Reservation Systems for Hotels Is a Must for All Modern-day Hotels.

The reception desk of all hotels will be busy at all times because of the rush of the visitors. The situation will become even more hectic and lively during the peak holiday seasons. Because of this rush of the crowd, the reception staff will always have a hard time regarding the reservation of rooms and the related follow-ups from the customers. Hence, there is the possibility that customers will feel dissatisfied, and this discontent and the related frustration will prompt many of them to go to other hotels. Such a situation will mar the reputation of your hotel, which will directly affect your business and will slow down the growth of your hotel. Many of your regular customers will stop visiting your hotel. They will search for other available options. The best practical way to stop such an incident is to start using bespoke reservation systems for hotels. The software allows visitors to reserve their preferred rooms at their convenience. Besides, it will update the reservation chart of your hotel at due times. Whenever there is a booking, cancellation, or check-out, the updating process takes place. Hence, the visitors will get the updated version at all times.

However, the system that you opt for your hotel must be perfectly coded and must make your hotel administration swift and flawless. For making this possible, you must hire the professional competence of expert software developing companies that have experience in coding tailored reservation systems for hotels. You can find such top software developers by a short search through Google. You will be able to locate so many leading companies that have professional proficiency as far as the creation of personalized hotel reservation systems is concerned. Nevertheless, you must shortlist some of them and compare the quality of services, the recommendations from the customers, and pricing.

Importance of Hotel Booking Reservation System

• By implementing befitting reservation systems for hotels, the management can make the related administrative processes simpler. There will not be any practical requirement to go through the emails for accepting reservations. The management can run the show without recruiting extra employees for managing front-office works. In brief, the management can give a much more cohesive nature to the internal organizational management. The data regarding the hotel occupancy will be accessible to all employees. Consequently, there will be an organized structure to the related works, which will be much more efficient.

• In the absence of such an automated reservation system, the employees concerned will have to do all the related tasks manually. The individual will have to do the booking processes by entering all the related data into several account books. Besides, there must be updated, and one must do this process daily. Thus the whole process becomes time-consuming. However, when there are perfectly coded reservation systems for hotels, the entire process will become effortless and accurate.

• Data collection is highly vital as far as hotel industries are concerned. This process is imperative, and then only the hotel management will be able to provide personalized service to the clients. Hence, the data collection process must be perfect. The reservation systems for hotels help the administration staff to gather the details of the visitors precisely.

• When there is a perfect automatic reservation system, the guest experience will be great. Such a system allows the visitors to reserve their preferred types of rooms. They can do this at their convenience using their mobile devices, even on the go. This easiest and convenient form of booking and payment mode will be of great help to visitors. They will appreciate the service, and there is a good chance that they will become your regular customers.

In brief, when you install a perfectly coded hotel reservation system, visitors can plan their journey cohesively. This software will display the inventory regarding the availability of rooms and the live rates. They will be able to choose their dates and stay within the budget while booking the rooms in sync with the strength of their wallets.

Many hotels depend on online travel agencies for their bookings and that may not always be in the hotel’s best interest business-wise. Many online travel agencies charge as much as 30% commission for every reservation that comes through them. It can add up to be a significant amount and detracts from the hotel’s profits. That is why independent and branded hotels must consider implementing a hotel booking engine.

What is a hotel booking engine?

A hotel booking engine is an online application that integrates with a hotel website and also with its social media platforms or other third party websites listing the hotel and enables the convenient and secure processing of online reservations. It allows guests to view available rooms, amenities, and other hospitality products, and make their room reservations quickly and easily. Booking engines for hotels can enable them to establish direct channel funnels and drive a higher percentage of direct and commission-free bookings through the hotel website. They also store guest data and make it accessible to the hotel management.

Tips for implementing a hotel booking engine

The following tips may be helpful for implementing booking engines for hotels:

• Customize the booking engine to suit the hotel’s brand and create an easy-to-navigate website layout and design. Use a grid layout on the rooms page for easier viewing and follow a mobile-first design strategy to make the website work seamlessly on different mobile devices.

• Optimize the hotel website with the right keywords and phrases for search engines to attract visitors and capture direct bookings.

• Ensure faster load times to offer visitors a better user experience and increase conversion rates.

• Sync the booking engine with the hotel’s property management system and channel manager.

• Automate bookings so that available rooms inventory is updated immediately after every booking or check-out.

• Make it easy for guests to check room availability and compare room types and room rates.

• Allow group booking functionality to allow holiday tour operators to easily book rooms in bulk.

• Enable multiple language options so that visitors can read the website information in their preferred language.

• Include multiple payment options and in different currencies to make it more convenient for visitors to make online payments.

• Link the hotel’s social media sites to the booking engine to increase its online visibility and boost social media booking and marketing.

