you a percentage for each booking. 10% of each booking is considered to be the industry standard. Others might charge you an annual fee instead.
Whichever payment option you choose, you should check to see what that unlocks in terms of features. How much each engine charges will influence your overall profitability and cost per acquisition, especially during your peak busy seasons. Make sure you learn about any one-time setup costs as well, since some companies will charge for an initial integration if you want to use their engine.
There are a few other factors besides those we’ve mentioned already that can impact your booking engine’s cost.
Add Ons
With some booking engines, you must pay an additional fee each time you want to link your inventory to a new booking channel. As you might imagine, this can get expensive in a hurry.
The Number of Users
Some companies might charge you for each additional user you choose to add to your account. If you want some of your employees to be able to access the booking engine, those fees might become onerous. You can sometimes get around this by allowing some of your employees access to limited areas of the platform, but not all of them.
The Number of Rooms in Your Hotel
The number of rooms in your hotel can also sometimes play a part in how much a booking engine will charge you. This usually happens with booking engines that charge you a per-month fee. If you have more rooms, it will cost you more to partner with a particular engine.
Additional Reporting Capabilities
Some booking engines will also allow you to access some analytics for free, and they will charge you for more advanced ones. If that is the case, you’ll need to consider what data is most impactful for you. You might decide it’s worth it to get a look at those advanced analytics, or you may feel you can get along without them.
We mentioned earlier in the article the basics of how a hotel booking engine works, but now, let’s get into a little more detail. A hotel booking engine is what you need to have in place so that a would-be guest can make a reservation directly on your hotel’s website. The booking engine is what connects your hotel’s website to the property management system (PMS) that you’re using.
It is the booking engine that displays your hotel’s availability and rates in real-time. When a potential guest enters the date when they’re considering staying at your hotel, it is this engine that shows them the rooms that are available right at that moment.
It is then the would-be guest’s prerogative to select that room if they wish. They can complete the reservation if the deal seems enticing enough. They will do this through a secure payment page that must be a part of any modern hotel booking engine.
If the customer goes forward with the transaction, the booking engine then sends the PMS the reservation details and all applicable payment information. When you consider the ease with which someone can book through one of these engines, it becomes obvious why you need to have one in place.
Now, let’s go over some of the features that you’ll want your hotel booking engine to have.
Secure Payment Options
We mentioned secure payments through your hotel’s booking engine a moment ago, and that’s as good of a place to start as any. When someone goes to book a hotel online, they want to feel certain that they’re giving their credit card information and other vital data to a reputable entity. This is certainly an area of your booking engine on which you want to focus.
A clearly branded engine that allows your guests to pay securely is a must-have. An entity that has PCI DSS secure payments is one that looks a lot more credible to the average consumer. It doesn’t hurt to have one that is integrated with credit card tokenization as well.
The Ability to Accept Different Currencies and Communicate in Different Languages
If you have a lot of international travelers staying at your hotel, or if you’re trying to attract more of them, you will definitely want to accept various currencies through your hotel’s booking engine. You should also make sure there is a feature that will let a customer swiftly go from one language to another in which they are fluent.
If your potential guests see that they can get one of your rooms at a price in their chosen currency, and if they can read all about your hotel and its features in their native tongue, that’s going to make them feel much more comfortable. This feature alone can lead to many more conversions.
The Ability to Cross-Sell and Upsell
Many hotel owners already know how useful cross-selling and upselling can be. Your hotel booking engine is one place where you can employ these techniques to your best advantage.
You will likely want to increase your RevPAG and ADR. To do so, look for a hotel booking engine that can showcase all of your products and extra services.
If you can partner with an engine that will show off professional-quality, full color pictures of these services, that is often helpful. These images, along with a tantalizing description, might be enough for a guest to choose a more opulent stay at your hotel for themselves and the rest of their party.
Booking Ease
If it’s difficult for a potential guest to book via your hotel booking engine, then it is working against you. It’s helpful when choosing the right engine to try to go through the client experience. Imagine that you are a potential guest belonging to your target audience. How easy is it to find everything via your booking engine that you’re looking for?
If any aspect of the user experience is difficult for you, you can imagine it is the same for someone trying to book one of your rooms. Partner with an engine that guides your guests seamlessly through the booking process. A streamlined experience that leaves no room for human error is your friend in this regard.
The goal with a hotel booking engine is to make the experience effortless for corporate clients, travel agents, family members of potential guests, and anyone else who happens to use this software.
More Conversions to Boost Your Revenue
Your ultimate goal in partnering with a hotel booking engine is to boost your revenue. You do that by improving your conversion rate. The longer you can keep someone on your website, the more likely they are to convert.
