A hotel booking engine is one of those useful little tools that quietly tick away in the background. If it’s great booking engine software, you won’t even know it’s there. Seamless and slick, they are designed to be invisible, swiftly enabling guest reservations.
Gone are the days of taking bookings solely over the phone and logging them manually. A booking engine takes that process and automates it, reducing the burden on you and your staff. You’ll likely need one if you want to grow or run a modern accommodation business. It’s certainly the norm.
In this guide, we’ll run into the fine details. We won’t just cover what hotel booking engines are, but why you need one. We are big believers that business owners should always understand their decisions. Give us five minutes, and we’ll have you completely up to speed!
What Is a Booking Engine in Hotel Businesses?
An online booking engine is a piece of software that allows you to take reservations. It upholds things like your cancellation policies, enables promo codes, and often uses smart pricing to set rates. Booking engines can come in two forms:
- A private hotel website booking engine that you set up yourself.
- A multi-property booking engine, like Booking.com, which you subscribe to and pay a commission on each booking.
In this piece, we’ll focus on how hotels can use engines independently to achieve commission-free bookings and direct reservations. These engines are their own software, which you run separately from online travel agencies. It sounds better, doesn’t it?
However, it comes with some hiccups and demands that businesses choose advanced software. For instance, you’ll need software to handle a conversion rate and potentially large traffic volumes.
It will also need to adjust pricing based on competitors and process things like refunds. Ideally, it would additionally feature or sync with channel manager software. It’s a lot to ask! You can see why good booking engine software is so in demand.
How Do Hotel Booking Engines Work?
A hotel internet booking engine works by adding a slick booking feature to your pre-existing website. A simple form from a user-perspective, behind the scenes it elaborately connects with your existing systems.
An online booking engine facilitates direct bookings, selling rooms based on availability at a smart rate based on demand. It does this by communicating directly with the property management system and transferring data on a two-way basis. It often does this by relying on cloud-based hotel software.
3 Ways To Spot the Best Hotel Booking Engine
Hotel owners should look for green flags when hunting for a booking engine for hotels. To find a hotel booking engine, you need to ensure the basics, like compatibility with existing software. You should additionally take your budget into account and check whether it offers a free trial or demo.
However, as useful as these benchmarks are, they are also just general points to consider. What about spotting the best hotel booking engine? What qualities set apart the amazing from the good?
These are signs that hotel reservation software is seriously worth the investment:
- Any form of smart pricing is fantastic; it saves you adjusting rates based on high or low seasons.
- A method of collecting or displaying reviews is excellent, especially if it sends out prompts automatically.
- An analytical dashboard is a Godsend; it allows you to review and adjust your business strategies easily.
How To Build a Hotel Booking Engine
Learning how to build a booking engine hotels is challenging if you do so manually. However, the easiest way to create one for your business is by simply adding a plugin to your website.
You can contact a website designer or log into your content management system (CMS) account, like WordPress. If WordPress is your CMS of choice, these are the following plugins we’d suggest researching:
- VikBooking: A reservation system available for free or as a paid pro version.
- MotoPress WordPress Hotel Booking: An all-in-one property management suite with a one-off charge of $139 for single sites.
- Booking Calendar: A popular free reservation system with a simple calendar and highlighted dates layout.
Using plugins is a simple way to input a booking engine strategy. You can always register for third-party sites like Booking.com or Airbnb. However, having your own just gives the potential for extra income.
Beambox: Utilizing Your Hotel WiFi To Generate More Bookings
Did you know you can utilize your hotel WiFi to generate more bookings? The best way to gain more direct bookings is to drive traffic to your website. And to do this, all you need is captive portal software.
Captive portal software blocks guests from immediately joining your WiFi network, instead redirecting them to a form. This form can ask anything you’d like, such as request contact details to enable marketing campaigns or even send customers review invites.
Once they comply, they gain full internet access; it’s a clever strategy.
At Beambox, we offer an all-in-one WiFi software with a captive portal you can customize to meet your individual needs.
Start your Beambox free trial today and start brainstorming how to drive traffic to your hotel booking engine through WiFi!
FAQ
Are you going already? You haven’t even learned how to utilize hotel WiFi to generate more bookings! Hold fire for a second, and while we’ve got your attention, how much do you remember of what you’ve learned? Here are some quick FAQ.
What is a hotel booking engine?
A hotel booking engine is a system that collects reservations and allows guests to reserve stays at a property. It transfers information between a property management system and often utilizes things like smart pricing and adjusting rates based on demand.
You can use hotel booking engines on third-party sites like Booking.com or create your own. If you launch your own, you typically display it on a website.
What features should I look for in a hotel booking engine?
You should always check compatibility first, especially with other systems (like property management software) you’ve got in place. Aside from that, smart pricing is a huge plus and saves you from manually adjusting rates.
We’d also prioritize advanced payment processing systems, such as the capacity to manage conversion rates and multiple payment methods.
What are the benefits of using a hotel booking engine?
It streamlines the booking process and creates a more professional appeal. Having a hotel booking engine relieves your staff of any extra duties. It essentially makes the whole process passive and keeps the guest experience straightforward without the risk of human error.
As an added bonus, booking engines are also a tax-deductible expense. How good is that?
