What is a booking engine?
A hotel booking engine a.k.a hotel reservation system is an application on your hotels’ website and social media pages that allows you to capture and process direct online reservations.
This software allows your visitors to book rooms directly on your hotels’ website. Such bookings help you to gain more income as compared to a guest who books with you through an online travel agency (OTA).
It is your key to receive commission-free direct bookings and an ideal way to optimize your property’s sales strategy as well as maximize profit.
Here, you’ll get answers to all your questions about a hotel booking engine.
How does a booking engine work?
A hotel reservation system processes your online bookings made through the hotel’s website. This software displays your rates and availability in real-time and allows guests to select their dates and finalize the reservation. This booking data is then passed onto a backend system which can be accessed by hotels to manage bookings.
Here’s an example to give you a better idea:
Let’s say, your hotel has 15 rooms and its website name is www.yourpropertywebsite.com.
- Initially, the looker would search for a hotel either on Google, or on OTA, or through any business listing, and more. Accordingly, when they search on these platforms it will show them a list of hotels.
- From the various options given, they would surf many hotels and choose the one that offers them the best stay. Here, having better website ranking would lead the visitor to your website; and in turn, have a good browsing experience.
- Also, a responsive and effective website appearance will naturally make the visitor book with you through the plug and play widgets that you showcase; viz. welcome box, checking availability, book now button, offers, etc.
- Consider you received booking for two rooms directly from your website. Thereafter, you have 13 more rooms to offer.
- As soon as you receive this, the booking engine updates your revised inventory (i.e. 13 rooms) on your hotel website.
- Moreover, your booking engine will display rooms depending on how you configure it. Viz. deluxe, superior, standard etc. and the inventory is updated according to your room type.
- However, if you have integrated the booking engine with your hotel PMS, then it updates the revised inventory in the PMS software as well. Thus, this reduces your chances of getting overbookings.
All the more, the hotel booking software is highly convenient for travellers, as they can book your rooms without even being on your official website or any other online travel site.
Other features may come with it, for example, automation of booking confirmation emails, room descriptions, rates, photos, inventory updates, promotions, hot deals etc.
Besides, if you have integrated a booking engine with a channel manager then your inventory will automatically be managed across all your channels. Likewise, when a guest books a room with you, it will auto-update your hotels’ inventory as well as reduce overselling.
What are the benefits of a booking engine?
Every hotel’s goal is to sell more rooms and make higher profits. Having said that, a hotel booking engine has become a necessity for today’s accommodation providers; be it a small, medium or a large hotel size.
However, the core view that revolves around having a booking engine software is direct bookings, but there’s a whole lot more potential than that. Here are some of the major benefits of having an online hotel booking engine:
Commission-free direct bookings: Guests often prefer to compare rates mentioned on OTAs with your hotel’s website before making a booking. So, with minimal efforts you can sell your hotels’ inventory at a slightly lower rate to receive commission-free direct bookings on your website.
Increase revenue: Give a hike to your direct bookings through a responsive hotel reservation system. Guests often tend to search online before booking a room. Hence, showcasing better rates and offering an easy booking process on your hotel website enhances your bookings as well as revenue.
Increases repeat guests: Guests always want to be treated well and giving them good experience right from the booking itself can be an add-on for you. Moreover, when they visit your hotel offer them "complementary” or "FREE” services to make their experience better. This will not only prompt additional bookings but also increase inflow of repeat guests.
Reduce cancellations: Reduce cancellations and increase confirmed bookings by managing them directly from your hotel website. This increases your staff’s efficiency and enables you to receive more reservations; by automating your work and eliminating all your manual tasks.
Upsell services: Easily create, promote and sell add-ons online through the booking engine. Also, add your extra services with rooms and sell them as packages. Further, combine them and let guests choose the package they want. This will increase your hotels’ revenue and get you higher bookings.
Process payments faster: The booking engine holds a fully secured payment method that accepts credit or debit card payments. This processes your guests’ payments quickly and stores their data safely in one place which can be accessed at anytime.
