What is a Hotel Booking Engine?

With the traditional ways of hotel marketing slowly fading away, modern day travelers are drawn more towards online booking. Hotels use third parties like OTAs for their online distribution. One problem with third parties like OTAs being involved is the commission they charge. The commission charged prevents a hotel from making optimum revenue from available resources.

So, is there any other way of getting rid of commissions and driving in direct reservations? The answer is Hotel Booking Engine.

What is a Booking Engine?

A booking engine is an application that is installed and appears on a hotel’s website or social media page. A traveler visiting the hotel website or social media page can make direct bookings and payments form this application.

Booking engine is a commission free way for hotels to drive in direct bookings. The charges applied by third parties like OTAs can be eliminated as reservations are made directly through a booking engine. Online Booking Engine reduces the reliance of a hotel on OTAs for delivering them bookings. Hence, maximizes profit with optimum utilization of resources.

The importance of a booking engine for a hotel

Most modern day travelers tend to visit a hotel’s website before final reservation. Having a direct gateway available on the website improves guest experiencing giving the guests a hassle free way for confirming their reservations.

The services of a hotel doesn’t start from the guests arrival on property, in fact, it starts from when the guest is searching for a hotel. Presenting your hotel in an attractive way gives you an upper hand in guests’ wish list. Not having a hotel booking engine on the website can make the potential guests lose interest in your property. Hence, it is important to remain up-to-date with what modern day travelers look for when they make reservations.

And direct reservation gateway is one of them!

• Increased Conversions:

With the help of a booking engine, a traveler can check the availability and rates of a room without being re-directed to other websites or having to write long messages or speak over the call to anyone. They can make reservations and modify such reservations without bothering or being bothered by any third parties. Ensure that booking engine integration with hotels website and social media pages is customizable. This can help you give you guests a real feel of what your hotel is like and convert your potential guests into confirmed reservations.

• Trustworthy Online booking:

Most travelers want to make sure that a property they like is not fraud or fake. So they go on the hotel’s website to check the details making sure that it is trustworthy. Not having a booking engine will make them exit the website and hence, may lose interest in the property. An online hotel booking engine helps the guests to trust a property and make their payment securely. This improves guests’ experience and drives in positive feedbacks. A user friendly booking engine will create a lasting impression of the hotel on the guests.

• Simplifies work with quick and easy set-up:

A hotel will never need to accept reservations or send reservation confirmations manually, in the presence of a booking engine. It gives access to the occupancy data to all employees of the hotel so they remain prepared for the guests’ arrival from beforehand. It also allows a hotel to collect valuable data about the guests in order to provide personalized experiences for better stay. A booking engine integration helps store personalized data so it can be used later for advertising and providing guests with personalized offers.

• Digital Assistants and special offers:

Research says over 1 in 3 travelers across countries wish to use digital assistants to research about their trips and make travel reservations. A booking engine helps a hotel provide digital assistant that builds relationship with guests providing guests with better booking experience. It also gives hotels an opportunity to attract guests by offering upsell promo codes and discounts throughout the year.  Another research shows 60% of US travelers travel on impulse trip based on good deals on flight fares and hotel charges they find online. Exclusive packages and early booking offers helps attract such guests.

• Better decisions with data:

A booking engine can provide insights and reports on top countries, top cities, referring sites, booking lead, revenue, rooms reserved, rooms sold and overall performance result. This allows the hotel to make better decisions on which marketing campaign is working and which one is not. Hotels can focus on attracting more guests from the places where they might have missed. With the readily available data, hotels can take improved decisions on their online distribution marketing campaigns. Based on the data hotels can also keep an eye on their performance and can make changes accordingly maximizing their profits.

Features to look for in a hotel booking engine

Looking for a hotel booking system but can’t decide on which one to choose? Here’s a quick checklist to go through before deciding on a booking engine:

1. Customizable booking engine platform with tailored themes
2. Responsive design, that is, a design that is adjustable to all screen sizes.
3. Allows up to 25 images in gallery and attractive banner image.
4. Social media integration, that is, linked with all social media handles.
5. Provides analytics and reports for improved decision making
6. Enables hotel to create promotion codes and discount coupons
7. Hides unavailable rooms and alerts guest when the search criteria has not been found
8. Quick and user friendly reservation process with secured payment gateway
9. Multilingual, that is, texts are available in several language to attract international guests
10. Multi-currency helping international guests to make hassle free payments.
11. Flexible pricing to boost revenue
12. 24/7 customer support for hassle free set-up and other queries.
13. An eye-catching or attractive “Book Now”
14. Free demo or trial is available before buying the booking engine.

There is a lot more to check on before choosing a booking engine for your hotel but the above list mentions the most important ones that must be there in a hotel booking engine.

The Next Step!

Are you looking for a booking engine? Contact RateTiger today at marketing@erevmax.com for a free trial.

RateTiger has been in the hotel industry since 2001 and has faced every ups and downs of the market ever since. Being ISO and PCI certified along with GDPR compliant, RateTiger provides their client with the best software tools and technologies to fuel their growth in the market. Known for providing smart solutions, RateTiger Booking Engine comes with the following features:

• Mobile first
• Commission free
• Multi-currency
• Multi lingual
• Offers secure payment gateway
• Metasearch integrated

And a lot more! RateTiger has a 24/7 proactive customer support to guide you and reach your goals. Explore RateTiger for our hospitality solutions & more. Connect with our industry experts today.