A hotel channel manager is a software that allows hotels like yours to manage their online inventory and rates across multiple booking channels, such as online travel agencies (OTAs), global distribution systems (GDSs), and your website as well. 

By providing real-time updates, it ensures that all connected channels reflect the most accurate and up-to-date information, preventing overbooking or underbooking while maintaining rate parity.

In simple words, a channel manager is your 24*7 assistant in the digital world of bookings. Its primary job is to ensure that your rooms are available and up-to-date across various online platforms like Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, and others.  

Now, before we dive deeper into channel managers and explore how to choose the right one for your property, let’s understand why you need it.

The Role of a Channel Manager 

Let’s start at the beginning. What’s the deal with channel managers, and why are they crucial for your hotel operations? 

Imagine you have a fully booked weekend, and suddenly a room is available due to a last-minute cancellation. Now, updating this information manually on each of the online platforms would be a nightmare. But fear not! That’s where the channel manager swoops in, making sure that available room is promptly showcased to potential guests across all channels. It maximizes the chances of getting a booking and optimizing your revenue. 

This not only saves you time but also minimizes the risk of overbookings, ensuring a seamless experience for both you and your guests. It’s a win-win! 

So, if your goal is to increase your hotel’s exposure and partner with as many OTAs as possible, this tool is a must. Still not convinced?

Check out 7 Ultimate Reasons Why You Should Invest in A Hotel Channel Manager

Now that we’ve shed some light on the superhero qualities of a channel manager, let’s delve into the nitty-gritty of how to choose the right one for your property.

How to choose the right channel manager for your property?

There are many channel managers in the market. Some are suited to small properties while others are robust enough to handle even large chains. There are certain qualities that all of them need, however, if you decide to research purchase options they should meet these specific requirements. It’s not as simple as choosing the first one you see. 

So, here are some of the key features you must look for before you choose the right channel manager:

Compatibility with Your PMS

Property Management System (PMS) is the heart of your hotel operations. It keeps track of reservations, manages check-ins and check-outs, and handles guest information. So, when choosing a channel manager, make sure it is perfectly compatible with your PMS. 

When your channel manager and PMS are perfectly compatible, it ensures everything runs smoothly without a hitch. A seamless integration facilitates the effortless flow of data between these systems, eliminating the risk of missteps in your daily operations. Room availability, rates, and booking information move seamlessly from one system to the other, preventing overbookings, discrepancies, and the headache that comes with manual data entry.

User-Friendly Interface

You’re not a tech genius, and that’s perfectly okay. Your channel manager should be user-friendly and easy to navigate. A complicated system will only add to your stress, defeating the purpose of streamlining operations. 

This simplicity isn’t just about saving time; it’s about allowing you to channel your energy into what truly matters – providing an outstanding guest experience. After all, your focus should be on creating memorable stays for your guests, not wrestling with a complex system. 

So, look for a solution that allows you to make updates with a few clicks, saving you time for what matters most – providing an excellent guest experience.

Connectivity with OTAs

Not all online travel agencies (OTAs) are created equal. Some cater to specific markets, while others have a global reach. Your ideal channel manager should connect seamlessly with the key OTAs relevant to your target audience. This ensures maximum exposure and a broader reach for your hotel, attracting diverse guests from different corners of the world. 

For instance, Airbnb, a leading OTA renowned for its unique focus on properties, offers a distinct platform for hotels catering to a specific type of traveller seeking unconventional lodging options. By partnering with Airbnb, hotels can tap into a niche market of guests seeking a more personalized and immersive experience. 

When your channel manager is a pro at connecting with these OTAs, it’s like throwing a net into the sea of potential guests. You’re not just getting more eyes on your place; you’re inviting all kinds of travellers, each with their own preferences. 

Real-Time Updates

Time is of the essence in the hospitality business. Your channel manager should provide real-time updates on room availability, rates, and bookings. This ensures that potential guests get the most accurate information, reducing the chances of disappointments and last-minute changes. 

With real-time updates, your channel manager ensures that the room availability, rates, and bookings are in sync across all platforms, including Airbnb. This means that when a booking is made or a room is reserved, it’s instantly reflected everywhere. No more disappointments or last-minute surprises for your guests.

Pricing Structure

We get it – managing a hotel involves juggling various expenses. When choosing a channel manager, pay attention to the pricing structure. Opt for a solution that aligns with your budget and offers transparent pricing. Hidden fees are like unwanted guests – they should be avoided at all costs. 

Imagine you’re setting up your rates for peak season. You wouldn’t want any surprise charges popping up, right? Hidden fees in a channel manager are the same—unwanted surprises that can disrupt your financial flow. So, just like you’d want your guests to trust your pricing, you should be able to trust your channel manager’s pricing too. It’s like creating a seamless experience for both you and your guests.

Mobile App

In a world where we manage our lives through smartphones, having a mobile app for your channel manager is a game-changer. A mobile app allows you to stay in control of your hotel operations on the go. 

Whether you’re away from your desk or handling tasks within the hotel premises, having the flexibility to manage bookings and updates from your mobile device adds a layer of convenience to your daily routine. Check if the channel manager you’re eyeing has a user-friendly and feature-rich mobile app to make your life as a hotelier more agile and responsive.

Training and Support

Transitioning to a new system can be difficult, but fear not! A good channel manager comes with training and support. Ensure that the provider offers comprehensive training sessions to get your team up to speed. Additionally, check for responsive 24*7 customer support – you never know when you might need a helping hand. 

Moreover, consider seeking user-friendly interfaces to simplify the learning curve for your team. A well-designed system can significantly ease the transition process and enhance overall efficiency.

Analyzing Data and Creating Reports

Data is the new gold, and utilizing it can propel your hotel to new heights. A good channel manager should not only manage bookings but also provide insightful data on your performance. Look for a solution that offers robust reporting features, allowing you to analyze booking trends, understand guest preferences, and make informed decisions. 

The ability to generate customized reports ensures that you have a clear picture of your hotel’s performance, enabling you to refine your strategies and stay ahead in the competitive market. 

‘A Complete Channel Manager Buyer Guide For Hoteliers’ 

Unlock the Future of Your Hotel with eZee

Choosing the right channel manager is a decision that can significantly impact your hotel’s success. At eZee, we understand the intricacies of hotel management, and our solution is designed to seamlessly integrate with your operations. With a user-friendly interface, real-time updates, and transparent pricing, we are committed to helping you streamline your processes and enhance the guest experience. 

But the million-dollar question is – Are you still on the fence about choosing the right channel manager for your hotel? Feeling a bit overwhelmed with the options and not sure where to turn? Well, here’s a suggestion: why not try before you buy? 

In hotel management, experiencing is believing. So, give eZee’s comprehensive channel manager a spin and see the difference.

The post Guide to Choose the Optimal Channel Manager for Property Proficiency appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Known for being the most charming retreat located in the mountains of Chakrata, it is the perfect concoction of Hospitality, Comfort and Nature.

Challenges

Operating in a traditional manner, Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa confronted several hurdles that hindered its growth. Foremost among these challenges was the absence of an integrated booking system and hotel management system. This not only made day-to-day operations more complex and time-consuming but also limited the resort’s ability to scale its business effectively. 

With Uttarakhand being a year-round tourist hotspot, competition remained intense. Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa urgently needed a solution to modernize its operations, optimize bookings, and maintain its competitive edge.

Solution

In the midst of these challenges, Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa recognized the need for a comprehensive Property Management System (PMS) solution that could address its operational challenges. 

After thorough market research and analysis, the directors chose eZee (now Yanolja Cloud) as their hospitality tech provider. Since then, it has been a blooming partnership associated with eZee for the last 2 years. 

Tejinder Singh Bajaj, one of the partners in Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa says “One of the issues we were facing was to have an integrated system for our property management, and that’s when we came across eZee”

It won’t be wrong to say that eZee’s Property Management System (PMS) breathed new life into Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa. The PMS’s intuitive interface and user-friendly design made it incredibly easy for the resort to transition from its traditional approach to a more streamlined and efficient system. The resort’s staff quickly adapted to the new system, ensuring minimal disruption during the transition phase.

Expanding horizons with eZee’s Channel Manager

Impressed by the success of their partnership with eZee’s PMS, Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa decided to take it a step further. They opted for eZee Centrix – a cutting-edge Channel Manager, to significantly enhance their visibility and revenue streams. This advanced channel manager enabled the resort to efficiently distribute its inventory across multiple OTAs, ensuring maximum exposure. 

eZee Centrix empowered Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa to streamline their operations and also ensure they sold rooms at the most competitive rates through intelligent yield management strategies.

The resort’s management appreciated the technology and also commended eZee’s dedicated after-sales team. Their commitment to understanding Sidus Galaxy Resort’s unique requirements and providing tailored solutions further strengthens the partnership.

What Makes Sidus Galaxy a World of Delights for Guests?

Beyond the technological transformation, what truly sets Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa apart is its commitment to offering a unique and unforgettable experience to its guests. 

“This place is a real gem! What a scenic beauty at Chakrata, Sidus Galaxy is the best place to refresh and you can enjoy it with your family”

– Guest’s Review from TripAdvisor

This boutique resort boasts numerous specialities that make it a preferred choice over others in the region such as:

• Stargazing: Situated in the pristine mountain environment, Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa provides the perfect opportunity for stargazing. The clear skies and minimal light pollution create a celestial spectacle that leaves guests in awe.

• Serene Spa: The resort’s Serene Spa offers a haven of relaxation and rejuvenation. Guests can indulge in a range of spa treatments while surrounded by the tranquil beauty of the Himalayas.

• Picnic Spots: Sidus Galaxy Resort offers carefully curated picnic spots, allowing guests to immerse themselves in the natural splendour of Uttarakhand.

• Stamina Fitness Centre: For fitness enthusiasts, the resort’s Stamina Fitness Centre provides state-of-the-art equipment and facilities to maintain their health routines even while on vacation.