Stand ahead of your competitors: Gain an advantage over your competitors who are not using a booking engine. Do this by selling better packages, discounts, promotions via your hotel website and offer them the best guest experience. This lets them choose your hotel over others and thus increase your revenue.
Complete insights of business performance: The booking engine gives you a list of all your bookings. This helps you to track and focus on important areas to grow your business, as well as get all information about your guest preferences, likes, dislikes and much more.
Bookable from any device: It allows your guests to perform their bookings from any device, be it a PC, tablet or smartphone. Moreover, they can also check room availability, current offers, view room photos, rates, etc. This makes them book faster with you and make the booking as per their convenient time.
Also, an increasing number of travelers are relying solely on online reservations to book a room. So, without having a booking engine, you will definitely lose a significant amount of your hotel business.
What are the features of a booking engine?
Online hotel booking systems have not only made reservations easier but also have made hotels more accessible to their guests.
Here are the various features of a booking engine:
Easy booking process: Let your guests swiftly navigate through your rates, inventories and go through the booking process hassle-free. This simple, elegant and user-friendly booking engine will enable the guest to effortlessly book with your hotel.
Group booking engine: If you’re a group of hotels, then with a group booking engine you can acquire bookings of your different locations from one place. Simultaneously, you can also centrally manage the inventory distribution of multiple locations.
Add offline bookings: Easily manage all your offline bookings received from walk-in or phone call, through the hotel booking system. You can perform this operation in the backend system of the booking engine itself. Once you log-in, under 'Add Reservation' simply enter the guest details; thus it lets you avoid maintaining a register or diary for such bookings.
Personalized to match your brand: It gives you complete freedom in terms of customizing the booking system to meet your hotel website’s brand. Additionally, you can set your own search criteria and visibility settings to offer a specific user experience.
Mobile-friendly UI: Give your guests the ability to book directly from their smartphones and provide them a flawless booking experience. Regardless of the device used by the guest, the booking process remains the same on PC, tablets, and smartphones. Also, they can also easily check room details, rates, view pictures and more.
Ready plug and play widgets: This feature lets you add and edit various ready to use plugins and widgets on the hotels’ website to create a smart booking impression. You can show information via notification to your visitors about recent bookings, ongoing promotions, offers, discounts, entry or exit popups etc to attract and turn them into bookers.
Packages and promotions: Create and offer promotional packages or showcase free services like Wi-Fi, pool access and so on. Set secret deals for special as well as loyal guests by creating promo codes. Give discounts for last-minute and advanced bookers. Also, offer special rates for frequent guests, corporate discounts and much more through the booking engine.
Payment gateway options: Easily accept guest payments directly from the website and allow them to choose from N number of integrated payment gateways, credit card processors as well as online banking (net banking).
Yield management: Set room rates as per different occupancy levels of your hotel through the booking engine. Here, you can determine most profit selling rates by combining various factors such as occupancy rate, upcoming holidays, etc through yield management feature and earn profits during peak as well as weak seasons.
Reports: Get detailed reports of all the reservations of your hotel from the booking engine. Starting from reservation to cancellation, generate a diverse set of these reports as well as get reservation statistics like bookings from mobile, desktop and Facebook. This will help you to make better decisions and increase efficiency.
Multiple language and currency: The online booking engine supports multiple languages and currencies to help you expand your hotel's reach in global markets. In fact, you can convert the booking engine to any language of your choice. Further, you can also display rates in different currencies and allow your guests to make payment in the currency of their choice.
Hotel chatbot: Allow your website lookers to book directly with you through a smart hotel chatbot. The chatbot works like a digital hotel attendant and responds to your hotel website inquiries smartly. It answers your guests’ queries 24x7 and also shares details of your hotel, amenities, services, availability, deals, and packages.
Central Reservation System: The CRS gives you centralized access to rates, inventory and bookings of your hotel chain. Streamline all your operations for multiple hotel properties and get important information under a single panel. It also allows you to switch between different properties making it easier to manage rate and inventory of all of the properties.
