5 Signs It’s Time to Change Your Hotel Booking Engine
It goes without saying that beautifully built websites with great storytelling content play an important role for hotels looking to maximise their direct bookings. But without an efficient hotel booking engine to match, you may not be getting the best bang from your buck from the web traffic.
What Is a Hotel Booking Engine?
A hotel booking engine is a software system which allows your hotel to receive bookings from guests directly via your website. Nowadays, this reservation system should also seamlessly integrate with your chosen Property Management System. In 2018, it is expected that your hotel booking system will easily connect to your desired channel manager and PMS to allow realtime database updates which reflect in the inventory and availability of your rooms over all channels, for a complete hotel management system experience. Here are 5 key signs that it may be time to shop around for a better reservation system.
1. Website Visitors Receive a Slow Check out Experience
With the world at our fingertips in 2018, internet users are getting increasingly more inpatient while browsing the world wide web. A definite reason to switch your online booking engine, is if it can’t match the speed of the rest of your site. This is especially an issue seen with slow booking engine providers, where the customer exits the hotel’s webpage after selecting the widget conditions, and is redirected to the external (provider) domain to confirm the booking.
2. The Booking System Is Not User Friendly
Delivering a fast booking engine and a simple one goes hand in hand. Customers need an uncomplicated path to the checkout page, or else they might change their mind and book their accommodation elsewhere. If your booking engine requires customers to trawl through a maze of pages and information before reaching the final checkout, then you may be losing potential bookings and missing out on optimising revenue.
3. The Reservation Interface Is Outdated
While the interface design may not completely match with that of your hotel website. The appearance of a nonsecure or old fashioned looking reservation calendar will not display for a desirable booking experience, and may devalue your website or reduce the confidence for guests looking to make a reservation. If this describes your front facing reservation calendar, we welcome you to contact us to change your hotel booking engine.
4. The Booking Engine Doesn’t Support Mobile Viewing
In 2018, the importance of making all website elements mobile adaptive is an essential feature for businesses looking to ensure a competitive advantage. As more users opt to browse and book via a smartphone or tablet device; systems which are unable to adapt to the change in page size, will more than likely lose confidence in making a secure payment. Ace Marketing Solutions provides a booking engine which is fully compatible with any mobile or tablet, for a perfect user booking experience.
5. Creating New Hotel Promotions Is a Difficult Process
Creating hotel promotions and special offers is a standard resource within the arsenal of any hotelier looking to increase website direct booking conversion and optimize room occupancy over the calendar year. With accommodation owners and front desk operators already busy with vital guest and back desk operations, it’s important that this process is made to be simple and non-time consuming. The hotel booking engine featured within the Ace Marketing Solutions system allows for simple offer creation, from within the PMS Dashboard.
Ace Marketing Solutions
If any of the above points has described an element of your hotel booking engine, we recommend to shop around for a better alternative which suits your needs. A good start will be to contact us here at Ace Marketing Solutions, and we’ll be happy to explore your need within our systems, or refer you to a trusted partner.