One of the best methods of selling affiliate products is to start a review website. Millions of people search for information on the internet from day to day. A lot of these people are happy when they find a website that can provide them with informative reviews about the products that they want to buy.

This will enable them to make a good choice. This article focuses on how you can earn an income with hotel reservation software reviews on your website.

• How Can I Get Started With Earning With a Hotel Reservation Software?
• What is the Best Hotel Reservation Software?
• What Software is Used for Reservations?
• What Reservation System do Hotels Use?
• Which Booking Engine is the Best?
• What System Does Marriott Use?
• How Much Does a Hotel Booking System Cost?
• What Are The 2 Types of Hotel Software?
• What Are the Benefits That we Can Gain in Computerized Reservation System?
• What is CRS in Hotel Industry?
• How do I Start an Online Booking Business?

How Can I Get Started With Earning With a Hotel Reservation Software?

Creating an effective review website

You have to decide whether you want your site to be a blog or a static web page. These days, it is preferable to work with a blog because it offers a lot of flexibility. It is also easier for blogs to achieve high ranking on search engines.

Read Also: How Does Online Marketing Make Money?

You will also be able to post new articles constantly, make necessary updates and create categories and subcategories for different type of reviews. You may decide to focus only on hotel reservation software reviews or talk about other software programs as well.

Setting up your website

The easiest way to create your hotel reservation software review site is to purchase a domain name, open a hosting account and install WordPress. WordPress installation will be very simple if you choose a web hosting company that provides cPanel. Anyone who can use a computer can build a WordPress site with a few mouse clicks through the cPanel.

Getting the right products

In order to make money from your review site, you have to choose products that are selling. If the products are not popular, you may not get enough traffic to your website. Visit affiliate sites such as Commission Junction to find out the hotel reservation programs that are selling. Apart from providing reviews about different programs, you should also provide informative articles about the hotel business.

These articles can also attract more visitors to your site. Conduct some research about the problems that are peculiar to the hotel business and provide some valuable solutions in your articles. These articles should not be promotional. They should be additional resources that will add credibility to your site. You will make more sales when you are perceived as being credible.

Provide useful information

When you write hotel reservation software reviews, it is important to do proper research, find out as much as you can about each product then provide these details in your write up. Your readers will trust you more if you provide quality information. Gaining your readers’ trust is important if you want them to follow your recommendations when they make purchases.

Emphasize the benefits of the products that you are reviewing but you should also point out a few drawbacks. This will give a very balance presentation that will increase your credibility. Your aim is to ensure that your readers buy one of the products that you are promoting.

Do not promote any single product to the detriment of others. You may make recommendations but your recommendations should be balanced. You will make money as long as they buy any of the hotel reservation software programs on your site.

What is the Best Hotel Reservation Software?

Everyone loves a good vacation, and since interstate travel will be getting back to normal this summer, it’s time for hotels to prepare for an influx of guests. A recent study shows that 73 percent of Americans are making plans for a trip in the next three to six months, and this number could climb as more people get vaccinated and the warm weather pulls everyone outside. 

Many smaller hotels and bed and breakfasts may be unprepared for the high number of travelers, but a trustworthy hotel reservation management system can help you get through the summer travel rush. 

There are a number of hotel reservation management systems to consider. The features can vary widely, from full-service property management to a simple booking engine. Check out these five options if your hotel is in the market for a new system to start bringing in everyone who’s ready to get out and see the world again.

1. Easy InnKeeping

Easy InnKeeping has been around since 1999, so the company has quite a bit of time to get its reservation management system right. 

You can manage everything from email marketing to payments, and for reservations, you can connect the online engine to Booking.com and Expedia. One great feature is the quick check-in, which gives customers easy access to their rooms via key lock, swipe card, and signature devices. 

If you’re going to be managing your payments from the same software, Easy InnKeeping’s accounting and CRM software will be particularly useful. You can start with a free trial or reach out to the company’s customer service for pricing.