• Use purchase widgets to trigger intent and increase conversions. These purchase intent widgets include price comparisons, special offers, social proof, and various pop-ups.

• Provide various upsell add-on services such as promo codes, gift vouchers, hospitality packages, and local tours to earn more revenue from hotel guests.

• Allow for automated and customized collection, analysis, and reports of hotel reservation data and baseline metrics.

How to implement a hotel booking engine?

It is essential to implement a hotel booking engine by integrating it with the hotel’s channel manager, payment processor, and property management system and ensuring that it shares information with them.

Channel Manager integration with booking engine

With the channel manager integration, the hotel management gets the advantage of a one-stop revenue management platform. It allows them to send, receive, and review room rates and availability. They can update their inventory, manage room rates, and accept high-volume group bookings.

Payment processor integration with booking engine

Integrating the booking engines for hotels with the payment systems makes it easier for the hotels to work with payment providers and establish rules for accepting payments. For instance, they might decide to receive an advance payment before the guest arrives and the remainder before the guest checks out. They can automate the collection and storage of information of credit cards or other payment modes and automate charging these for guest payments.

Property management system integration with booking engine

By integrating with the hotel booking engine, the hotel’s property management system is able to receive data from the hotel website about guests and their reservations. The property management system will automatically and accurately make the necessary adjustments in the room inventory. Automating this process can reduce or eliminate the double-booking or overbooking errors which can occur with manual booking. The automation also reduces the workload on the hotel’s management team, and they can direct their focus towards other essential tasks.

While the opportunities that Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) present in terms of revenue are significant, many hoteliers are opting to maximize direct bookings through Booking Engines for Hotels.

But if OTAs can be a major source of revenue, why would hoteliers prefer using their hotel booking system? In this blog, we will discuss why leveraging hotel booking engines is the right choice to maximize revenue.

A hotel booking engine is an application on hotel websites and social media pages to capture and process direct online reservations. An online booking engine is your key to commission-free direct bookings and a way to optimize your property’s sales strategy and maximize profit.

With most travelers today now booking their stays online, hotels have had to become reliant on online travel agents to deliver them reservations. Listing on them includes the benefits of reaching large, new, audiences and increasing bookings but each reservation requires a commission fee to be paid to the third party. When this fee starts to creep up over 20%, it becomes incredibly frustrating for hotels, especially independent operators, as they see their profits melt away.

The Necessity of an Internet Booking Engine

No matter the size of your hotel, you need to allow guests to book rooms online if you want to remain competitive and stay open for business. Travelers have come to expect this functionality from modern-day accommodation providers, appreciating the convenience and security it provides. This is due to the following reasons:

Guests can easily self-serve – Travellers can check which rooms are available when, and for how much, without ever speaking to you.

Guests trust online booking – When guests make a booking, Booking Engines for Hotels can securely accept credit card payments, and guest data is safely stored and accessible in one place.

Guests can book quicker – Online booking puts an end to games of phone or email tag, with travelers and hotels liaising for days before confirming a booking.

Guests look for direct booking perks – People will often head to your website in the hopes that if they book directly they’ll get something a little extra added to their stay. This is a trade-off many properties will make to save on paying third-party commissions.

Having your own online hotel booking system will put you in a more advantageous position because of the many benefits it gives. Here we’ve listed the top advantages of plugging a booking engine into your website and social media pages.

Available To Serve 24/7

Gone are the days when hoteliers had to rely only on walk-ins and phone calls to take bookings because one of the main benefits of having an online booking engine is that it works round the clock. This means that your hotel is open for business at all hours even when you and your team are not, hence reducing your workload. With this in mind, there’s a high possibility that you will attract more potential customers that live in other time zones. Online booking hotel system also allows guests to book faster, putting an end to exchanging phone calls or emails, and waiting for days before confirming a booking.

Collects Smart Data and Allow Guests to Book with Peace of Mind

What’s great about an online hotel booking engine is that it allows you to gather data on how guests are booking rooms, their preferences, the price they are willing to pay, booking patterns, and more. This information can help you determine what packages you sell the most, and areas to focus on to help grow your business.

When guests make a booking, your online booking engine can securely accept credit card payments, and your guest’s data is safely stored and accessible in one place. Also, since there is so much information guests have to keep after booking, the hotel engine allows guests to keep track of their booking details in one place that they can access anytime, anywhere.

Less Commission and More Revenues

While OTAs are crucial to maximizing hotel revenues, the fact that they ask for higher commission rates gives Booking Engines for Hotels the advantage of winning the battle because it is your key to commission-free direct bookings, helping you maximize profitability. With a hotel booking engine, you will beat the steep commission structure that eats into your revenue through OTAs by owning the customer relationship and driving direct sales through your website.

