How do you make it more streamlined, more efficient, more up-to-date? Ahead of the competition, simpler to manage, profitable? While there a whole host of ways it can be done, and while each case is different, one sure fire way to achieve all of the above is to find yourself a great booking engine.
Yet, choosing a booking engine can be hard. There are a lot on the market, and a lot of them do different things, with different features, with different interfaces and ways of management. But that’s what we’re here for at Avirato. We find solutions to your problems to make things easier for you.
In this article, we’re going to be looking into the steps you should be taking when choosing a booking engine for your hotel.
First, we’ll look at what a booking engine actually is and does, we’ll then consider the advantages of having a booking engine system for your hotel, and finally we’ll delve into the features the best booking engines should have.
By the end, you’ll be able to pick the booking engine that’s right for you and your hotel, and you’ll have no idea how you’ve managed without one.
First things first, what is a booking engine?
You might know it as a booking system, a reservation system, a software, a program, a combination of these, or something else entirely – essentially, though, what we talk about when we talk about a booking engine is a means for potential guests to make a reservation at your hotel, or bed and breakfast, or hostel, or vacation rental, etc.
Why have your own booking engine when you can use sites like Airbnb and Booking.com, or even a good old-fashioned telephone? Well, there are a lot of reasons. A multitude of them. And they all focus on making things simple for your guests, streamlining your operations, and, in the end, generating more profit for you.
Below, we look at the principal benefits of a booking engine.
More direct bookings. Perhaps one of the most important benefits of having a booking engine for your hotel business is the increase in direct bookings you’ll receive. In today’s hoteliering world, third-party sites are heaven-sent. That much is undeniable. They can attract guests to your hotel who might not otherwise have found it. However, they are also an intermediary. And intermediaries, nearly always, will take a cut of the profits. With your own booking engine, guests can make reservations directly from you. It’s a closer hotel-guest relationship that will work wonders for profit margins and loyalty.
Better customer experience. Customers like things made easy for them. If you have a means for them to make a reservation right there on your website (or whichever platform you feel like using it on), everything is a lot simpler. With so much choice available when it comes to picking somewhere to stay, details like this can make the difference.
Reduced workload. A booking engine works around the clock, in real-time, taking care of tasks that can be automated. It means you’ll no longer have to check and update across multiple online and offline channels – you can take bookings from guests and, if it’s a good system, they’ll automatically syncing up with the rest of your software. This means you and your staff can focus on other things, the finer details, which in the end will mark you out from your competition.
Of course, not all booking engines are the same. You’ll only profit from the benefits described above if you have a good booking engine.
So, just what makes a top-quality booking engine?
Ease of use. An online booking engine needs to be intuitive, with great design, where a reservation is a click away for customers and everything is taken care of at your end just the way you need it to be. If a customer has an issue-free experience booking from your hotel, it’s going to increase their chances of booking again.
Integration. The best booking engines will integrate across your full PMS system (channel manager, daily operations, etc), across multiple properties (and in real-time), across multiple platforms (on Facebook and WordPress, with Google Analytics and Maps, and more).
Versatility. You’ll need your booking engine to adapt to your needs. The best booking engines will have attractive designs that reflect your brand, will be able to show discounts or scarcity or urgency according to your requirements, and will let you make use of cross-selling and upselling options to offer added extras that make your customer’s experience that bit more special.
Security. A fully secure booking engine is an absolute essential. The more secure you can show it to be, the more confident potential guests will be in booking through the platform.
Free trials. The best booking engines will also offer a trial of their services. Avirato offers a free booking engine trial for that very reason. Hotel software is an investment – it can turn your business from inefficient and underperforming to streamlined and profitable, but you need to pick the right one for you, with the features that you need. In other words, you need to trial it first.
And the best bit about Avirato’s free booking engine trial? It comes integrated as part of the whole PMS system. This means you have more than just an online booking engine to try, you can see for yourself how a channel manager, POS software, revenue manager, and more, can all work together in real-time to overhaul your business into a smooth-running, easy-to-manage, top hotel.
This way, you can reap the benefits described above. Avirato’s software does all that and more.
So, there you have it. You now know what you need to look for when choosing a booking engine and what the benefits of choosing the right one can do for you.
Choosing a booking engine is easy – you just need to pick Avirato.
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