2. ThinkReservations

If your room rates tend to fluctuate throughout the year, ThinkReservations offers some helpful features. The software lets you sync your hotel’s availability on multiple travel sites and set specific rules to change room prices across all channels to ensure your customers are getting the most up-to-date rates. 

With the Yield Management feature, you can automatically change rates based on what you have available and what the demand is, which is helpful for getting the most from your bookings. Plus, the ThinkReservations customer service team can set up everything for you and train your staff. Pricing is pretty clear-cut at $10 per room, per month in addition to a one-time setup fee.

3. Sirvoy

If you’re looking for software that will combine hotel reservations with property management, Sirvoy could be the option for your hotel. 

You can set up the platform’s booking engine in minutes and start collecting reservations directly from your site. Just add a snippet of code to your website. You never have to pay any commission fees. 

You can choose between a Starter or Pro plan, depending on how many extra features you’ll be using. For a simple reservation system, you can get started for $9 per month. 

4. Hotelogix

Hotelogix is one of the more robust options, combining several aspects of a full hotel management system. For starters, you can add the booking engine directly to your site, so you can collect reservations without any commission fees. 

You can also keep track of how your hotel is performing through KPIs, so you can be sure you’re making data-driven decisions. And you can manage other aspects of your hotel operation — like housekeeping, front desk assistance, and even hotel reviews — from one platform. 

Plans are priced per room, so for larger properties the cost will add up quickly. However, the price could be worth it for the number of useful features the software offers.

5. Cloudbeds

Cloudbeds is all about giving time back to hotel managers. The system does this by automating the hotel management process. 

Cloudbeds provides an easy-to-use single platform to manage all aspects of your hotel, from booking to revenue. Guests can check in and out with one click, and you can keep track of all reservations with a drag-and-drop calendar. 

There’s even a library of free resources and tools that will help you stay on top of trends and best practices in the industry — a definite plus for new hotel managers. 

Prices are based on the size of your hotel, so chat with customer service to get an idea of how much your plan will cost.

What Software is Used for Reservations?

Reservation Software primarily manages bookings and reservation for the hospitality industry. Also known as booking software, these platforms streamline everyday operations, take care of reservations, and manage marketing and tracks inventory across multiple sales channels. Reservation software allows the hoteliers to sell their rooms online, manage prices in order to compete for the trending market and boost overall revenue.

1. Wix

Fill up your schedule and drive more revenue by selling your services right from your website with Wix’s leading online scheduling solution. The platform lets you offer custom services, manage staff, calendars & multiple locations, build client relationships, and grow your business-all from one place.

You’ll find essential features such as an intelligent booking calendar, mobile management, automated communications, integrated payment & CRM systems, custom analytics, and a full marketing suite.

2. miniCal

miniCal is a free open-source Property Management Software. Our main clients are: – Properties looking for customized solution – PMS companies who are looking to outsource their technology.

Best For: PMS companies, hotels, motels, hostels, vacation rentals, camps, car rental, office rental, apartments, condos

3. eZee Reservation

eZee Reservation is a responsive hotel booking engine that lets a hotel’s website visitors book directly from the website from any device at any time, thus giving hotels an opportunity to gain unlimited commission-free bookings. Core features of eZee Reservation include a responsive booking engine, payment gateway options, inventory management, affiliate tracking, yield management, email tracking, PMS integration, and more.

4. Djubo

DJUBO’s hotel tech suite helps you, maximize your hotel’s online & offline distribution with auto-sync Channel Manager & CRS to improve revenues, market your hotel better beyond traditional OTAs with Google Hotel Ads, TripAdvisor Integrations & Direct Booking Engine, streamline operations with its integrated Property Management System, manage your hotel’s online reputation & reviews, and improve you decision making abilities with it’s sales analytics & market intelligence tools.

5. CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Booking

CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Booking is on-premise low-code software for building an accommodation reservations marketplace like Airbnb. The platform comes with essential booking functionality, which is constantly being expanded by developers. Multi-Vendor Booking also has all the eCommerce marketplace functionality to control vendors and start marketing campaigns. The software has open code, which allows for growth and scalability.

6. Whatspot

A simple online booking tool for businesses. Book a meeting room, company car or parking space. Reservations using QR codes, nine language versions, public reservations and all in one place. Try the FREE DEMO with the product manager and find out how Whatspot can help you.

7. Hotelogix

Hotelogix is a robust cloud-based Hotel Management System that offers next-gen capabilities needed by hotels to simplify reservations, improve operating efficiency and maximize revenue.

Hotelogix enables real-time integration with all major Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and Global Distribution Systems (GDS) to expand your market reach, increase occupancy rates, and eliminate booking errors. Hotelogix has a decade of experience in serving hotels across 100+ countries.

8. Resfinity

ANIXE is a leading provider in the digital travel sector, serving a broad spectrum of customers through its Hotel and Airline divisions. The company provides a suite of comprehensive services that starts with accurate business analysis, and extends all the way through to a swift and concise implementation.

Their post-sales customer support and proactive commercial and technical consultancy means ANIXE comes batteries included, which makes all the difference.

9. Acuity Scheduling

Save time, look professional, and keep your customers and business moving with Acuity’s self-service reservation-booking magic. From the moment a customer books with you, Acuity’s there to perform customer intake, automatically send customized email confirmations to you and your customers, deliver text reminders, and process payments. With Acuity, your day-to-day runs more smoothly. There’s even a mobile app, for to manage when you’re on-the-go. All you need to do is show up at the right time.

10. Eventbrite

Eventbrite is a ticketing and event technology platform that helps businesses organize and sell tickets to events online while helping people discover events that fuel their passions. From workshops to concerts to conferences to world-renowned film and music festivals, Eventbrite houses events of all shapes and sizes.

Eventbrites powerful platform, which can be accessed online or via mobile apps, scales from basic registration and ticketing to a fully featured event management platform.

What Reservation System do Hotels Use?

Here are a few providers of hotel reservation systems that receive high ratings from hoteliers:

1. Platforms with a booking engine, channel manager, and property management system

• Cloudbeds. Cloudbeds provides a cloud-based, fully integrated hospitality management platform with all the tools you need to ensure a seamless reservation process. See the section below for more information.
• RMS Cloud. RMS Cloud features an integrated PMS, booking engine, channel manager, and revenue management system suitable for all types of lodging operators.
• Frontdesk Anywhere. Frontdesk Anywhere is a cloud-based hotel management software with an integrated PMS, channel manager, booking engine, and revenue management system built for independent hotels and management groups

2. Platforms with a PMS + booking engine

• Mews. Based in Prague, Mews is a cloud-based PMS system that offers integrated operations, payments, guest journey, BI, Marketplace, and API solutions.
• Protel. Based in Germany, Protel is a legacy PMS provider that also offers a website booking engine, mobile app, and events software.
• Resnexus. Based in the United States, Resnexus is a cloud-based PMS popular with bed & breakfasts and inns that offer a website and booking engine along with guest management, credit card processing, and automatic yield management.

3. Central reservation systems + booking engine

• Cendyn. With its recent merger with Pegasus, Cendyn now offers a flexible, scalable reservation system with intelligent rate and inventory management tools.
• Vertical Booking. Part of the Italy-based Zucchetti group, Vertical Booking offers a central reservation system with an integrated booking engine, channel manager, and central reservation office (CRO).
• SHR. SHR’s Windsurfer CRS is popular with hotel groups, offering revenue management software, a customer relationship management (CRM) system, and call center services.
• Guestcentric. Exclusively designed for large, independent hotels and small groups, Guestcentric’s CRS features an integrated booking engine and a Partners Integration Marketplace.