Enjoy new standard set hotel booking using one click booking through their direct links and seamless display. If you are looking to book a hotel room, go to the hotel website and make use of their easy user interface and enjoy an easy booking. You will enjoy the one click booking as it is relevant in the current scenario with the following features:

1) System Integration – Hotel’s website shows up the hospitality ecosystem and an easy interface to have a good booking experience. It lists all room upgrades, meals, and amenities available. All the hotel’s services are listed on the website and a user can have an easy check-out process as well. For payment, the system takes support from a safe payment system.

2) Smart Display of Services and Rooms – Hotel website makes use of e-commerce best practices to increase their value using add-ons, along with optimization of room type, calendar display, and price. The hotel also ensures that the website is at the par to get direct bookings and bring in more order value.

3) Payment System – As the current world goes digital, hotel bookings have also taken care of this as digital payments are relevant in the current scenario. Hotel booking through their website ensures a safe payment system that supports any latest technology of mobile wallets like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Pay Pal. By including a digital payment system, one click booking caters to a wider audience who are tech-savvy. Most of the payments are made using:

a. Mobile Wallet – The one click booking system supports the current payment system of a mobile wallet like Google Pay, Pay Pal, and Apple Pay. This payment will help mobile-savvy people to make their payments easily.

b. Credit and Debit cards – All hotel website supports varieties of credit and debit cards including Mastercard, Visa, Discover, etc.

c. Automated Cleaning House (ACH) – ACH is a safe and easy method to transfer funds safely between the accounts. ACH ensures that the payments are made safe between accounts.

d. PayPal – PayPal payment system is a safe method for global money transfer and this payment type is present in almost 200 countries.

4) Innovative Display – The hotel booking system interface helps the hotels to boost their conversions and increase sales. It ensures the following:

a. Streamlined Flow – Users interact with the hotel through their interface in a single and streamlined flow. It even includes auto filling of their personal information. This process helps to increase conversions, however, a faster check out process is proportionate with having more sales.

b. No Redirects – The hotel website optimizes at the bottom of the funnel and removes ant disruptive redirects to form booking templates. Guest will book more when the website navigation is easy.

c. Loyalty Programs – Most hotel website provides loyalty points to the customers. These loyalty points can be redeemed with rewards in any form. Customers can get rewarded again and again if they are looking at the same hotel.

d. Modifications – Guest creates an account when they register on the hotel website. Using this account, they will be able to add or update reservations made against the restaurant or any amenities. This flexibility provides guest satisfaction.

5) Direct Links – Guests get direct links for one click booking. In the current era, customers require the fastest route to book through Google search, Instagram, and any other campaigns so that guests can enter the hotel booking website faster. The various features of direct links are:

a. Customer-facing – Direct links help the hotel to increase its visibility digitally and boost conversion. Using direct links, there is more traffic to the hotel website.

b. Channel-Agnostic – To get more visibility, direct links are shared across multiple platforms to get more visibility. The main platforms for link sharing are through various social media posts, links placed in profiles, email campaigns, paid ads and retargeting campaigns.

c. Custom Links – Hotels can develop direct links based on a few parameters and direct users to the booking page that has hotel specifications.

d. Metasearch – Direct link of a hotel can be generated automatically with a user search for that specific hotel using Google search or any metasearch platforms.

Automation is fast becoming the name of the game in the IT industry. Without automation, most digital businesses would find it difficult to remain sustainable and cope with the ever-increasing competition in the market. IT organizations can speed up their workflows and deliver applications faster by automating across different services and applications. There are many tools for automation, and one of the more popular ones is Ansible. If you want to automate your IT business processes, there are several good reasons to consider Ansible automation.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source community software project developed by Michael DeHaan for the Red Hat company in 2012. Available for free, you can use it to improve the consistency, reliability, and scalability of complex and multi-tier IT application environments. The Ansible software can run on Unix-like systems, and you can use it to configure Unix-like systems and Microsoft Windows.

With the Ansible automation engine, you can seamlessly automate many IT infrastructure local and remote requirements such as intra-service orchestration, application deployment, cloud provisioning, and configuration management of databases, networks, storage devices, and firewalls.

Written in Python, Ansible has the following components:

• Controller machine: The main machine on which you install Ansible and which is responsible for configuring and provisioning the relevant servers.

• Inventory: The file that groups the hosts or nodes that Ansible can access and gives it information about the servers.

• Playbook: It comprises scripts written in the simple and easy-to-read YAML language that describe the automation tasks that Ansible has to perform.

• Play: The execution from start to finish of the playbook is known as play.

• Task: It describes the action that Ansible must take.

• Module: It is a small piece of code that is used as an executable plug-in. You can use inbuilt as well as custom-built modules.

• Role: A role is a group containing tasks that makes it easier to manage and reuse the tasks.