SMS and email marketing: Send automated personalised emails like pre-arrival, during-the-stay, and post-departures to your guests through the predefined email templates provided in the system. Additionally, instantly notify them via SMS regarding their booking, cancellation, room upgrade and more to improve guest engagement. Along with this, you can offer attractive promotions and packages as well as upsell your extra amenities and services to those who book directly with you.
Guest Stats: Guest statistics help you to identify your property's most desirable features and use them for strategic planning. Get a complete breakdown of how the booker is engaging with your property’s website through details such as search criteria, the currency used, total session time, nights stayed and much more.
Sell inventory through Facebook page: Convert your Facebook fans into happy guests, through social media integration. This allows your visitors to make direct hotel booking from the Facebook page itself thus enhancing your hotels’ bookings.
Collect reviews: Reviews play a very essential role for your hotels’ online reputation. So, collect your guest feedback through the booking engine and showcase it on your hotel website itself. This will in turn convert your potential lookers into bookers.
Affiliate tracking: The booking engine lets you track bookings received from any third party website. It organizes as well as supervises all your affiliated programs. You can perform this by generating affiliation codes for different users which are shared across the websites. This engages more audience to book with you, enhances your sales as well as lets you analyse which ones are performing better.
Joomla/Wordpress website plugin: Simplify and standardize your business through this plugin. These extensions integrate the booking engine with your property's Joomla! Or Wordpress website and accept online bookings to increase reservations from there.
Competitor rate analysis: Keep an eye on your competitors and monitor their pricing through a hotel rate shopper tool. The booking engine lets you analyze and compare your competitor's pricing as well as revenue for the next 30 days, through rates extracted from your mentioned OTAs. This will let you understand where you stand amongst your competitors in the market.
Google analytics integration: Integrate the booking engine with your Google Analytics account (or other such analytic systems) to easily track your visitor rates, and compare them with the system generated statistics. Also, you can set up goals and see their progress over a period of time. Moreover, the system is compatible with your Google Adwords account to give you a clear idea about bookers coming through your Google advertisements.
Holidays and weekend indication: Optimize your hotel rates by adding upcoming holidays and weekends in the booking system. It notifies you beforehand and assists you to predict the amount of business expected during that time. Furthermore, giving you a chance to set offers and discounts or alter rates during such times to grab more bookings.
Ready API integration: The booking system offers various readily available APIs that integrate easily with your hotels’ website. It allows you to display your hotel's rates, inventory, amenities, listing, etc. on the various front ends of your choice such as hotel's website, Facebook page, etc; thereby offering an ultimate booking experience to your guests.
How to analyze your booking engine’s performance?
Booking engine reduces your dependency on OTAs, thus earning you higher revenue against lesser efforts. There are several parameters to analyze your booking engines’ performance; below we’ve mentioned the important ones:
Offer discounts and promotions: Offering exciting deals and discounts will compel your lookers to directly book with you; and get you more direct bookings. So, set up discounts, sell packages or run promotions to attract more guests to book with you.
Showcase best pictures: Photos act as “social proof” for your guests. High-quality pictures will provide your website visitors a clear idea about your hotel's location and environment. So, post effective pictures of your hotel's exterior, interior as well as location to attract more guests.
Display hotel amenities: Highlight your hotel’s amenities on the booking engine to convert your lookers into bookers. Offer them a good stay experience by displaying the kind of facilities you provide and eventually increase your revenue.
Show directions to your property: Show clear instructions to reach your hotel on your website itself. You can embed 'Google Maps' with your hotel's website; so that your guests can follow the directions to reach your hotel easily.
Booking and review notifications: Showing notifications of recent bookings and reviews will engage your booking engine visitors, and make them book faster with you. So, highlight reviews on your booking engine page to influence more visitors. And, opt for a system that displays such notifications on a regular basis.
Match with website theme: Enhance your hotel bookings by creating a seamless browsing and booking experience for your website visitors. Make sure that the booking engine has a similar look and feel as your website. This will help in attracting more visitors to book with you.