Which Booking Engine is the Best?

Simply put, a hotel reservation system processes secure online reservations made through the website. The acquired data is passed to an extranet (backend system), which can be conveniently accessed by hoteliers to manage bookings and a lot of other things.

Hotel booking engines should be optimized for mobile and for conversion so that you can truly take advantage of all the potential benefits of having such a tool integrated into your website. Implementing this technology is easy and is without a doubt one of the key ways to increase direct bookings.

Below are what the top choices are.

Mews

Mews’ Booking Engine is a great choice to provide your potential guests with the most effortless experience possible. Use it as a widget or on its own as a standalone website, or you can even build your own interface with the Mews API.

Mews offers a smooth reservation process with the ability to select up to 20 currencies and languages, connect various properties for cross-selling purposes, can be easily booked by third parties such as travel agents or friends, and guarantees secure payments.

Some of the other important booking engine features of Mews’ tool is that it can be customized to your hotel’s brand identity so as to ensure an optimal first experience with your brand. You can add your hotel’s colors, logo and the look and feel of your website, which provides a sense of security for guests.

The quick and easy form means the booking process is fast and there is less possibility for website abandonment. Finally, this engine provides many conversion and revenue boosting opportunities with the ability to create promotional rates, upselling possibilities, and performance analytics.

SiteMinder

SiteMinder’s booking engine is optimized to improve every step of the booking process, allowing you to get insights into rate parity and easy access to hotel apps, which drive conversion. With their secure payment system, guests are ensured the safest possible reservation process. 

Another benefit of this tool is that hoteliers don’t have to spend time and money to invest in creating their own systems, but instead can take advantage of the integration capabilities.

Avvio

Avvio is an AI-powered booking system that is aimed at using data science and artificial intelligence to optimize the online booking experience. It integrates with your central reservation system, business intelligence, and channel managers for the smoothest experience possible with great opportunities for personalization. The more personalized the user journey, the more chances for conversion.

Bookassist

With Bookassist you can work with technology to grow your online sales by maximizing direct traffic to your website. The system is easy to use and user-friendly featuring customized reports and data that hoteliers can put into practice to optimize the reservation process.

Direct bookings are at the heart of this technology that helps increase profit margins. Bookassist also boasts top-notch customer support to answer any questions about how technology can help grow your business.

Net Affinity

Net Affinity’s product is aimed at independent hoteliers who want to convert first-time visitors to their website into lifelong clients. Their technology helps ensure the smoothest and easiest guest journey possible, which helps remove any obstacles to booking. Their support agents are on hand to help you every step of the way, and with easy integrations and great reporting features, this tool will make the life of independent hotelier’s easier.

InnRoad 

InnRoad promises an increase in direct bookings thanks to its easy-to-use technology. Hoteliers can increase revenue with upselling opportunities like add-ons that are offered all from the same tool. The tool also allows for multiroom and group reservations, which allows you to get the most revenue possible from one reservation. The more chances for upselling and cross-selling during the reservation process ensures a boost in your hotel’s bottom line.

Profitroom

Profitroom is an intuitive platform that allows you to deliver an ideal first experience with your hotel’s brand, allowing for cross-selling across multiple locations. It easily connects with CRM systems and different interfaces, allowing for a smooth management of all the necessary processes to ensure the most revenue for each direct reservation.

D-Edge

With the idea that your website should be the most profitable sales channel, D-Edge helps to increase conversion rate. The platform is very intuitive and can integrate with any property management system. They are constantly enhancing functionalities and core capabilities to offer the best possible service to hoteliers.

Simplotel

Simplotel is, as its name suggests, a simple tool that allows hoteliers with different-sized properties to increase direct bookings. The engine can be customized to match your brand identity, so it seamlessly integrates into your website, and gives users a sense of security when reserving directly on your website.

