A booking system on your hotel's website is now indispensable. The initial steps to create your own booking engine and outlines key considerations in a simple and efficient way.
What is an online booking engine for hotels? How does it work? How can you optimize your systems? What role do content and data analysis play in this context?
Online booking engine booking engine for hotels: essential knowledge
Your website is the hub where all your efforts come together. From social media to leads from Google and other search engines, visitors from review portals such as Trip Advisor, newsletter readers and other advertising campaigns: All these paths converge here.
A direct booking system is required to transform these visits into actual sales. By booking engine we mean any type of platform or software that allows the customer to make a booking directly on your hotel's website. This can include anything from a simple reservation form sending automatic email confirmations to a complex online reservation portal with e-commerce features. Regardless of the system's design, a crucial criterion for a booking engine is ensuring that the guest receives a reservation confirmation at the end of the process.
Turnkey booking systems for hotels
Today we are talking about ready-to-use solutions rather than tailor-made systems. The big advantage of these turnkey solutions is that they are usually easy to set up and implement. The price is also relatively low. The downside to these systems is their limited scope for customization. It is therefore important to select the appropriate booking system that aligns with the specific needs of your hotel from among the many providers. Make sure you know what you need.
Learn from the OTA's
The booking system is often the first point of contact a guest has with your hotel. It should therefore be easy to find and easy to use. Less is more. Everything should be streamlined, aiming to lead to a swift booking confirmation.
External links should lead directly to the appropriate page in the booking process. It is important to ensure that the descriptions and content displayed during the booking process are engaging, concise and emotionally resonant. Good photos are essential.
Hoteliers can learn a lot from online travel agencies here. Google Analytics can also help you to understand conversion rates and fine-tune the settings.
Some more interesting details and tips on this topic await you in the Hotel Techie video from Hotel-Spider.