• Skittle Souvenir Shop: Skittle, the resort’s souvenir shop, offers a selection of locally crafted items and mementoes, allowing guests to take a piece of Uttarakhand home with them. 

• Snowfall Spectacle: Perhaps the most enchanting experience at Sidus Galaxy & Spa is witnessing the breathtaking sight of snowfall in the Himalayas. The resort’s unique location provides guests with an unparalleled opportunity to immerse themselves in the magic of falling snowflakes, turning their stay into an unforgettable winter wonderland experience. 

With these specialities and more to explore, Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa has carved a niche for itself as a destination that offers world-class technology-driven hospitality and delivers a memorable and enriching experience that keeps guests returning time and again. 

Recognition as Traveller’s Choice Award

A big achievement for Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa was winning the Traveller’s Choice Award from TripAdvisor. The award, based on guest reviews and ratings, remarks Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa as a top pick for travellers who want luxury and to be surrounded by beautiful nature. This recognition stands as a testament to the resort’s dedication to delivering memorable guest experiences.

From Success to Inspiration

Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa’s remarkable transformation did not go unnoticed within the local hospitality industry as well. The resort’s management was so impressed with eZee’s after-sales support and dedication that they actively recommended eZee to their colleagues in the industry. 

Today, Sidus Galaxy stands as an example, motivating others in the region to explore similar paths to enhance their guest experiences and streamline their operations. 

Role of eZee’s Support Service in the Success Story of Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa

What truly sets eZee’s after-sales team apart is their unwavering dedication, which transcends the traditional boundaries of sales. They emerged as strategic partners, deeply invested in Sidus Galaxy’s transformation journey.

Tejinder says “ The product is undoubtedly good, but the best part of eZee is its after-sales support team. They’re available 24*7 to help you out”.

With an in-depth understanding of the hospitality industry, eZee’s after-sales team effectively presented eZee’s solutions. Along with that, they also provided invaluable guidance on how to utilize these technologies to boost the guest experience and revenue. 

eZee takes great pride in providing Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa with precisely the best they need for their property! 

The post How Sidus Galaxy Resort & Spa Achieved Remarkable Growth with eZee’s Hotel Management Solutions appeared first on eZee Absolute.

And there’s no hiding that Online Travel Agents (OTAs) are a major source for optimizing their online booking flow.

It is observed that OTAs control approximately 2/3rd of all online bookings.

Then it must be the best friend of hoteliers, right? Indeed! 

But with so many OTAs available, how do you know where to list your hotel? Which OTAs are the best? 

Well, every OTA is best in its own way; however, there are a few that might do a better job and deliver better results. 

So for all the hoteliers reading this blog, here I am sharing some of the best OTA platforms to increase your hotel bookings by manifolds.

Top 9 OTAs to Drive Maximum Bookings

I am listing below the prime OTAs in the hotel industry that can promote your hotel on a larger scale to drive maximum bookings.

Here goes the list:

1. Booking.com

Booking.com is recognized as the global leading OTA platform where more than 1.5 million rooms are booked on a daily basis.

It connects a wide spectrum of accommodations; from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts, tree houses, and even igloos.

Its website and mobile apps are available in 43 languages which helps accommodation providers to generate a worldwide network and enhance exposure.

But the real treat for hoteliers is that the listing process doesn’t charge you anything. You only get charged if a booking is successfully completed.

In addition, this platform showcases the booking info in a very clear way so that the users get transparency on every detail and policy. This helps establish a strong sense of trust among its users.

2. Agoda

With a strong emphasis on providing customers with cheap or discounted accommodation, Agoda is getting popular among travellers.

It can help your property business to stand out whether it is a hotel, hostel, or any resort. It is preferred for group bookings and packages because it offers flight + hotel bookings at low costs. Therefore, it is an ideal platform to attract international travellers.

Agoda is owned by Booking Holdings (which also owns Booking.com) and it charges between 15 to 20% on successful bookings.

3. Airbnb

Airbnb is a classic choice for small and local properties to boost their booking flow.

And if you look precisely at the contemporary picture, you will see that this platform is gaining popularity among big hotels too.

The reason that guests get attracted to the properties listed on it is – they are personalized, homely, and have a local connection. So if you have a well-furnished property, then Airbnb is the ideal place to land.

Airbnb might drive a few bookings compared to other mainstream OTAs but it ensures longer stays.

Also, it does not charge you money directly—it takes a cut out of every booking which is the lowest among other OTAs, typically 3% of the booking amount.

4. Hotelbeds

With more than 71,000 tour operators, travel agents, and airlines, and 50 million room nights sold annually, hotelbeds is one of the renowned names in the accommodation distribution space.

By listing your hotel on hotelbeds you get all the solutions and tools you need to maximize your room occupancy rates. Additionally, it also offers a wide range of marketing solutions and products that gets your property much-needed attention. Meaning, your hotel gets seen in the right place at the right time.

Over the years, hotelbeds has worked dedicatedly to build strong relationships at both ends of the travel chain to offer products, services, and solutions that help all its client and partners grow.

It can rightly be said that it is one of those platforms that can contribute significantly to maximizing your hotel occupancy and revenue. 

5. Cleartrip

Founded in 2006 as a hotel and air aggregator, Cleartrip is another popular OTA that accommodation providers shouldn’t overlook.

Being one of India’s fastest-growing online travel portals and with hundreds of partners from the travel and hospitality industry, the OTA provides access to a bouquet of offerings and enables people to take that much-needed vacation at attractive prices.

Upon its acquisition by Flipkart, the platform even participated in the Flipkart Big Billion Day event, which was like a travel shopping spree on the Cleartrip website and app as well.

If your hotel is in India and looking for a bundle of services to just boost occupancy but also increase revenue, then Cleartrip should be one of your go-to OTA.  

6. MakeMyTrip (GoMMT)

Established in 2000, MakeMyTrip is a household name in the Indian OTA space and over the years the company has strengthened its offerings extensively. 

It has more than 2.5 million daily users searching for hotels and homestays, making it the preferred OTA for accommodation providers. 

One of the events that made MMT one of the most preferred partners was its merger with Ibibo Group in 2017, making it GoMMT.

Today, GoMMT is a leading travel group in the country, providing a one-stop shop for all accommodation providers.

Whether you own a hotel, villa, resort, lodge, guest house, serviced apartments, hostel, homestay, cottage, or a BnB, you can list your property for free with MakeMyTrip & Goibibo and leverage its best-in-class offerings to maximize online bookings and bottom line.

If your property isn’t listed on GoMMT, there’s no doubt that you’re lagging. So, without further ado, get your accommodation listed on this sought-after platform. 

7. Expedia 

Expedia lures maximum travellers to its platform through the “Best Price Guarantee”!

Yes, it pulls out the cheapest deals for the consumers and hence they love it. And this is why the booking traffic is always massive on Expedia.

Adding to this, it provides everything in one place. Travellers can book their flights, hotels, or packages for their entire trip in one go at an affordable price.

With commission fees between 20% and 25% on bookings, it gives great exposure to increase your hotel presence.

Furthermore, as a fun fact, Expedia is one such entity that owns more than 200 travel booking sites, and over 150 mobile apps and websites worldwide. So, you must understand how this company is still a reigning leader. 

While it’s not practical to list all of them, here are some of the popular ones:

• Hotels.com
• Travelocity
• Orbitz

8. Trip.com

With Trip.com rewards (coupon codes and discounts), travellers get a chance to save on their bookings. This is why it has 400 million users worldwide. 

If an OTA has such a massive following then isn’t it the best match for your hotel? It is!

This OTA lets the customers buy their whole trip at one stop. Whether it is booking a hotel, flight tickets, car rentals, or holiday deals.

The commission rates are also flexible depending on various factors like your property size, location, duration of stay, and so on.

9. eDreams

In quarter one of the fiscal year 2023, e-Dreams reported 4.4 million bookings, which is the highest ever in a quarter and 50% up on bookings compared to pre-pandemic.

This rapid increase in bookings has a hidden fact that it offers up to 40% discount on its vacation packages (flight + hotel).

Here is a little more: If you list your property on E-dreams ODIGEO you can leverage the opportunity of getting exposure through 3 more international brands along with eDreams - Opodo, GoVoyages, and Travellink.

This can help you reach 18.5 million travellers in 46 countries. So think it over!

OTA Listing and Your Channel Manager Go Hand in Hand

Firstly, listing your hotel on OTA platforms can work only if you have a suitable channel manager at your property because that is the source to connect your hotel with any OTA.

With a channel manager, you update your inventory and rates on various channels or OTAs you are listed on. It automates the process of adjusting rates and room availability.

Now, to connect with any OTA platforms including the top ones mentioned above, you need to make sure that your channel manager offers the required integration to do so.

You can check out eZee Centrix, our channel manager, which offers integration with 130+ OTAs, GDS, and vacation portals. 

In addition to this, if you prefer any local OTA platform whose integration isn’t available then you can contact us and get it integrated with our channel manager depending on its feasibility.

The post Top 9 OTAs for Hotels to Boost Bookings appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Jacob, however, understood how OTAs worked; and he put that knowledge to use. Within a year, his hotel became one of the top-selling hotels in the Laguna Beach area. 

Often abbreviated as OTA, the online travel aggregators or agents are the catalyst to any hotel’s revenue growth. Based on the bookings we receive from our channel manager, OTAs contribute to around a whopping 25% – 49% of the total hotel bookings globally. Without the help of OTAs, accommodations cannot attain higher occupancy nowadays. 

OTAs help accommodations orbit market segments that they cannot reach on their own. However, new hotels are mushrooming across the town every day. These hotels are also listing themselves on the OTAs, adding to your competition. It is only fair to find means and ways to increase OTA bookings.

