Hoteliers often have to create a distribution strategy in order to market their products to a mass, global audience. However, that doesn’t negate the importance of direct bookings.
An effective hotel booking engine will drive traffic to your website and encourage travellers to book directly with you. Any hotel that doesn’t have a hotel booking engine is going to be left behind in the dust of their competition, who will likely be forging ahead with a surge in direct bookings.
Those hotels that do have an online booking engine should evaluate their current system and decide if it’s the best option for their hotel at this time.
What makes for a good hotel booking engine?
Investing in a hotel booking engine for your website is critical, but it’s important to consider the hotel booking engine features that are available.
These are the hotel booking engine best practices that you need to consider when you are comparing your hotel booking engine design with other booking engines that are on the market.
- Your hotel booking engine needs to offer travellers a seamless booking experience. There should be a visible, eye-catching ‘Book Now’ button that is followed by a short, simple form that includes a payment processing component. Your booking engine should not redirect your guests to another site or a longer form.
- It should benefit guests across the globe by offering multi-language options as well as currency settings to accommodate international travellers. This is the only way you are going to reach beyond the borders surrounding your destination and connect with the most motivated travellers across the globe.
- When you compare your hotel booking engine with others, you will want to make sure that you select a booking engine that is capable of accepting mobile bookings and social media bookings. This allows you to expand your online presence and offer your customers convenient booking options.
Look at the results this hotel got with TheBookingButton
TheBookingButton is the online booking engine offered by SiteMinder, and it incorporates the most current hotel booking engine best practices.
The South of Africa Hotel Group implemented TheBookingButton after partnering with SiteMinder, and saw stunning results. These results included:
- TheBookingButton was set up across 15 different properties in a matter of days. Staff members had complete training on TheBookingButton, and they were quickly able to begin using this booking engine full-time at all of their properties.
- After 30 days of using TheBookingButton, South of Africa saw a 200% increase in online direct bookings.
- The online booking engine also allowed South of Africa to increase its advance bookings, and it was able to double the revenue that was generated for the hotel group online.
How to get started with a hotel booking engine for free
TheBookingButton integrates seamlessly with the SiteMinder property management system, making it easy for hoteliers to implement this hotel booking engine with their current system.
Those hotel operators who are interested in increasing their direct bookings and generating more revenue via their website should consider beginning their free demo of TheBookingButton today.