Room Raccoon

Room Raccoon’s software connects with your website to convert visitors into clients. The software allows you to process pre-payment in order to avoid no-shows. Plus, you can also offer add-ons directly from the tool, and match the look and feel of your property’s website.

What System Does Marriott Use?

Marriott International has expanded its partnership with Micros Systems, Inc. by selecting the hosted Micros Opera property management system as the property-management system to be used in all Marriott brands worldwide.

Micros Opera PMS is a property-management system that is designed to address the needs of any size hotel, and manage all daily activities necessary in a hotel’s operation. From handling reservations to managing accounting and billing, Opera offers a feature set that can be configured to any hotel’s requirements, the company said.

“After considerable evaluation, we selected the cloud-based Micros Opera as a proven system that provides the stability and feature functionality, including the mobility, that we require,” said Kermit Littlefield, vice president of global property management systems for Marriott International. “Additionally, having used Micros Opera in our international properties, we are confident it is a superior solution for our properties in North America as well.”

How Much Does a Hotel Booking System Cost?

How Much Does It Cost To Build A Hotel Booking Website OR Application? A hotel booking web app can cost anywhere between $40,000 to $90,000 depending on the scale, requirements, and complexity of the project. To build a hotel booking web app with a minimum of 8-10 developers for tasks ranging from project planning, designing, building, deploying, testing, and debugging to maintenance.

With the understanding of hotel booking app development, it is time that you know what are the must-have features for the platform.

• User Account: The user must have a dashboard that allows them to customize their details as well as the ability to view previous bookings, plan visits, and create wish lists.
• Search: The web app should enable the user to search hotels according to their preferences of location, date, and guest number. A user must be able to set the date of arrival and departure through a date picker and select the city they are going to travel.
• Result Filtration: Users must be able to filter results even more precisely according to the ratings, price range, etc. which will help them to find the ideal hotel at a reasonable price with ease.
• Multiple Language & TimeZone Support: If you want the web app to be accessible worldwide, it is essential to add multiple languages as well as time zone support to help customers personalize their experience.
• Secure Payment Gateway: The web app must have a safe and secure payment gateway to avoid any sort of fraud and loss for both hoteliers and customers.
• Appropriate Accommodation View: Hotels should offer videos, photos, and 3D tours of their rooms that would help people choose the best hotel for their travels.
• Cancellation & Refunds: The web app must have a flexible cancellation approach with clear instructions on conditions where the charges will be deducted on cancellation and when the refund will be fully refunded to the customer.
• Hotelier Account: Hoteliers should also have a personalized dashboard that allows them to review and confirm bookings, verify payment status and manage the hotel account.
• Push Notifications: The notification feature in the web app will be highly appreciated by the users and hoteliers as it will help in notifying them about booking details, discounts, check-in, check-out time, etc.

Some of the additional smart features that are worth considering before developing the web app for hotel booking are:

• Social Signup or Login
• Cost Forecasting
• Personalized Recommendation Engine
• Currency Converter
• In-App Travel Guide
• Analytics Dashboard
• Loyalty Programs
• Virtual Tours
• Review and Ratings
• Hotel Comparison
• In-App Navigation
• Car Rental
• Flight/Train Search & Booking
• Analytics

What Are The 2 Types of Hotel Software?

In the past, hotel management software was limited to an on-premise solution. You would pay for a piece of software and install it onto the computers at your physical location. This made it impossible to use your software unless you are on location. More recently, hotel cloud solutions have arrived that make it possible to access and manage your software from anywhere you have internet access. 

Since both cloud and on-prem hotel solutions are still available, let’s take a closer look at the two options and how they work so that you’ll be in a better position to decide which is right for you.

Cloud Software Solution

Cloud-based hotel solutions offer sleek and easy to learn interfaces that allow your staff to focus on putting the guest first instead of struggling with overbearingly complex, and sometimes redundant, software. As the industry evolves and more hotels adopt cloud-based hotel software more and more functionality is being built in by developers.