Analyzing your booking engines’ performance is vital. Moreover, listing your hotel on Google Business helps you to enhance your property's ranking as well as improve and showcase your online presence. This will not only help you to boost your bookings but also hike revenue. So, execute this regularly to strengthen your business performance.
Booking engine’s connectivity with metasearch engines
A metasearch engine compiles the room rates from multiple online channels (OTAs) and your hotels’ website onto a single platform. They are alternative channels for generating online traffic for hotels as well as to get more direct bookings.
For hotels, metasearch engines represent a key driver to get more direct reservations. They act as an important tool to reduce hotels’ dependency from OTAs as they redirect users to the hotels’ property website for completing their booking process.
Likewise, when integrated or connected to a hotel reservation software, they help to showcase your hotels’ website on the top (if your rates are low as compared to others) and increase chances of guests to book directly with you.
Popular examples of metasearch engines include:
Booking engine integrations
With emerging trends of online bookings through OTAs, it has become tough for hoteliers to get commission-free direct bookings on their hotel website. However, an advanced booking engine can help you solve this problem to a great extent. It allows you to sell all your rooms 24*7 from a PC, tablet or phone.
This booking system can be integrated with your hotel property management system, payment gateways, channel manager and reputation management system; thus giving you centralized control of operations.
Here, we’ve listed some of the must-have integrations with an online bookings system and their benefits to you:
1. Booking engine integration with payment gateways
A payment gateway is a third-party service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payment processing for your property. Integrating a payment gateway with your booking engine allows your property to take deposits via credit/debit card at the time of booking.
To use a payment gateway service with your booking engine, you must create an account with the service provider and set it up with your booking engine. This seamless connectivity with the booking engine can streamline your hotel services while enriching guest experience.
This two-way integration helps you to:
- Directly collect payments from the booking engine
- Prevent fraudulent use of the card
- Ensure proper cash flow
- Secure bookings and reduce no-shows
2. Booking engine integration with hotel PMS
A property management system covers all the administration of your hotel, including reservation management, check-in/out, guest profiles management, housekeeping as well as maintenance.
This seamless integration of your hotel management software and booking engine completely streamlines the inventory and rate distribution. So, any rate or inventory information you update or change in your hotel PMS; will be recognized by the software and automatically reflect on your hotels’ website. Moreover, avoid the commissions that you pay to N number of OTAs by receiving more website bookings.
This two-way integration helps you to:
- Drive more direct bookings
- Save you from huge OTA commissions
- Reduce dependency on multiple OTAs
- Reflect reservations in real-time
3. Booking engine integration with channel manager
As you know, an online booking engine makes it simple to acquire bookings straight from your website or social media pages. Since it is acquiring bookings, it becomes one of the channels along with OTAs.
Similarly, take advantage of the centralized rate and inventory distribution system, as it not only helps you save valuable time but also prevents revenue loss.
Additionally, the single point dashboard for distribution management avoids rate disparity and enhances the hotel’s online reputation. With a two-way integration between your channel manager and online booking engine, you can update rates, availability as well as easily track performance.
This two-way integration helps you to:
- Synchronize inventory and rates online
- Attract more visitors to your website
- Create more ways to upsell or offer promotions
- Access reports and analyzes booking data
4. Booking engine integration with a reputation management system
Online reviews play a very vital role in your hotels’ reputation. A reputation management software simplifies your hotel’s tasks of monitoring reviews, responding to them, and everything around it.
It collects reviews from all the channels (viz. OTAs, Facebook, hotel booking software, Google and others) so that you can respond to them easily all from one place. Since reviews have a big impact on a hotel's reputation, you can track, manage and respond to all the reviews (i.e negative or positive reviews) easily with this integration.
This two-way integration helps you to:
- Enhance brand value and increase revenue
- Minimize your efforts and save time
- Improve guest experience
- Strengthen your online presence
5. Booking engine integration with a revenue management system
It is often difficult for hotels to track their competitor’s pricing strategy and manually set rates for your property. A hotel revenue management system helps hoteliers to predict consumer demand and optimize their inventory and rates to gain more profits.