In this blog, I have described 13 ways to increase hotel bookings from OTA.

Ways to Increase OTA Bookings

Here are guaranteed steps that will ensure that you get more OTA bookings when applied systematically.

1. Achieve 100% Content Score

This is the first step to increase your OTA bookings. Think of your property’s listing on an OTA as its CV or as a dating profile. It should be impressive enough for the guest to add it to the comparison analysis. 

Make sure you upload the most outstanding feature of your accommodation as the header image. No one wants to look at a hotel that has a WC or a sushi dish as their header image. Upload room images from time to time to let the guests understand what they can expect when they check-in to your property.

Provide information about hotel facilities and amenities which you offer. Further, update the latest hotel policies on the OTAs and take down the non-relevant ones. A guest does not need to know your New Year Gala meals policy if s/he is checking-in in March.

2. Maintain Rate Parity

OTAs put your hotel at a higher position when you maintain rate parity. List all the room types and rate plans across all the OTAs. On top of that, keep a check on all the discounts you offer.

Sometimes, OTAs create discounts undercutting their commission to attract potential bookers. This creates a rate disparity issue. A regular rate disparity results in decreased visibility and hence lower conversion from the OTAs. Avoid it at all costs.

3. Ensure Future Dates Availability

Hoteliers often overlook the online availability of their property for future dates. Sometimes, you get so busy selling that you forget to plan  for future dates. If you cater to international guests, know that people book their international stays well in advance. 

Make sure that your hotel is available for sale on OTAs for at least 365 days from today. Pushing availability and rates is a regular process, not a bi-yearly drill.

4. Create Flexible Cancellation Policies

The OTAs have free cancellation or partial free cancellation as a part of their search funnel. This funnel helps the guests weed out the properties with harsh cancellation policies. 4 out of 5 people select that funnel while searching for a place to stay. 

If you set a non-refundable policy for all the stay dates, your property will disappear from the funnel. Set refundable cancellation policies for the lean season. If you have a large inventory to sell, you may even offer a date change when a customer asks for a cancellation.

This way neither the customer nor the hotel will be at a loss.

The wise said, “Trees that don’t bend with the wind won’t last the storm.”

5. Create Offers and Discounts

The guests and the OTA algorithms love freebies equally. There are various types of discounts that an accommodation provider should float regularly in order to ensure maximum OTA bookings. You can create offers like early-bird discounts for certain future date bookings. Create a last-minute deal to sell whatever inventory is unsold. 

Apart from that, you can create deals for the festive seasons, long weekends, market segments, loyal customer deals, mobile discounts, happy hours, discounts on F&B facilities to get more OTA bookings. 

Discounts and offers don’t have to be in the manner of cash rewards all the time. Instead, you can provide more value for money. When you extend the facilities like free early check-in or free late check-out, people who are travelling by public transport are more likely to book at your property. 

Complimentary transfers, meal upgrades, room upgrades, free usage of your other facilities like a spa will also help you increase the OTA bookings.

6. Incremental Travel Agent Commission for Better Visibility

Every OTA has features available to enhance the visibility and bookings for your property. You offer an extra commission for certain days on every booking or some direct benefits to the guests for booking from a particular OTA.

This feature comes in handy when you have low bookings despite doing everything right. You can also use this feature to get ahead of your competitors and pick up some bookings in advance.

7. Planning the Peak Dates

This is a very crucial exercise. Every hotelier MUST know the high selling dates for his or her hotel. It can be local events, national holidays, festival periods, long weekends, etc. An immensely neglected aspect is the holiday which does not affect your area but affects your clientele.

For example: Winters are regular working days in India but a holiday season in Europe, the US and other colder regions. Travel agents say that Chinese New Year sees around ten million people travelling within the nation to celebrate it. 

Create your rates and offers around these dates well in advance so you can capture maximum business from the OTAs.

8. Technology at Your Rescue

Regardless of your hotel size, it is mandatory to have different software that makes sure ease of operations. This software contributes to getting more OTA bookings directly or indirectly. Here are some must-have software tools for every hotelier.

a. Channel manager

When your property is listed on different OTAs, a channel manager is an important tool to have. It sends real-time inventory and rates to all the OTAs. This prevents underselling, overbooking, and issues like rate disparity.

b. Property Management System

Another important tool that every accommodation provider must implement, is a property management system. Since the hotel deals in many segments like FITS, MICE, Corporates, Offline agents, it is only natural to have a PMS. When the PMS is connected to the channel manager, data redundancy is prevented. You save time as the PMS updates room status on the channel manager, which then pushes the rates and inventory further to OTAs.

c. Revenue Management System

Knowing you sold many rooms in the night makes you happy. But when you realize that you could have charged more for the same bookings, it kind of becomes a joy killer. 

A revenue management system comes in handy during such occasions. It detects the increase in bookings and starts increasing the price accordingly. This way you don’t lose the additional revenue from the OTAs.

d. Rate Shopper

One more tool that every accommodation provider should invest in is a rate shopping tool. The rate shopper scraps your property’s and your competitors’ prices from different OTAs for a given time frame. Now, if you are wondering what good it does to you; let me tell you what all insights you can get from it.

• Parity Check

Rate shopper tool checks your hotel’s sale price on different OTAs for a particular date or date range. If an OTA is creating any price disparity, you can immediately come to know and act upon it so you do not lose visibility on other online portals.

• Competitor Check

Keep your friends close and your competitors closer. The guests always compare hotels with similar prices, amenities in a location while they make a booking. If your prices are competitive, there are high chances that a customer will book your hotel.

Apart from that, you can get a general market trend and decide on the pricing strategy accordingly.

9. Managing the Reviews

Getting bookings is just not enough. You must also ensure that your guests enjoy the stay at your hotel. Make sure that you collect the feedback from the guest via the OTA they booked your stay with.

Your work is not over just by getting the reviews; you must reply to them timely. If a guest has left a positive review, thank the guest for it. If there is negative feedback, thank the guest for drawing your attention to it, take corrective action and respond to the review.

At times, the guest leaves negative feedback or a fake review to sabotage your reputation. Get in touch with the OTA and get these reviews taken down or reply to them appropriately.

There are review management tools available at your disposal where you can check your reviews, know the ratings and respond to the reviews as well. My personal favourite is Critique. You must check it out.

10. Know Your Compset

In an ideal situation, every customer wants to stay at your hotel only. But in the real world, there are new hotels coming in daily and there are old hotels with a great reputation. Identify them, perform a compset analysis regularly and adjust your pricing accordingly. You can read about compset analysis here.

11. Creating Pricing Strategy

The current time requires that we make a pricing strategy, revenue goals, the competitors’ pricing and our occupancy as per the demand to get more bookings. The pricing strategy helps you to sell at attractive prices, even during peak dates.

12. Listing on different OTAs

Follow Buffett’s mantra; do not put all your eggs in one basket.

If your property is listed on limited OTAs, you are missing out on other markets. While some OTAs cater to domestic guests, others have a presence in the international market directly or with the help of affiliates. Identify them and list your property on those OTAs as well, apart from your regular ones. Ensure the OTA is compatible with your channel manager to assure a correct flow of the rates and inventory.

13. Get Tips from OTA managers

OTA account managers are your best friends. Reach out to them time-to-time to get an idea about the current booking trends, new campaigns you can participate in to increase OTA bookings. They can even help you to get a slot in booster campaigns like the deal of the day which highlights your hotel on the top.

Prevent overselling by OTAs

Nothing is good in excess. It can lead to catastrophic results. Just like you should not depend on only a selected OTAs for bookings, you should not also depend only on OTAs to get your bookings. Try to build other channels like GDS, offline agents, consolidators, etc. The best would be to get loyal customers of your own.

This helps you stay relevant if an OTA decides to shut down or if an OTA manager does not favour your hotel over the others.

The post 13 Insanely Useful Ways to Improve Your Hotel’s OTA Bookings appeared first on eZee Absolute.

But hotels, and especially chains, have way more resources for their marketing. Bed and breakfast owners often need to be a bit more creative when promoting their bed and breakfast, at reasonable costs.

No time to waste? Here’s our advice in a nutshell.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Only relying on one target group or channel is a dangerous move — especially now, while the world of travel is being reshaped. If you want to keep fitting in, make sure you look at all the options your BnB offers to travelers, and market these accordingly, through the right channels. And no slacking off: offer just as great of an experience online, as offline. Here are seven ways to put your BnB in the spotlight.

1. Choose the right channel manager

Even though there are several big names in the booking website industry, there are countless other channels and websites you shouldn’t overlook. But how can you possibly be listed on all these websites and keep up with bookings, knowing which room is reserved when and to whom, without having double bookings?

It’s easier than you’d think. With a channel manager, you can easily manage the rates and availability of your rooms across countless websites at the same time. Any changes in availability and prices are automatically made on every travel website. Thanks to the smart GDS, you are globally distributed on the relevant websites and markets. A Global Distribution System is like the middleman between travel agents and your bed and breakfast. A middleman that’ll save you a lot of time, and will put some benefits on top. 

Picking a good channel manager and connected GDS system is vital for bed and breakfast owners. It is almost impossible to succeed when you’re not listed on the main travel websites. When looking for a GDS system, look at which markets they are present in, and how those markets match with your target group.

2. Make sure people can find you

Being present on the main booking channels, and then the ones that are specifically important to your target group is the first step. Now make sure your guests can find their way to your bed and breakfast on the World Wide Web without the help of booking websites, too. 

Bed and breakfasts are location, location, location. Luckily, with Search Engine Optimization, you can help your future visitors to find you when they’re looking for a stay in your area. With the right keywords on your website, a solid content strategy, and the right settings in the backend of your website, you’re good to go. 

If you have the budget, certainly look into paid advertisements on Google as well, to be a step ahead of the competition in the area. SEO is not a little something extra to do, you can be sure that it is the foundation for every business that is taking bed and breakfast marketing seriously.