Cloud-based hotel management system solutions bring with them the benefits that cloud-based software always does. You’ll be able to access your system, in its full capacity, from anywhere you have access to a web browser. Because the software is located in the cloud, you’ll always have the latest version of it with no input needed from your IT department. Having the latest version means staying compliant with changing local laws and compliance requirements.

On-Premise Hotel Solution

On-premise hotel software has been around for a long time, so it’s features and functionality have been refined over many years as a direct reflection of the needs of the hospital industry. This often results in an organic patchwork of features that are more complex to use – especially for staff members who are not familiar with a particular piece of software.

What Are the Benefits That we Can Gain in Computerized Reservation System?

There are plenty of advantages to using a CRS that a hotelier can benefit from. The CRS essentially acts like a global distribution center, storing hotel rates and availability so that it’s more accessible to online channels such as OTAs and travel agents.

We’ll look at how a CRS helps build better customer relationships, synchronizes information, increases flexibility and efficiency, saves time and money, keeps track of reservations and streamlines payment.

1. Better customer relationship

Hospitality flourishes through the provision of quality services and building meaningful relationships with customers. It’s good to wish your customers a happy birthday or remember them during the holidays. A happy customer will bring in referrals and more business. A CRS helps you build sustainable relationships by identifying customers’ buying patterns and recording relevant information to understand them better.

This information allows you to provide personalized services and improve guest experiences. Some of the customized services include seasonal prices and discounts for regular customers, and a cancellation policy. You can also adjust children’s rates and meal plans to suit their preferences.

Alternatively, you can make their booking process seamless by pre-filling their preferred room types and personal information. Customers appreciate even small gestures, making them more likely to recommend your hotel to their friends.

2. Synchronization of information

In the past, hotels had to manage reservations and bookings manually. When a guest checks in or leaves, the front office and sales staff need to update the available rooms and regularly update the bookings list. Setting room rates, determining availability and managing bookings manually often leads to overbooking or double booking due to human error. It also leads to guest inconvenience, especially if customers fully book the hotel.

You can avoid all those errors and inconveniences by embracing automation software like central reservation systems. One of the major selling points of a CRS is that it collects hotel data, including available rooms, rates and inventory, making it accessible on a global level.

Hotel management can access the information from any computer, tablet or phone in the building, and make the necessary adjustments. Moreover, information on occupancy levels and room rates are available in real time.

For example, if a customer reserves a room, the system will update the status, ensuring it is not available to other visitors. Synchronized data also gives the customer a time-saving search tool to refine their preference according to dates, location and room type.

Besides, the online booking system allows visitors to take advantage of special offers and extras like meal deals and airport transfers. Furthermore, this synchronization takes place on a global level via the global distribution system interface, meaning that OTAs and travel agents around the world can access this information.

3. Increases flexibility and efficiency

As market trends change, hoteliers must adapt by adjusting their pricing strategies and policies. A central reservation system increases your flexibility by adopting new rates and policies according to the corresponding marketing condition, which can also be adapted on a chain level.

The global market is not uniform, so you can change the rates for various rooms, and the latest prices will be reflected on the booking website. Apart from occupancy rates, you can also adjust the commission and cost of distribution resources depending on market fluctuations.

A CRS also allows the implementation of multi-channel marketing strategies, boosting your online presence and increasing bookings. All the traffic from third-party distribution channels and online travel agents will come to your booking engine. Therefore, if you link the CRS with your website, you can provide relevant information like available rooms, price comparisons and helpful resources to persuade visitors to book a room.

That means you can reach worldwide guests without adjusting hotel data for every location. Besides, central reservation systems have an intuitive interface that makes the reservation process smooth and stress-free for your guests.

4. Saves time and money

Before hotel booking system software became a standard, hoteliers required additional front office staff to handle bookings and data entry. During peak season, you had to find extra reception staff to check-in guests and take care of booking requests. The introduction of reservation systems that work with all distribution systems eases the burden on hotel management.

