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Hospitality Today | Oct/Nov 2015 2. Seamless syncing
A modern hotel reservation system will integrate with a clever piece of technology called a ‘channel manager’, which allows you to sync your online inventory seamlessly - no matter where your guest is booking from.
Whether guests are booking over the phone with you, in person, on your website, or from any of the third party distribution sites that you partner with, your room’s availability will always be correct. Without this piece of technology, you’re stuck spending hours of your time logging into multiple websites to make sure the inventory is updated. This puts you at risk of double booking rooms - meaning you’ll spend more time trying to fix up the situation.
About the benefits of a channel manager, Owner-Operators of Prairie Guest House said, “Managing our online inventory is much easier. Instead of checking on every reservation, I trust that it’s taken care of because it’s automated. It’s wonderful and it feels like it’s almost too good to be true!”
In contrast, a channel manager gives you peace of mind, because you can rest assured that the technology is updating your room availability for you. This means you can spend less time on admin, and more time on planning your holiday!
3. Automatic bookings
Your hotel reservation system should also include a booking engine, which is the software application being used to secure online reservations.
Essentially, your guests will be able to conveniently make their reservation at their leisure, instead of having to wait for you to be at your desk. Your booking engine will allow you to sell your rooms through your direct channels, such as your own website and Facebook page.
It can take credit card details and work with an online merchant service or integrate with a Payment Gateway to process deposits and payments.
Instead of having to manually input online bookings, your booking engine automatically processes them, safely storing all of your customer’s data.
The best part is you can reinvest all of that time into delighting your guests. For example, Owner- Operators of Bell In The Woods said, “We are able to devote more time to our guests and less time to managing inventory, which is crucial in a luxury property.”
You can get a good night’s sleep and wake up to a fully booked month, with all of the data exactly where it’s needed.
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