3. Welcome your guests on your website 

The beds are made, the eggs are scrambled and the coffee is ready. It’s a given that you’ll need a website when opening a bed and breakfast, but not just any website. It is becoming increasingly easy to build a website yourself, which is great: especially when starting out, this is a great way of saving money.

But when you really want to grow your bed and breakfast business, view your website as a part of the experience guests have when staying with you. We’re not just talking design and high-quality pictures, but also the user-friendliness of your webpage. 

Some people will book through second parties, some will find you directly online, and some will come from a second party website to your website, looking to book directly. You’ll want to make sure your booking process is as smooth if not smoother than through second parties. Any glitches that lead to frustration or confusion can cause your website visitors to change their minds and go for a competitor instead.

4. Don’t underestimate the power of offline marketing

Sure, the internet made planning a trip easier than ever. Months in advance, travelers go looking for the best deal out there and map out their entire trip, down to the place where they’ll try a fancy hipster brunch. But that doesn’t mean that you should completely neglect offline marketing efforts. 

More and more (young) travelers are ditching the World Wide Web and want to rely on their instincts and luck when traveling. Spontaneous and spur of the moment decisions: isn’t that what makes a trip worthwhile? For those travelers, try to be visible in relevant spots. From curbside promotion to flyers in restaurants or other more creative forms of marketing: find out where the tourists in your area go, where they pass by, and make sure they can’t miss you.

5. Tell a story, everywhere

Let’s be honest here: unless you’re going for a very specific and elaborate theme in your bed and breakfast, it’s hard to really stand out — if we’re not looking at amenities and facilities at least. 

Posting pictures of your rooms or the surroundings on a sunny day is a basic way of filling your website and social media channels but if you think about it: Is that really something you want to see when you are looking for a place to stay for your next holiday? People want to picture themselves in a place, and it will take more than pictures to do that. 

Storytelling makes it all the more easier, though. Put a little more effort into the content you’re putting out, and you’ll get a lot back in return. Make a vlog of fun things to do in the area, instead of just posting a picture or poster on your social channels. Take people into the experience! You can also do this by writing blog posts for instance.

Even better, let other people tell these stories. Partner up with micro-influencers or share user-generated content. Make sure your guests know how to find you on social media and enable them to share content from their stay and tag you. Not on Instagram yet? It’s about time.

Make sure your content strategy and tone are consistent across all channels. That even goes for websites where you’re advertising your bed and breakfast. Actually, especially there. Put some personality in your descriptions and stand out from the crowd.

6. Your guests are your best marketing employees

Your guests can make or break your marketing efforts in just a few clicks. Be extremely aware of this! Future visitors who are browsing B&Bs in your area will undoubtedly compare the reviews of you and your competitors. 

Don’t just hope your guests will leave a nice review after their stay: actively ask them to do so. Risky? Not if you know you are doing everything to ensure them the best experience. Ask them to review your B&B on channels like Google, TripAdvisor, or Facebook. Again don’t rely on just one, as everyone has a preferred source of reviews.

Asking for reviews should not be perceived as pushy. Keep it real and friendly. Timing is the key here. When someone made an online booking, you can easily send an automated email for a review. But hey, asking your guests to leave a review at the end of their stay, is more effective. If you want to give guests an incentive for their review, offer them a discount code. Even if you didn’t get five stars or perhaps some negative feedback, it’s a chance to show – we are listening, we’ll work on it, and we’d love to show you that. 

And don’t just focus on new guests. When thinking about marketing, most people think to reach as many people who haven’t heard of your business and convince them to come take a look. While that’s a big part of it, you shouldn’t overlook the people who have already stayed at your B&B. 

Humans are creatures of habit after all, and building valuable relationships with repeat guests is profitable than trying to get new ones. Stay active on social media, create an engaging newsletter that will make them miss the fun and, send personalized deals at the right time.

7. Build valuable partnerships

Even though the hospitality market is highly competitive, you’re not alone. Realizing that there are other businesses in your area that would benefit from a stay from your guests and vice versa, will open a new world of possibilities when it comes to marketing. 

Not only can you create package deals, but you can also directly benefit from the reach and audience other businesses have built over time. It also makes it easier for your future guests to plan their trip, which will be highly appreciated by those trying to book a trip on which they can completely shut off their brains and just relax. 

The post 7 Ways to Promote Your B&B Business On The Web appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Upon sensing my lack of knowledge; he asked me to Google my hotel. When checked, I realized that rates of the same room type for the same day varied between $16 to $32. It gave me serious dizzy. 

It took countless calls, many emails, and more than a day to bring the rate parity. I kept a check on it every day after that day.

If you have ever managed rates for your property, you surely have received emails and/or calls from different OTA managers to sort rate disparity. One thing that irks OTAs more than a critical review is hotels not maintaining the rate parity.

At the present time, rate parity has become an important aspect of your property’s ranking and visibility on different online portals. Several OTAs even penalize the partner hotels by decreasing their visibility on their platforms for not maintaining the pricing parity.

Through this blog, we will try to understand different aspects of parity and ways to maintain it.

What is Rate Parity?

Rate parity is the governing principle of the hotel industry for selling via OTAs. It means that the displayed price of the property is uniform across all the OTAs, irrespective of the commission you pay them to bring you bookings. 

It is an ideal and convenient situation as the prospective guest gets the power of choosing his preferred OTA with no confusion. Rate Parity Clause is a part of the contract that OTA and hotel sign.

Rate disparity occurs when an OTA does not honor that contract and starts selling the hotel at a lower price than others. Towards the end of 2010, hotels and OTAs considered rate disparity as a major challenge. Soon, hotels and OTAs started finding the causes of rate disparity and the prevention methods.

However, before we dig deeper into the causes of rate disparity and the measures to prevent it; let us understand some history of rate parity.

History of Rate Parity

Before technology took the driver’s seat into hospitality, people made bookings via phone calls, emails, local offline travel agents, or walked into the hotel. The bigger hotels used the GDS to penetrate the global market. However, the B2C market mostly remained untapped until the OTAs came into the picture.

Somewhere in the 2000s, companies like Priceline, Expedia, Booking.com took baby steps into the US market. Subsequently, Agoda was born in Singapore while Makemytrip, Yatra, and Cleartrip were launched in India. 

With time, technology took a tremendous leap, making the internet reachable to everyone. The Internet facilitated people with the ability to book their hotels in any other part of the world from their desktop or cellphone.

Consequently, the rise of different websites blessed the consumer with choices.

Hoteliers too immensely benefited because of the availability of multiple distribution platforms (OTAs) to sell the inventory. The new players started using their funds to offer discounts to the clients without hampering the hotel’s net rates.

Soon enough, the existing players felt the heat. They as well started undercutting the rates to retain the customers. Every OTA started blaming the other one for disparity creating chaos in the market. Hotels were the ones at the losing end of this game.

Bigger hotel franchises invoked the parity clauses in around 2011 to prevent the third party from advertising lower rates than their website.

What is the Rate Parity Clause?

Rate Parity Clause or Price Parity Clause, commonly known as the PPC, is a part of the contract the OTA signs with hotel partners. The hotels introduced this clause to ensure that OTAs do not offer a lower price to the customers than the hotel itself. Several changes have been made to the clause since then.

All the OTAs restrict the hotels from offering a better price to their competitors. Certain OTAs even restrict the hotels from selling at a lower rate on the hotel website under the parity clause.

This price parity clause is divided into Wide Price Parity and Narrow Price Parity. The Wide Price Parity Clause bars the hotels from undercutting the selling price on any OTA and/or their website. The Narrow Price Parity Clause lets the hotel sell their rooms at a lower price in an offline market. 

What is Rate Disparity?

When distribution channels display different prices for the same room type of your hotel for a particular day, we call it rate disparity. OTAs do not welcome disparity since it decreases their credibility and your saleability online. Several factors trigger rate disparity.

Causes of Rate Disparity

Rate disparity is triggered by various factors. Sometimes, OTAs trigger the disparity, and other times the hotels. Many a time, hotels are not even aware that they are creating disparity. I’ve listed several factors that lead to rate disparity.

Missing Room or Rate Types

If you have Standard Room type as your base category on Booking.com, and Deluxe Room type as your base room category on Expedia, you are bound to have the disparity. The rate shopper picks the lowest available rate for base occupancy.

Therefore, make sure to have all room types, rate plans, and occupancies updated correctly on all the OTAs.

Pushing Wrong Updates

If you are updating the rates manually on different OTAs, there are significant chances that you will make a mistake somewhere and update the wrong prices. A better practice to minimize such errors is to use channel manager software to update the prices. Always ensure to check for base rate adjustments.

Uneven Discounts

While offering discounts on OTAs attracts the customers and gives a better ranking on their site, uneven discounts cause disparity. Offer the same open deals on all the OTAs to avoid disparity.

OTA Discounting

Sometimes you get flagged for disparity; despite setting the rates with the channel manager and offering the same discounts. In such cases, the disparity is caused by the OTAs. 

To get better sales, the portals regularly offer additional discounts from their side. OTAs offer these discounts in the name of coupon codes or under banners like flat sale, flash sale, weekday sale, loyal customer sale, etc. Parity checker tools used by the other OTAs detect these discounts and flag the disparity. 

The OTA which offers these discounts often argues that taking the discounts down will lead to decreased visibility and fewer conversions. Another argument the OTAs present is that they are offering the discount from their end, keeping the net payable rate intact. 

A high price variance on different sites can cause trust issues among the users. 

Unless offered as a bundled deal or an opaque deal, the best idea would be to stay away from these deals.

The above factors trigger disparity which causes you a loss of business, trust, and reputation. Hence, let me help you with steps to prevent rate disparity.

How to Maintain Rate Parity?