Hoteliers need fewer reception staff, reducing the operational costs. Not only that, but your staff will have time to tend to other customer needs without data entry tasks. You also don’t need sales agents to advertise your hotel, and you can keep commissions at a minimum with online travel agents. Integrating the booking engine with a CRS will also promote direct bookings and reduce the distribution channels’ costs.

If you want to save money further, pair your CRS with the Mews cloud-based property management system. You can access your information from any part of the world without worrying about maintaining servers or subscription plans. A central reservation system will streamline your revenue and grow your bottom-line.

5. Keeping track of reservations

Sometimes, visitors reserve rooms months ahead, especially when they have a holiday planned out during the peak seasons. Manually managing such reservations can lead to errors. The sales agents may misplace the booking details, inconveniencing the customer or causing overbooking. Fortunately, a central reservation system can solve your booking problems.

You can reserve tables and rooms for guests months ahead without worrying about losing track of the reservation. The system will display the booked days, preventing chances of double or overbooking. You can also note down guest’s special requests during reservations like food allergies and favorite rooms.

Even better, you can use the reservations to make projections on the peak and low seasons and make preparations. If you have hotels in various countries, you can still access reservation information from the online booking system. Chains can even create reservations on a chain level and steer to a centralized booking engine.

Furthermore, you can monitor the occupancy rates in all your hotels, allocate resources and increase marketing efforts in low-performing hotels.

6. Ease of use and secure payment

A central reservation system is compatible with various distribution systems and property management systems, allowing the easy streamlining of information. Therefore, hotels do not need to find new distribution systems. It’s also a user-friendly interface for guests and hotel staff.

Guests can easily navigate the booking process while staff can access or update information with a few clicks. If you have multiple hotels with separate reservation systems, you can integrate them into a central system and monitor your businesses.

Furthermore, visitors booking via the CRS enjoy data security, and their payment information remains confidential. Guests have no reason to worry about sharing their credit card details since they can access other secure payment options.

What is CRS in Hotel Industry?

A central reservation system is reservation management software that allows your hotel to manage inventory and rates in real time so that your hotel can manage reservations and the related processes in a more efficient manner.

With simple, smart software like the RMS offered by Mews, you can take care of direct reservations through your booking engine, group booking, and control everything from room assignment to billing. These types of systems are key for operational efficiency for hoteliers because they automate processes. 

It’s important to have a CRS because reservations are no longer just coming from one direct channel, but instead a multitude of distribution channels, which could be OTAs, conventional travel agents, wholesales and global distribution systems, in addition to direct bookings.

The software communicates directly with these different distribution channels, syncing with your hotel’s PMS so that hotels can focus on diversifying their distribution strategy as much as possible without having to worry about the logistics behind it. 

Keep track of reservations

A central reservation system allows you to manage reservations and synchronize them in one system, which avoids both overbookings and double-bookings. This is particularly useful if you have multiple properties and several distribution channels. In this way you can streamline the reservation process, so you can focus on generating the most revenue per hotel room.

Ease of distribution

With so many channels now available for your distribution strategy, a centralized system can make the process easier, plus it can increase your visibility on these channels by widening the range of platforms you can sell rooms on.

Read Also: Can I Live Without a Job?

A CRS connects your rates and availability across all channels so that you can have increased exposure to potential guests by having a greater online and offline presence.

Easily adjust rates and availability

Revenue managers are constantly looking to update prices based on the market, and with a central reservation system, this can be easily managed. They can quickly adjust prices that will be reflected across the distribution channels to ensure rate parity.

Furthermore, when working with dynamic rates and multiple hotel room types, a CRS allows you to automate pricing from one revenue management software instead of having to update prices in many different places.

The same goes for availability: you can update it all at once and then distribute to all channels at once. Based on availability you can then run promotions, update inventory and integrate these changes in a streamlined matter. This is without a doubt the most efficient way of managing your pricing strategy.