When someone is on your site and browsing, you have a chance to let them know about promotions, offer upgrades, etc. You might also extend a promotional offer that only applies when someone books directly on your website. You might feature a widget on your site that compares the prices of your rooms across popular booking sites, since many potential guests will be used to seeing these on various OTAs.
Analytic Tools
You should also have analytics infused in your hotel booking engine. There should be dozens of ways you can break down not just sales, but other customer activities when they spend time on your site.
If you understand guest behavior, then you can modify your website’s content and features to make more conversions likely. Small tweaks to your site are always appropriate. Any time you can improve the user journey, your website abandonment rate is liable to drop.
You should also make sure you have individuals on staff who know how to break down your analytics. All that data will do you little good if you don’t know how to interpret it.
Business Customization
Business customization is one more feature you should be looking for with the hotel booking engine you choose. If you’ve customized your booking engine, that should make a good first impression on your guests. Think about using your brand’s colors and integrating your hotel’s logo with your booking engine. Most of them will let you do that.
You might also create a photo gallery that makes your hotel look as appealing as possible. An autoplay background video is an option if you have the budget to shoot one. You might also feature easy-to-fill-out forms so that a would-be guest can be deep into the reservation process before they’ve even given it much thought.
Now that you’ve learned about some of the features you can expect from your booking engine, let’s look at some of the most prominent names in the industry today.
Blastness
Blastness is a great choice if you are interested in boosting your hotel’s revenue through dynamic pricing strategies. The company states that they drive more direct bookings your way, which is always something you’re looking for as a hotel owner.
The booking process through Blastness is hassle-free and streamlined. It is recommended by resorts, boutiques, center city hotels, and luxury ones as well.
Cloudbeds
Cloudbeds is another popular option. Many hotel owners consider this to be the go-to if you’re trying to attract global travelers, since this platform features multilingual booking options.
You will also share less of your revenue with OTAs if you go with Cloudbeds. Many hotel owners who use this one rave about the integrated payment options.
Hotelogix
Hotelogix is probably the best for effortlessly managing multi-channel bookings. This entity was formerly known as AxisRooms.
It is a highly customized online booking system that guides your potential customers through each step of the process with a minimum of fuss. Individuals who are not the most tech-knowledgeable tend to like this one.
SiteMinder
SiteMinder is another one of the better-known hotel booking engines on the market. If you want to manage several booking channels through one comprehensive platform, this might be the one for you.
You can use it to connect to over 450 distribution channels. More than 41,000 hotels currently use it, and it can integrate with hundreds of other platforms.
innRoad
innRoad is thought of as a superior choice if you’re looking to manage multiple properties on the same platform. Resorts, boutiques, motels, inns, and bed and breakfast establishments all use and recommend it. It rates very highly for ease of use, ROI, and customer support.
Profitroom
Profitroom might be a suitable choice if you’re trying to grab more bookings through your tailored promotions. Lots of hotels and resorts centered around leisure activities use it.
For instance, Dream Hotels and Sun International are two of its clients. Ease of use is perhaps what it’s best known for.
Bookassist
Bookassist is usually regarded as the best option if you would like to increase your property’s revenue through an optimized pricing model. Its direct booking technology is second to none. A wide variety of different hotels trust this software, and the customer support is often mentioned as a bright spot.
SHR Group
If you want to do some smart upselling, you should strongly consider SHR Group. Many of the best hotels in Ireland use it. The implementation of it is easy, you can expect excellent ROI, and the ease of use is also mentioned in many of its reviews.
Net Affinity
This choice can drive more revenue your way through upselling as well. Precision and personalization are the name of the game with this booking engine.
The Rose Hotel, Castleknock, and FBD Hotels and Resorts are among its clients. The technology that’s integrated with Net Affinity is also made specifically for mobile devices, making it easy to check on your hotel’s stats and vital sale reports while you’re on the go.
Yanolja
Yanolja is a strong choice if you are trying to manage multi-property bookings quickly and accurately. Guests will also have the same smooth booking experience with Yanolja if they are using laptops, smartphones, or desktops. Guests can use the platform for group bookings, and they can instantly apply special deals and promotions as well.
Along with hotel channel managers and global distribution systems, hotel booking engines are required if you want to have a modern hotel that’s bringing in plenty of revenue. Without a hotel booking engine that you feel is perfectly tailored to your individual requirements, it will be challenging to drive up your booking numbers.
Remember to shop around among the ones that are available to find a choice that fits your business model. You should also look to see whether it has all of the features that we mentioned. We covered some of the most crucial ones, but there can be others integrated in some engines that you’ll feel are needed for the type of establishment you’re running or the online presence you hope to maintain.
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