In contrast to a popular belief, maintaining rate parity is not a hard task. If you follow these four simple steps, your rates will always be at par.

Tech to Check Disparity

OTAs check for disparity using rate shopping tools. These tools are available to hotels also and can be easily integrated with your channel manager. Certain PMS and channel managers offer the rate shopper as an in-built tool.

This tool checks for your hotel’s price for a defined time frame on different OTAs. Investing in such a tool can prevent you from a potential loss that you might suffer due to one OTA matching the prices with the other OTA.

Dynamic Pricing

As crazy as I may sound to you, but keeping a floating price prevents OTAs from doing any tomfoolery with your prices. Use dynamic pricing tools available in the market which corrects your sell prices as per occupancy and demand.

Daily Check

It never hurts to monitor the OTAs daily. When you keep a constant vigil, you will prevent disparity issues.

Getting ahead of OTAs

Let us be honest about this; we can’t beat OTAs in the pricing. Instead, we can beat them at the offerings. Offer perks like free early check-in, free late check-out, meal upgrades to people booking via your website.

Moreover, you can also offer them free pickup & drop services, room upgrade, or even free cancellation if possible. These gestures help in improving conversion from your booking engine.

In general, hotels having price parity tend to get a higher ranking on OTAs.

Over the last few years, however, certain nations have got rid of the parity clause from the OTA’s contract giving a freehand to the hoteliers.

Further, you can also work with hotel revenue management professionals to cope with rate parity issues.

How are Different Nations Managing Rate Parity?

Despite price disparity being a global nuisance, every nation has different policies to deal with it.

US and Latin America

There are no pricing regulations in Latin American nations. The US too does not have any pricing regulations. Though, it requires that hoteliers have as transparent pricing as possible.

France 

The French government passed Macron Law in 2015, ending all the pricing parity clauses imposed by OTAs. This resulted in the power of pricing getting transferred back to the hotels.

Austria, Italy and Belgium

Austria ended the pricing parity clauses in 2016, while Italy and Belgium followed suit towards the end of 2017. Hotels are no longer required to sell at a higher price or at par with OTAs on their website.

European Nation, Australia and New Zealand 

In July 2015, the EU moved the OTAs from the wide parity clause to the narrow parity clause. Australia and New Zealand did the same in 2016.

India 

In India, the OTAs only expect you to guarantee the price parity across their competitors. The insistence on maintaining meta-search parity is now declined. Hotels often offer the best price guarantee for the direct booking made through their websites. 

Earlier, there have been instances where only certain OTAs were banned from invoking the pricing parity clause. German government banned HRS from using any pricing parity clause in 2013. In 2015, Booking.com too was asked to remove the clauses.

FAQs

The post A-Z of Rate Parity in Hotel: History, Causes, and Solution appeared first on eZee Absolute.

One has to be strategic when turning that overbooking button on.

If you’re a hotel owner or manager and have been planning to use overbooking to your benefit, you’re at the right place.

This is not just going to be an article, but a complete guide on the nitty-gritty of overbookings, helping you add stars to your hoteliering practices.

What is Hotel Overbooking?

Overbooking in the hotel industry is when a single hotel room is booked by more than one guest for the same date. In other words, it is a situation when the total number of rooms booked for a certain period of time is greater than the total number of rooms available for sale.

One of the reasons for overbooking in hotels is that the property displays the same rooms on several OTAs and other online booking platforms. As the hotel and its offerings are learned about by a large number of travelers, it often happens that more than one looker books the same room from any of these platforms.

Another reason is that when a hotel manually changes/updates its room inventory on all the connected platforms, there’s a delay and also ends up causing rate disparity.

Why? 

Because you can’t be as fast as a flash, but the bookings can be.

How do Overbookings Impact your Hotel Business?

Imagine, a room was overbooked. One of the guests has arrived early and you have allotted him/her the room.

Now, the second guest who has also booked the same room has arrived at the front office and is asking to check-in.

What are you going to do, mi amigo?

If you have a similar room available, you can accommodate him/her. Or else, you have to inform them of the overbooked scenario. 

This may enrage your guest and s/he may go berserk about it. Worst still, you may get negative remarks about your services on the internet which would travel at the speed of light.

It is not an exclusive fact that one bad review can kill a hundred good feedbacks. That’s right, you are in trouble here.

Moreover, it will lead to the cancellation of the room booking; implying that even if the guest did not check in to your hotel, you’ll have to pay commissions to OTAs. 

That is a loss of both – revenue and reputation.

The Role of a Channel Manager in Dealing with Overbookings in Hotels

“How to handle overbooking in the hotel industry?” 

“How to avoid overbooking in a hotel?”

“How to deal with overbooking in a hotel?”

These are some of the popular search terms on Google and for all valid reasons. 

When I did my part of the research around it, I could see that hoteliers are actually curious to know the solution. 

Therefore, before we go ahead and talk about the overbooking practices in the hospitality industry, let’s first understand how a channel manager can come to the rescue.

When you’re dealing with multiple OTAs or online reservation platforms, the chances of acquiring overbookings are certainly higher.

To cope with this, it is imperative for your hotel to have a channel manager in place.

Let me explain how this works.

1. To start with, your existing hotel management system has to be integrated with a hotel channel manager.  
2. Next up, the integrated system must be connected to the online booking platforms to distribute your inventory effectively.
3. As soon as any one of these platforms receives the booking, this integrated channel manager quickly updates the availability everywhere in real-time and ferries the details on a single dashboard.
4. Moreover, once the rate is updated from the dashboard, it pushes the updated rates to all the connected channels. This particular two-way integration is called XML (extensible mark-up language) integration.

The channel manager does all of it automatically without you having to log in to each platform separately, saving both time and money; and of course, there are least chances of hotel overbookings.

Not to mention, it can also help you handle rate disparity. 

But Overbooking Is Also a Necessary Evil

Despite being tagged as taboo in the hospitality industry, it can’t be denied that overbooking is more of a necessary evil than an actual one.

Don’t believe me?

Let’s look at the merits of leveraging hotel overbooking.

What are the advantages of overbooking for a hotel?

1. Reduces your loss during last-minute cancellation

The major advantage of overbooking is that it offers a backup plan for canceled reservations. This means that if someone cancels their booking at the last moment, you don’t have to worry about any loss because you have another guest lined up for check-in.  

Bazinga!

2. Helps hotel to achieve 100% occupancy

The last thing a hotel would want is an empty room. And this is where a hotel overbooking strategy comes to the rescue. 

You may have to compensate, one way or the other, if you have an overbooked room. But it will ensure that your hotel achieves 100% occupancy despite the repercussions that may come with it.

After all, compensation for hotel overbooking is cheaper than leaving the room empty.

3. It is a low-risk method to keep the cash flowing 

Overbooking is considered to be a low-risk method to boost your hotel’s overall revenue. It doesn’t require a heavy investment where you might incur a loss. 

Rather, it requires a human-centric approach to dealing with guests and offering them a solution.

4. Maximize your hotel’s expected revenue

When you integrate overbooking into your revenue management strategies, your chances of earning better revenue increase significantly.

With this tactic in place, you can better analyze your cancellations based on statistics and reduce your chances of miscalculation. Meaning, you’ll always be prepared for all the unexpected hazy situations and give a boost to your revenue, whatsoever.

How to Use Overbooking the Right Way?

Now that you have learned about the benefits of overbooking, it’s time to understand how you, as a hotelier, can incorporate this into your hotel.

1. Leverage data to make informed predictions

Data is at the heart of any strategy and overbooking is no exception.

Now, what I mean by leveraging data is that you have to determine the patterns of cancellation and predict the chances of receiving more.

Based on your analysis and prediction, you have to come up with an overbooking strategy.

For example, after analyzing your past data, you could see that Fridays are less likely to receive any cancellations. Meaning, you might not want to plan any overbookings on Fridays.

So, let data be the epicenter of all your hotel’s strategies and make better decisions to reap better results.  

2. Have a detailed list of guests for the day you plan to overbook

Once you have started out with overbooking, the next thing you need to do is have a list of all the guests that are checking into your hotel for that particular day.

Check for the following type of guests:

• Repeat guests
• New guests
• Overbooked guests

This will help you prepare for the compensation you’re going to offer to each guest.

For example, if it’s a repeat guest, and considering your relationship with them, you might be able to convince them to shift to a new room in the hotel across the street.

Next up, try to check a few more factors such as length of stay, room type, the amount paid, etc.

This will help you to have a better conversation with your guests regarding your hotel’s overbooking scenario.

Simply put, it’s all about knowing what you’re going to offer the guests in case of overbooking.

3. Have partnerships with neighboring hotels

Whenever it comes to overbooking, your partner hotels are going to be your rescuer.

If you have multiple hotels in your locality or in a certain proximity, always form partnerships with them.

For example, Grande and Reigns are two properties in the same vicinity. The best thing about these properties is that they have a collaborative overbooking strategy. The day Grande allows overbooking, Reigns is there to back it up and let additional guests stay; and vice versa.

So, whenever you’re forming an alliance or partnering with a hotel, make it a win-win.  

4. Train staff on how to handle overbookings professionally

The way your hotel staff communicates is going to make a huge difference.

If the staff fails to assist the guests once they get to know that there’s overbooking, it is going to bring some bad reviews for your hotel.

Train your staff on how to communicate and explain to the guest(s) that the room they booked was overbooked and how common it is when the bookings are carried out on online platforms.

Further, propose an alternate solution very calmly. For instance, you can offer them an upgraded room in a nearby hotel. Or, you can also consider offering them your facilities for free and make their experience better.

Now, even if the alternate solutions are intriguing, if your staff lacks professionalism, then your guests are sure to get furious.

5. Take a tactical approach to decide which guest to move

In the second point, I talked about creating a detailed list of guests.

