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What is Hotel Reservation System? Features & Advantages
What is Hotel Reservation System? Features & Advantages
As online booking services have gained prominence, more and more customers are choosing to book their hotel accommodations through them rather than through the hotels directly. So, every hotelier needs to know what the hotel reservation system is and how to use them. We have a thorough guide on this subject below. Please pay attention so you can benefit from it.
While the online reservation trend has had an overall positive effect on the hotel industry, it presents unique challenges to hotel owners and managers. To ensure that you can take full advantage of online booking tools, you should be aware of what these reservation systems are and how they can help your business.
Here’s what you need to know about hotel reservation system/ hotel booking system from how it works to how it benefits your business.
What is Hotel Reservation System?
A Hotel Reservation System can be defined as the process of accepting and fulfilling the reservations of customers in hotels, motels, resorts, and any other similar establishments.
This system not only accepts and fulfils the reservations but also allows the owners to get information about their guests such as arrival date, departure date, check-in time, and check-out time as well as detailed information about the bookings such as room type, meals ordered and specific requests (if any) made by guests.
How does the reservation system work?
A hotel reservation system is an online booking program that makes it easy to book a stay in hotels. It allows guests to see availability, book specific accommodations, and pay with just one click. With a hotel reservation system, you can search for hotels by location, price, reviews, or amenities.
Some systems also offer customer support and allow you to book without registering an account. The best part about using these programs is the ability to compare rates across multiple sites before making your final decision.
Hotels use this type of system to provide a better guest experience and compete with other hotels so their prices are typically lower than those on third-party websites.
Advantages of using hotel reservation system
Imagine how easy it would be to find, book, and track your accommodation – this is the idea behind hotel booking engine software. Here are a couple of benefits of using a booking engine for your hotel.
No commission to OTAs
The main benefit of using your hotel reservation software is that you don’t have to pay commissions on the bookings to so-called OTAs. However, you need to do some Capex initially but once properly set up, you’ll be saving a lot on the commission amount. It also helps you increase direct bookings for your hotel.
Better control over real-time availability
A hotel reservation software will allow you to better control pricing and availability. It also offers the ability to track cancellations and forecast occupancy, which can help you better plan for the future and manage your finances. Plus, streamlining the booking process, makes it easier for your guests to book rooms with your property.
Reduce burden from front office
Another advantage of using a booking system for hotels is that it reduces the workload on the front office staff who may be managing hundreds or even thousands of phone calls each day, freeing up valuable time for them to work on other tasks and increase their productivity.
Helpful data is collected
It also allows all your data to be compiled in one place, meaning that managers can easily analyze the performance of their business and make informed decisions about how to improve their services.
At present, data is gold! That’s because when you’ve some important information like how often your bookings are at peak, when guest occupancy is low etc., you can use such data to improve your marketing strategy and increase your revenue.
Other benefits
Using a booking system also increases your customer satisfaction levels as customers can book online quickly and easily without any need for human contact.
Important features of an effective reservation system for hotels
Reservations for hotel rooms are the lifeblood of hotels; without them, the hospitality industry wouldn’t exist! It should come as no surprise, then, that the industry relies heavily on it to support its business processes and that there are many solutions available to facilitate online reservations at hotels.
When using hotel reservation software, you must check whether it has some key features or not. Some of those features are as follows:
Easy to use
The booking process must be as easy to use as possible. For this reason, we recommend keeping the number of steps in the booking procedure to a minimum.
A good way to do this is by eliminating any steps that are not necessary. Even though people may have additional questions while they’re booking, you can answer these questions at a later time and then send them information about their stay.
Often hotels will make it difficult to find out rates and availability without going through multiple pages and jumping through hoops. To simplify the process, it’s helpful if these details are readily available on each page of the site. The fewer clicks it takes before finding what they want, the better!
Easy to setup
Before installing a reservation system for your hotel, you need to make sure that it’s easy to set up or else you’ll be facing a lot of difficulties. As well as it should also be easy to manage so your staff can easily manage the system.
After the setup, if it requires any customization, it should also be streamlined.
Integrate with PMS
Your Hotel Reservation System should be compatible to integrate with PMS (Property Management System). PMS offers upto-the-minute, real-time data and analytics to ensure you as a hotel manager know where your business is performing positively as well as what you need to improve upon. So, your hotel reservation software must be integrated with your PMS.
Easy cancellation policy
One key feature of a good booking engine is the easy cancellation policy. A customer should have the option to cancel their reservation with little or no penalty up to 24 hours before arrival.
This way, if plans change and a guest is not able to make it, there’s no need to worry about paying a cancellation fee or losing the cost of stay. Such things help hoteliers to make a better guest experience in their hotels.
Conclusion
Hotel reservation system and Hotel Booking Engine might be considered as the backbone of the hotels. Every manager needs to make sure they have effective software for the same task. That’s all for this blog. Stay tuned for more curated information.