Multiple bookings

This kind of software can be used to handle room allocations and to manage group bookings in the case of weddings, banquets or other corporate events. By having the ability to take care of multi-room bookings, you can make sure to create room blocks and update availability in real time, to avoid double bookings and to maximize room sales. 

Manage cancellations and refunds

When a guest makes a booking and then cancels, it’s important to have a software that will help you release this room and make it available in your different distribution channels. Many of these kinds of platforms have the ability to handle payments, so you can not only automate the refund, but also then update availability across your distribution channels.

How do I Start an Online Booking Business?

There is undoubtedly a lot of competition in the online hotel booking industry, so for a newbie, there are some essential points that would be very helpful in making sure that their online hotel booking business succeeds.

Although there are many points the business owner has to take care of, these are the five essentials of a successful online hotel booking business.

Plan the Online Booking Process

When you are planning to start and run your own online hotel booking business, it is essential for you to decide what type of booking reservation service you are going to offer. Is your website going to have a different class of different prices? For example, first-class for the highest price, second and third for a lower price, or you are going to focus on offering different packages to your customers.

The other option can think is to offer per hour booking because not every customer wants to book for a day or a week. Lastly, you can simply let the customers decide the best hotel for them according to the reviews and the ranking of the hotels.

You have to make sure that the customer is crystal clear about what hotel he/she is going to book. What price does he/she has to pay? And what features and services should he expect to receive? To make sure your booking process functions seamlessly, you would have to find/develop a top-notch booking module that offers all the essential features.

Clear Details and Prices

Customers want convenience and their traveling trip to be as seamless as possible! They are not looking for any unpleasant surprises from the online hotel booking on the very last moment.

In an effort to attract customers to your hotel, you might think that it is a smart idea to show lower prices and charge hidden charges. This would be the worst idea that you could come up with. Rather than gaining customers, you will ultimately lose your customer’s trust in your business. Therefore, it is necessary to clearly mention all the details of the services the customer will receive, especially the prices.

Offer Simple Payment and Booking Facility

Most of the customers prefer to pay via credit cards, digital wallets, online banking, digital wallets, promo codes and similar payment modes like PayPal. So, you have to make sure that your website offers secure and easy payment options. The payment and booking method also has to be simple and quick.

Customers come to a business because they want convenience, so to win over the competition, every business needs to provide the optimum level of convenience to its customers. Make sure that they receive the booking confirmation details quickly so that they can relax and plan their trip rather than worrying about the confirmation of their hotel booking.

Make it SEO-Friendly

The hotel booking services’ competition is tough. You have to make sure that you emphasize making sure your website is Search Engine Optimizable.

The meta-tags, the website link structure, and the entire structure of the website is optimizable enough that it will help you achieve first-page ranking on search engines within a short period or not. If not, you might not have any other option but to hire professional help your business, appearing on the first page of the search engines.

Know Your Competition

Knowing what your competitor is doing is essential, so you have to understand that you are fully aware of what services your competitor is and isn’t offering. This will help you get a better idea of what is essential for you to offer your customers and what services you can offer to take the competitive advantage from your competitors.

Some of the leading competitors of the online hotel booking industry include Agoda.com, Booking.com, Expedia /Travelocity, HostelWorld.com, Hotels.com, HotelsCombined.com, HotelTonight, Orbitz, Priceline, and Trivago.

At the start of your new online hotel booking business, you might face a certain level of difficulty in ensuring that you are offering similar services to your customers. You might have to hire a professional to develop your website because it is not necessary that you would know how to make a booking website.

However, having a clear idea about your competition’s offerings will help you have a checklist of all the things that you have to offer. It will also help you stay on track of developing a successful online booking hotel business.

Initially, you might face some difficulties, but you have to be consistent, and working smart rather than working hard. Most importantly, make sure that your efforts are focused on optimizing customer satisfaction.