Here also you can use that list to make better decisions. Based on the type of guest, room type, length of stay, and all the other factors, you have to decide which guest to move.

For instance, there’s this guest who has come with his entire family for a 3-day vacation. And there’s another guest who is checking out the very next morning.

Which guest would you move?

Honestly, if I was in your shoes, I would move the solo gentleman who has come for an overnight stay. Additionally, I would ensure that he gets a good room with all the facilities in the hotel I am moving him to.

6. Have a guest recovery plan in place

Imagine you failed to retain a guest, s/he leaves your property furiously and ends up writing a bad review.

What would you do in that case?

If I was a hotelier, I would reach out to the guest and offer a free stay with meals included. It would be my gesture to make up for the inconvenience.

Sounds like a plan?

Well, that’s how you create a guest recovery plan. And take it from me, it works most of the time.  

Additionally, you already have a bad review, and even if the guest doesn’t agree to your offers, you have nothing to lose.

Things to keep in mind while incorporating overbooking

Overbooking is an extremely tricky affair. For everything to work well or inline, it is imperative to not leave a single stone unturned.

Let’s look at some of the factors to mull over before incorporating overbooking.

1. Do not overdo this strategy

Before anything else, you must understand the fact that you cannot overdo it.

Overbooking has to be done keeping your execution, compensation, and guest recovery plan in mind. Practicing overbooking every now and then would create a haywire situation at your property and dampen the brand image.

2. Use a reliable and robust channel management system 

A channel manager is a must-have for hotels while working with OTAs and dealing with overbookings. However, it is crucial to pick the right channel manager to do the job.

Here’s a guide that will help you with just that.

3. Keep communication with your guests clear

When you see an overbooked situation, ensure that you are communicating the situation clearly and offering a legitimate resolution. You can even reach out to your guests a day or two before to check if they are flexible with the dates. This helps you prepare better.

4. Hire a revenue manager

Revenue management is a game-changer for hotels. A proper revenue management strategy can bring significant profit to your hotel business.

So, when you’re turning to strategies like overbooking, it is important to work with or hire revenue management professional. Take it from me, the value you’re going to get is just immense.

The post Why is Hotel Overbooking Good for You? A Guide to the Upside appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Well, all the answers lead to one and only one factor and that is – maximized revenue.

And to maximize your revenue, you must be applying 100s of strategies. Out of them, yield management is one of the key pricing strategies for hotels.

Now, let’s understand,

What is yield management in hotels?

Yield Management – you must be familiar with this term. If you’re not let me tell you, yield management can be defined as, selling a product or service at the:

• Right rate to 
• The right customer at the 
• The right time.

In simple words, ‘the process of determining right hotel room pricing is called yield management strategy.’ 

Now you may think that yield management looks the same as revenue management. (It’s quite natural to get confused between the two). Although, there’s a thin line of difference between both.

What is the difference between yield management and revenue management?

There’s a very thin line of difference between yield management and revenue management. While talking about yield management for hotels, it encompasses the revenue generated through the room charges or occupancy, whereas revenue management involves a whole lot more than just occupancy.

We have a FREE step-by-step guide for hotel revenue management. You can download it from here and get a clear idea.

Hence, yield management is not the same as revenue management, but it’s a subset.

You may think, what happens if you don’t adopt yield management? And what if you do? 

To answer that, I would like to explain to you,

What are the benefits of yield management in hotel industry?

There are several benefits of yield management. I’ve listed the three main benefits: 

1. Increased revenue:

Yield management in the hospitality industry helps you to make the most of your occupancy. It ensures a higher revenue, even if your occupancy is not 100%. (Regardless of the peak or weak season.) A solid yield management strategy can increase your revenue significantly.

Let’s look at this example: 

Suppose your property has 10 rooms, and revenue per available room is 50$. Now, consider these two cases:

Case 1: When all your rooms are occupied. Then your earned revenue is 500$ (Achieved revenue).

Case 2: Now, say you increase your room rate (using yield management technique) from 50$ to 100$ during peak season and sell all the 10 rooms, then your total earned revenue is 1000$. (This is also known as potential revenue)

Now, 

In this case, you earned 50% more revenue. This is how you can calculate the potential revenue using yield management.

It is as simple as,

Higher demand = Higher room rates.

2. Decreased errors

With hotel yield management strategies, there’s no chance of making mistakes while setting the price of the rooms. The accurate demand forecasting eliminates any miscalculated risks.

Example:

Initially, you must be randomly changing the prices as and when the high season approaches, but when you practice yield management, you have to perform demand forecasting.

When you perform the data forecasting, you get accurate data with exact details, which helps you to set the best room rates.

Thus, with the precise details, your chances of getting errors.

Now that you know the what and why of yield management, let’s us understand, 

How to implement hotel yield management strategy?

For any hotel, it becomes very important to set the RIGHT room rates. Unlike other industries, hospitality industry possesses fixed resources to earn revenue from i.e the number of rooms (Here I’ve excluded the other services that hotels offer). 

For that reason, hotels have to stick to the solid pricing strategy for rooms.

In this case, yield management is the best practice for the hotels to strategically sell their rooms at optimized rates.

As I said previously, hotel yield management is all about demand and supply. So, to apply the result-driven yield management strategy you have to perform the following steps:

• Decide the occupancy slabs
• Decide the room rates as per the occupancy slabs
• Apply yield management strategies
• Constant monitoring 

Let’s dig deeper into each step one by one: 

Decide the occupancy slabs

Out of several factors, here are a few important ones which affect your occupancy slabs:

•  Based on seasons

Generally, a hotel’s year is classified in two seasons: 1. High season and 2. Low season.

Festivals are considered the peak seasons for hotels. During festivals, hotels witness a hike in their bookings. 

Let me tell what you have to do:

Simply find out the maximum occupancy during the high and low season. Compare it with your year-round average occupancy. You can even analyze the upcoming year’s calendar and find out the following holidays. 

• Major festivals of your region
• Long weekends
• Annual holiday periods (Christmas, New Year, etc.)
• Public holidays
• School holidays
• Local events (annual festivals, sporting events, concerts, etc.)

Once you have analysed occupancy, you can create the occupancy slabs smartly to drive more revenue.  

•  Based on location

Your property’s location poses as an important factor as well. You may ask, ‘how Mehul?’

Well, let’s say your hotel is located near a stadium or a central convention center, where some recurring events like- Sunburn, cricket tournaments, events, and expos are being hosted. 

Needless to say, there are high chances of receiving more bookings during such events. 

So what you can do is list down such annual events in advance. Then when the event is approaching, apply the yield management strategy as discussed in the above points. 

Here you can vary the occupancy slabs as well as the room rates. 

•  Based on past occupancy

Along with the occupancy, you can also drill down your hotel’s past occupancy levels/percentage. 

Let’s say, during last year’s high season, your average occupancy was 80% whereas, during the low season, your average occupancy was 40%.

#Protip: You can make your low season a profitable one by applying effective hotel promotion ideas, instead of keeping your rooms vacant. 

From these data, you’ll definitely get a rough idea on your last year’s minimum and maximum of occupancy percentage. So, you can create the slabs wisely. 

Decide the room rates as per the occupancy slabs. 

Once you have created the slabs the next important step is to decide the room rates for each slab. For that, you have to consider the following factors.

• Guest types:

Your hotel must be welcoming a variety of guests viz. corporate guests, backpackers, solo-travellers, family groups, and likewise. 

Now you see, all these different types of guests have their different requirements. For example, corporate guests mostly stay for a longer period of time. And they generally look for a budget yet comfortable stay.

Moreover, business travelers tend to book at the last minute. (Consider this factor as well.)

Howbeit, the family or groups are leisure travelers, who are more likely to spend more and might look for better amenities.

Set the room rates for different occupancy slabs based on various factors.  

• Based on past ADR, RevPar

Average Daily Rate (Read: ADR) and Revenue per available room (Read: RevPAR) are the two key parameters that affect your hotel’s revenue to a great extent. 

Basically, when you drill down your hotel’s past data, also find out which different room rates (ADRs) gave you maximum RevPAR. 

By studying this data, you’ll be able to determine the room rates which drive maximum revenue (as well as bookings) for your hotel. . 

Applying Yield Management 

Now, you know different aspects to consider while forming the yield management strategy for your hotel. But, you may still wonder about the IMPLEMENTATION of these strategies! Don’t worry! You can automate this pricing with yield management systems effortlessly. 

You can configure slabs in a channel manager and booking engine. As and when you receive bookings (occupancy increases), your rates change according to the configured occupancy slabs. 

Let me show you how it happens with one of the real-time yield management examples:

Firstly, we’ll see how to create occupancy slabs. 

Let’s say, during the first 3 months of 2019, your average occupancy was 80% and the highest occupancy was 95%.

Now you can easily predict that you’ll receive a similar occupancy this year as well. 

So, you can make the following slabs:

• 0-25%
• 25-50%
• 50-80%
• 80-95%
• 95-100%

Then you can to define the number of slabs as shown in the below screenshot:

Now let’s move on to the next step – to decide the rates of slab-wise pricing. 

Firstly, I’d like to tell you that you can increase the room rates in two ways, either percentage-wise or amount wise.

Then, select the following things and complete your slab:

1. Source (it can be your booking engine or any pother OTAs)
2. Rate plan
3. Configure the rates as per different slabs
4. Select the date range. (The duration in which you want to apply this pricing)

And you are all set! Refer to the following screenshot:

IMPORTANT NOTE: The example of slab wise pricing mentioned above is not a standard one. It is for illustration purposes only. Depending on the trends and your hotel’s data, you can change your slabs.

Basically, with the booking engine and channel manager that support the yield management pricing, you can update your pricing on all platforms. (website, OTAs, and on every platform to which your hotel is connected with.)

Thus, all you have to do is configure the slabs, sit back and relax. Rest of the things are taken care of by the yield management system. 