• Facts: These are global variables that provide information related to the system.

• Handlers: With these, it is possible to trigger changes in the status of the service.

What are the benefits of using Ansible for automation and orchestration?

The benefits of using Ansible for business automation and orchestration are as follows:

Automation

The automation involves creating sets of machines and using the Ansible Playbooks and the simple YAML language to describe the automated tasks that these machines must perform. Ansible will then issue the commands from a central location for the machines to perform these tasks.

Ansible is very easy to learn as compared to other IT automation engines. You do not need to have any specific coding skills since Ansible’s playbooks have a clear syntax.

Ansible automation does not require any extra customized security infrastructure, so it is very easy to deploy.

You only have to install Ansible on your control machine or computer. It is not necessary to install any service software on the client systems that you are automating.

Ansible uses OpenSSH as a secure network authentication protocol and can easily connect with other authentication management systems.

With Ansible automation, you can automate highly complex IT workflows.

Orchestration

Orchestration is the process of making sure that disparate IT services can work together without any issues and perform their respective tasks in the right order.

You can use Ansible to define the infrastructure you require and align the business needs with it and the relevant data and applications. One of the great things about using Ansible as an orchestration tool is that you only have to define the infrastructure and Ansible will allow you to use and reuse it as you require. You can deploy the same orchestration for multiple tasks. With automated workflows, cloud provisioning, intra-service orchestration, and other services, Ansible makes it easier to orchestrate tasks.

Ansible can manage multi-tier and non-system-specific orchestration of complex configurations and application deployments. It can give you fine automated control over each process step. You can scale up the infrastructure or scale it down as per your requirement.

Since applications can be server and services-centric, Ansible can orchestrate both servers and REST APIs.

With Ansible, it is possible to use parallel SSH scripts and also resource models to run commands against numerous servers.

Traditional marketing strategies are no longer enough to survive in the market. Research states 80% of clients refer to online sources for acquiring information, and only 55% of them use traditional references. Are you wondering how a professional service firm can raise your reputation and visibility in the marketplace? If yes, you have landed at the right place. This article talks about some networking strategies for professional services providers.

1. Be a specialist in your niche.

The fast-growing firms that have conquered the market target a specific niche. Specialization is a vital market technique that many people fail to understand. It will impact your targeted audience as well as the messages that you craft. The specialization will distinguish you from your competition.

2. Presence of visible experts

Visible experts are those people in an industry who can draw clients by merely using the power of their names. The presence of experts offers a variety of benefits. Some benefits are generating more leads, commanding higher bill rates, and closing more sales with ease. You can grow your firm reputation by giving a platform to an expert to educate the audiences. High visibility is a significant factor in your professional service networks.

3. Content creation

Blogging and writing articles can bring recognition to your firm. You can write blog posts and articles either on your firm or on other websites. By writing content, you can present your particular expertise and way of thinking of the firm. You must prove your relevance to the audience through blogging. Blogging is also one of the best ways to bring organic traffic to your website. Search engines rank websites that are regular in posting fresh content. So, blogging can deliver twin benefits to your firm.

4. Build a user-friendly website

Building a user-friendly website is an inseparable part of an online business. It delivers your message and carries your identity in front of a virtual audience. A lead-generating website will act as a hub of your professional service-providing firm. Serve fresh content alongside offers to convert visitors into leads. When a visitor lands on your webpage, you have a few seconds to catch hold of their attention. You can either convert visitors into leads or lose them to your competition. A Lead-generation website is thus often called the queen of marketing materials because of its central role.

5. Use search engine optimization.

Using SEO effectively on your leads-generating website is a thoughtful strategy for your professional service network. SEO is the way by which you can make your valuable content reach the right audience. There is no substitute for creative content. Once you create valuable content, you need to learn a few technical aspects. Using appropriate keywords on web pages, using tags properly, and structuring the website well are some technical aspects one must address. Search engine optimization is an integration of art and science. It is not a one-time step but an ongoing process to increase the reach of your firm’s content. It is a crucial technique to get low-cost and high-quality leads online.

6. Video marketing

People on the internet consume more videos than written content. You can share detailed and visual demonstrations through video tutorials. Use video communication as a tool to interact with your clients and audiences through services like FaceTime, Skype, or Live sessions on your firm’s portals. Other things you can include in video sessions are your services overview, video blogging, video case studies, and team meet videos.

7. Be active on LinkedIn.

No social media networking can replace the power of LinkedIn. It is a premier platform for a professional service network. It is a hub of professionals, where you will encounter clients and engage with influential contacts from your industry. You can join various groups on this social networking platform to discuss the current topics concerned with your industry. Do not join LinkedIn for a mere presence. Build a firm page of your website, make good individual profiles for the key members, and engage in relevant discussions.