See, how to configure yield management in eZee Centrix.

Constant Monitoring and updating yield

Well, this is a key thing to consider while you practice yield management strategies for your hotel. It is the monitoring of market trends. So I would recommend that once you have configured the slabs in the system, DO NOT stick to these slabs adamantly. You can monitor your competitor’s rates, the latest trends of the industry, or many other things and be dynamic about your changes.

When you apply a variable pricing strategy, you always want to keep a check on your competitors’ rates and analyze them to make sure you have a prototype ready for your rate prediction. 

While you are increasing or decreasing your room rates, you should know what your competitors are doing. It may happen that during high season you are increasing your rates, while your competitors are not. And they grab all the bookings.

So, I would recommend, always keep an eye on your competitors, before making any changes on your pricing.

#Protip: Nowadays, there are tools like rate shopper, that gives your competitor's rates right in your system.

In a nutshell, through yield management, you can get more revenue by focusing on profitable bookings. Unlike those hotels who may make the mistake of emphasizing booking volume and losing potential revenue.

Conclusion

In this blog, I have tried to cover every nook and corner of the yield management for hotels. 

Apart from this, you don’t have to outsource it from third-party revenue management agencies or hire a revenue manager. You can do it on your own with the advanced technology solutions that support yield management. 

While selecting the booking engine and channel manager, you should definitely see this feature as the key parameter. If your current solutions don’t support this slab wise pricing, I would recommend changing your system right away!

In case you have any doubts or concerns, tell in comments. I’d love to help you!

The post Yield Management in Hotel Industry: Key Factor of Revenue Generation appeared first on eZee Absolute.

In this blog, we will learn about hotel RevPAR, how to calculate it and strategies to optimise it.

RevPAR stands for revenue per available room and is one of the most significant factors that build your hotel revenue.

When you understand the power of RevPAR, you can plan better room rates and increase your revenue. We have listed 10 proven strategies to increase your property’s RevPAR. Read the blog further to know all of them. 

What is Hotel RevPAR?

Hotel RevPAR stands for Revenue Per Available Room. It is a key metric that you should use to track your business performance.

It is pure room revenue and does not include additional services like food and beverages, spa, laundry, room service, tours or any service that a customer utilises during their stay. This way you can understand the value of every available room in the property.

RevPAR is calculated daily, monthly or yearly. 

Let us walk you through the RevPar formula to make you understand it better:

How to Calculate Hotel RevPAR?

Well, there are two ways by which you can calculate your RevPar: 

RevPAR = Rooms Revenue/ Rooms available

OR

RevPAR = Average Daily Rate (ADR) * Occupancy Rate;

Here’s an example to help you understand the formula better:

Suppose that you are a hotel with 200 rooms. The average daily rate of the hotel is $100. On any particular day, when the occupancy rate is 80% (i.e. out of 200 rooms, 160 are occupied), then total earned room revenue is $16,000. In this case, hotel RevPAR can be calculated as:

So, on that day you generated $80 per room. 

Further, you have to understand the fact that getting 100% occupancy by compromising your average daily room rate (ADR) is not beneficial.

To have a better profit percentage, you need to have a higher RevPAR.

Think about this: Do you want more money by charging a higher room rate with fewer guests? Or you’re willing to compromise your room rate and increase your occupancy? The choice is yours!

Now that you know, how to calculate hotel RevPAR, let me throw some light on,

Importance of RevPAR in the Hotel Industry

RevPAR is not just a KPI in your hotel revenue. It also helps you:

• Plan room rates better: With the formula, you can decide the profit you want to acquire from the rooms. Based on the profit percentage, you can calculate the projected RevPAR and then decide rates accordingly.
• Measure your business performance: As mentioned in the above point, with RevPAR, you can strategize profitable room rates. Similarly, if you have higher occupancy and RevPAR, then it means your hotel is performing great. 

Basically, these are the two key reasons to calculate RevPAR. Now, let’s explore the section that will interest you the most.

Proven strategies to increase your hotel RevPAR

We have seen that RevPAR is important. The question is, how to increase it?  There are multiple factors that affect your property’s RevPAR.

We have analysed all of them and formed these strategies. For better understanding, we have classified the strategies in two parts:

1. Primary strategies: These strategies will have a direct impact on your RevPAR. As soon as you apply them, you would see an immediate effect on your RevPAR. 
2. Secondary strategies: These strategies will have an indirect impact on your RevPAR. Applying these strategies, you won’t see an instant increase in your RevPAR. Instead, you will see the results gradually after over the period of time. 

Let’s first go understand the primary strategies.

1. Apply revenue management

Revenue management means selling the right room to the right customer, at the right time, and at the right price. 

Simply put, revenue management is all about adjusting the prices as per demand and supply. As and when the demand increases you have to increase your room rates. 

But, how would you do that frequently?

These days, integrated channel managers and booking engines can handle this occupancy-wise pricing on their own. All you have to do is define different occupancy slabs and set different rates for each slab. The software will automatically update the pricing as the occupancy level changes. 

When your rooms are being sold at the optimum price as per the occupancy, you‘d definitely get higher RevPAR and revenue.  

2. Implementing different pricing strategies

We have already defined that RevPAR is directly proportional to your ADR. So higher the ADR, higher will be your RevPAR. 

However, it does not imply that you randomly hike your room rates to such an extent, that your property becomes unsellable . 

You need to have a strategic approach to increasing your room prices.

For example:

• Have different pricing strategies for high seasons and low seasons, weekend and weekdays.
• Create different room rates for customer segments viz. business travelers, leisure travelers, and so on.
• You may also want to perform competition analysis and figure out the optimum rate for a room type in the market amongst your competitors to maximize your revenue. 

These are the few different pricing strategies that we recommend. You can explore other strategies from here. 

By considering different factors, you can not increase your RevPAR which will in turn increase overall revenue. 

3. Balancing your occupancy percentage and ADR

RevPAR is dependent on two important metrics- ADR and occupancy. All three of them work in sync. 

Many hoteliers still view high occupancy as the operational target, disregarding all other aspects of revenue management.

You should not only focus on having a constant ADR and 100% occupancy. To increase your hotel RevPAR, you can play around your ADR.

Let us give you an example for a better idea

If you are a hotel with 10 rooms, each costing $100. Now, on selling each room, you are getting $40 profit. Here, there could be two cases:

1.  On a particular day, there’s 100% occupancy. Either you sell all the rooms at constant ADR of $100 and earn a profit of $400. 
2. On another day, when there’s 80% occupancy. On that day, you can initially sell your 5 rooms at $100 and for the rest of the rooms, you can increase your ADR by 50$. In this way, despite having less occupancy than the previous day, your profit would be 620 $. 

So, this is how you can play around your ADR and increase your RevPAR. 

In reality, higher occupancy in many cases leads to lower profits, when the increased number of rental units doesn’t offset the loss in average rate.

4. Focus on direct bookings

Undoubtedly, OTAs play an important role in getting you more bookings. 

You see, there are always two sides of a coin.

On one hand, you are getting bookings, on the other hand, you are losing a significant chunk of your room’s revenue as OTA commissions. 

To compensate for this, you must focus on getting more direct bookings. All you have to do is, get a booking engine integrated with your hotel website, that is capable of converting your website visitors into bookers. 

Other than that, you can increase your efforts in getting more direct bookings. There are many ways through which you can increase your direct bookings via your website. You can explore them from here.

When you are getting enough direct bookings from your website, then you can gradually scale down your dependency on OTAs. 

5. Reducing cancellation rate

A high cancellation rate is a major pain point for hotels. And to be honest, it affects your RevPAR greatly. 

To save your RevPAR, you can have more non-refundable reservations. This won’t bring any changes to your cancellation policy.

Yet, putting up non-refundable reservations will definitely increase your occupancy and reduce the cancellation rate at your hotel. We have some solid strategies to reduce your last-minute cancellations. You can explore them from here.

These are the strategies that you can apply and you will see the increase in revenue straightaway. The results of these strategies will have a direct impact on your hotel’s RevPAR. 

Secondary Strategies

Apart from these strategies, there are certain actions that indirectly affect your RevPAR. Following those strategies will surge your revenue too. Let’s go through them. 

1. Save your side expenses

Let’s understand this by an example.

Say, you have a 20 rooms property. We o0pe and wish that there will be a 100% occupancy for the property for all 30 days of a month. But, that is a far reach. When you have a housekeeping team in-house, you have to pay them salaries regardless of what occupancy you have in a particular month.

To overcome this issue and save the expense you can opt for – uber for housekeeping. Instead of having a dedicated housekeeping staff 24*7, you can go through your arrival list, and then outsource the staff to get the housekeeping done. 

So, when you have more arrivals, you can outsource 3 people, and similarly, when you have fewer arrivals you can outsource fewer people. You can easily optimize your room expenses and thereby increase your RevPAR. Besides, you can also adopt IoT devices to save energy costs. `

2. Plan room rates as per length of stay (ALOS)

Trust me, mandating  ‘Minimum Length of Stay’ is still considered as the most effective way to increase revenue per room.

As RevPAR is directly proportional to the occupancy percentage, with this strategy you can increase your occupancy easily.  

To increase your occupancy rate, you can employ strategies using the length of stay restrictions as below:

Minimum length of stay: Accept long-termed stays instead of bookings with short-termed stays.
Maximum length of stay: Take reservations at discounted rates only for set maximum nights of stay

3. Manage your online reviews

Nearly half of all travelers book a hotel room by just reading online reviews. Therefore, it is important for you to focus on your hotel’s online reputation in order to bring in more guests and build your brand value.

Your hotel’s reputation has a direct impact on your hotel revenue. So you should not miss out on responding to all types of reviews. (Especially negative ones!)

You can try online review management software to streamline your response system. 

When your response to reviews gets punctual, your guests get strong confidence in your hotel brand, and your chances of getting selected by them increase. 

Well, to assist you in your response procedure, we have ready to use FREE review response templates as well)

4. Increase digital marketing efforts

Today, your potential audience searches for you on different digital platforms. Therefore, to attract your guests from these platforms, you need to have a solid online presence. 

Well, with digital marketing strategies you can increase your direct booking. Moreover, it improves the conversion rate of your website. 

You can try the following digital marketing strategies to enhance your online presence and get more bookings:

1. Interact via social media and videos 
2. Advertise on OTAs and metasearch engines
3. Start influencer marketing
4. Run online ads
5. Strengthen email marketing
6. Do regular blogging on your website

You can explore these strategies in detail from here. 

5. Run and promote loyalty programs

Running loyalty programs can be a proven strategy to increase your occupancy rate as well as RevPAR. As it attracts the existing guests to stick to your brand and encourages new guests as well. 

#Protip: If you don't have a loyalty program for your hotel, you should definitely consider having it. As it is one of the most assured marketing and revenue-generating strategies. 

It is important to note that loyalty programs work only if you offer rewards that provide your guests with some real value. You should reward them on the very next visit itself, instead of rewarding them after certain loyalty points are calculated.

This is how your existing guests will come back to you and choose you over other hotel brands. 

Relevant Read: 8 Practical Methods to Increase Repeat Guests at Your Hotel [Easy to Apply]

FAQs

Conclusion

So this was all about how you can increase your RevPAR. I have mentioned different strategies, direct and indirect strategies.  

You can start with a few direct strategies and a few indirect strategies initially for a certain time period. Study the results from these strategies, and then continue with the best-performing ones.

Now, if you want to dig deeper in your hotel RevPAR, then RevPAR has three subdivisions:

1. Total revenue per available room (TrevPAR): 

It is a sum total of net revenues from all the departments, rentals and other income for a particular period divided by the total available rooms during that period.

TrevPAR= Total revenue / Total available rooms

[Here, Total Revenue = Total Room Revenue + Spa + Breakfast + Bar + Mini Bar + Room Service + any other income]

2. Net revenue per available room (NrevPAR):

It is similar to RevPAR, except that it takes into account ONLY the net revenues you earned. It DOES NOT include your expenses such as distribution costs, transaction fees and travel agency commissions.

NrevPAR= (Room revenue-Distribution cost) / Total available rooms

3. Gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR):

This indicates the actual profit you earned; after deducting your distribution costs, other operational expenses like maintenance, hiring staff, and more.

GOPPAR= (Gross operating revenue- gross operating expenses)/Total available rooms.

These are metrics just for calculating RevPAR, there are several other metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can read to measure your overall hotel business performance.  You can learn about them from here.

The post What Is Hotel RevPAR? 10 Simple Ways To Increase It appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Well, for some of your fellow hoteliers; this still might not be a reason powerful enough to invest in a tool called channel manager. If you too are looking for a compelling conviction on why to invest in leading-edge distribution automation technology, read on:

Hotelier and Channel Manager: The connection

Room availability and rates; these are prime factors that govern the ROI of your hotel business. You are well aware that managing an optimum level of rates and occupancy is sheer essentiality, and it falls completely under your span of control. Not to forget that this is a continuous process (a full-time job for those who perform it manually) to be followed day in and day out at any accommodation.

Therefore, it is indispensable to evaluate the number of efforts, time, energy and payroll that are dedicated to maintaining them manually. Just imagine, what if you can automate this process and get rid of manual operations? Wouldn’t it be a giant relief? Hence, for you to get a channel manager and ease up, we have accumulated top “7 reasons as to why hotels need a channel manager”.

1. Easily add new booking channels for your hotel. The more the better!

Multi-channel booking strategy is what works best in any season. A hotelier following this does not have to depend on limited booking sources. The more sources that bring you booking, the better and safer it is for your business. Implementing a channel manager at your property gives you access to hundreds of connected channels. A channel manager bridges your property with all those booking platforms, displays your inventory to crowds of bookers looking for accommodation in your city and brings you paid bookings. Moreover, being connected to online platforms has more advantages such as,

• Higher distribution reach,

• Demand generation,

• Higher ROI,

• Variety of booking sources,
• And, get seen by regional as well as global bookers.

2. Single dashboard for strategic inventory and rate management

Tiresome inventory management becomes hassle free once you deploy a channel manager to do that. Moreover,

• You get a single dashboard that gives you an insightful overview of availability and rates distributed on all connected channels.

• Minimized human intervention with system to push and pull data. You can post and manage precise room rates and inventory allocation with minimum efforts.

• You can send out pooled inventory to channels to acquire maximum bookings from any channel, without worrying about overbookings.

• Your room rates and availability are always in sync and latest to the moment across all channels, so that your staff does not need to sit and pass on inventory refill and updates. 

• You can post restrictions and inclusions; while processing new, modified and cancelled reservations centrally.

• Rates on different OTAs, vacation rental portals, metasearch platforms and even your own website; manage it from one-place.
• You can manage multiple properties too.

Everything automated. Just send a command and system does it for you. Instead of manual operations, you can focus and strategize better distribution.

3. Time saving automation with even 365 days calendar update

Without a software, inventory and rate distribution across channels is a do-it-yourself task for you. You might miss something, and it can cause errors, double bookings, wrong or delayed updates and a lot many unpredictable mistakes. Duh! And then comes correction part, consuming more of your time. You might lose track of updates. You might never realize if your sent update was never executed at OTA end. What a sad life, isn’t it?

Now think of a channel manager that can magically take all this of your pain away. Yes, a channel manager would not make humanly(!) mistakes or errors, maintain update logs, keep control on overbookings, keep inventory and rates always latest and synced, and notify you of updates communicated to OTA. Take a sigh of relief, I know you are getting a Channel Manager for your hotel now.
Moreover, you can update calendar even for an entire year if you want on channels that support it, in just a click. Let the system take care of rate updates and while you sit back and enjoy your time conversing with a guest or two.

4. Quick stop sale and auto-updates. Do more with lesser efforts

Imagine a sticky situation when suddenly a group demands bookings and you need to use up inventory that is currently allocated to and live on a given travel site. I know there remains a sense of fear while stopping the sale manually. So many to-and-fro operations might overwhelm you. This is when a system like channel manager comes to your rescue.

If you are sending room rates and occupancy details too frequently; you might as well need to ask a particular channel to stop selling a certain part of your inventory. Later on you might release inventory. All you have to do is click on stop sale button and system will automatically put a halt to online sale of your inventory on a that channel. Not only saving you repeated efforts, it also prevents revenue loss you might suffer due to this errors.

Just a channel manager and there you go….No more mismatching inventory, no more revenue leakage, no more delay, no more overbooking. All you have is swift and simple distribution with real time updates at remarkably reduced manual efforts!

5. Minimize over bookings and under-bookings. Utilize complete inventory!

A channel manager comes up with several built-in mechanisms that help you effectively prevent overbookings and under-bookings. Sometimes, you might end up receiving more bookings than your physical capacity, and bingo! your inventory is oversold.

On the other hand, due to uneven distribution, possibly you might not be using inventory to the fullest capacity, that is, under-bookings! Without a channel manager when you go out to resolve this, it can prove to be the toughest job ever.

Just some human or technical errors might cost your hotel loss of reputation, decreased customer loyalty and much more. At such times, channel manager keeps on trying in back-end multiple times until a request sent to OTA is not successful in order to save you from overselling. And it notifies you as well with execution status. So, you need to have that channel manager because you know you cannot afford to sit and keep a tab on updates communicated to OTAs and their statuses.

6. Effortless rate parity maintenance

It can be tricky when you see your demand increased and your want to make the most of it. Might as well you want to give out rooms on discounted rates to your guests, which becomes easy as a pie with a distribution tool.

Channel manager systems are developed to automatically maintain efficient rates to ensure that any changes you make on system are unanimously updated across all platforms in real-time, leaving no room for errors. Thus, you can avoid rate disparity and enhance your hotel’s online reputation.

7. Yield Management features for skyrocketing efficiency

More than just a number Best Available Rate (BAR) is a way to achieve optimal revenue. It’s a brainstorming task to set up a dynamic rate plans and derive the most suitable room price of the day.

If you have a channel manager, it can help you sell right room at right price at right time; that too, automatically. Owing to high/low occupancy at your property, system will hike up or slash down room rates to sell each and every room for you. Sounds like a smart idea to increase bookings? That’s the most effective yield management.

Done, there you go! Now that you have assimilated the top reason why you should get a channel manager, there is one more thing you should know about. Before you begin evaluating an online distribution tool for your property, do keep in mind these points.

• Channel manager should give you connection with your already existing booking channels.

• Channel manager provider should be able to quickly connect you with channel of your choice so that you can broaden your reach.

• How about foreign currency conversions in system?
• It should integrate with systems that you use at your property. For example, it should integrate with a hotel PMS or booking engine, so that you operate on a live inventory at any given time.

Final takeaway: The good, The better, the best

Without a channel manager,

• Every morning you rush to update all calendars with live rates and the latest occupancy.

• Keep worrying about overbookings or missed bookings.

• Repeat those same time-consuming tasks every day.
• You might lose that potential revenue you could’ve earned otherwise.

With a channel manager, you can

• Enjoy your morning coffee while interacting with your guests.

• Leave the front desk and take a vacation too. You have a channel manager on mobile to check and update rates if and when you wish to.

• Automate recurring operations to save time and money and master productivity.
• Earn higher ROI with no revenue leakage.

Because you have the tech way to manage it.

Decide now, how do you wish to spend the rest of your life as a hotelier? With or without a channel manager?

The post 7 Ultimate Reasons Why You Should Invest in A Hotel Channel Manager appeared first on eZee Absolute.