The purpose of hotel revenue management is not only selling a room today at a low price; but also to sell it tomorrow at a higher price. Integration of hotel revenue management system with a booking engine increases your revenue significantly.
This two-way integration helps you to:
- Analyze your competitors’ rates
- Create most effective pricing strategy
- Save your time and efforts
- Assist you to increase your revenue
Connectivity is vital. Integrate your systems for better hotel management and ease of operations. However, if your booking engine is not integration-friendly, then it's time for you to switch to a new one, as you’re actually creating more work for yourself.
How to select the right booking engine?
Nowadays, there are so many options available in the market. Due to this, hoteliers get confused as to what to choose for their business. So, ask yourself the question about what you require and then make sure that the vendor is meeting your needs.
Although to manage and drive your hotel in the right direction, it is important to pick the right booking system. So, choose a booking engine that gives you the maximum privileges.
Questions to ask before choosing the booking system:
Make sure that the booking engine you choose gives a seamless reservation experience for your guest.
- Why should I invest in a hotel booking engine software?
- How will it make bookings easier for my hotel as well as guests?
- Does it offer an easy booking process with minimum clicks? (2-step)
- Can the booking engine be accessed from any device at anytime?
- Is the booking engine mobile optimized?
- Will it be personalized to my website looks?
- Does it support multi-currency and language?
- Will I be able to get comprehensive reports of bookings?
- What about the data security of guests’ card details?
- Is it open to third-party integrations?
- Does it instantly notify about new bookings and other updates?
- Does it have after-sale support, if I get stuck somewhere?
- Will I get a free trial of the system?
Further, explore this buyer’s guide (free comparison tool) to help you find the right software for your property.
How does the booking engine increase direct bookings?
The booking engine allows you to set up and display several widgets right on your website. Be it when the visitor comes on your website, or while leaving, or simply browsing through. The plug and play widgets will influence your looker to engage with you, push him to reach your booking engine page and eventually turn him into a booker.
Below are some of the must-have widgets that your booking engine should have to convert your lookers to bookers.
Welcome box: This tool appears as soon as the visitor lands on your website. Here, you can display some discount or offer that you might be currently running; thus encouraging them to book with you.
Sticky tool: Let your visitors know about free services that you provide like Wifi, airport transfer, or any other amenities that you’re offering to attract your lookers.
Floating tool: This tool gives valuable information to your visitor to book with you such as any service or amenities. It encourages bookers to directly book with you.
Reviews: Reviews play a huge role in convincing your lookers to book with you. Show your reviews on your website and create a sense of trust among your guests to impress your website visitors.
Promotion: Continuously display some promotions or discount deals on your website (if you’re running any) to attract the looker. Such deals will compel your lookers to directly book with you and get you direct bookings.
Quick notifications: Showcase recent bookings that you’ve received at your hotel using this tool. Say, someone from India is notified that 2 guests from India have booked your hotel. This will create a sense of trust and encourage them to book their stay as there are Indian guests staying at your property.
No. of bookings: Display the number of bookings you have got on your booking engine, such that any looker who sees the number; will get more influenced in booking with you.
Triggering tool: This tool lets you give shortcut links to your hotels’ website and constantly stays on your page; indicating exciting offers or discounts that urges the looker to book with you.
Exit Popup: This acts as an essential way to get more bookings. Just when the visitor is trying to leave your website, display an offer or some attractive information, which gives him one more chance to book with you.
A timely analysis is essential to get higher sales, direct bookings as well as to improve your guest experience. Good performing hotel websites will, in turn, drive your more direct-bookings and improve your hotels’ ranking. Moreover, make sure that your website is also performing well.
How can a booking engine save your time?
Hotel booking chatbots are the future of the hospitality industry and a powerful tool to generate more ROI. It works like a digital hotel attendant and responds to your hotels’ website inquiries smartly. They answer up to 80% of customer queries related to the hotel room, bookings, hotel amenities, discounts & promotions in a jiffy. Resulting which, your direct bookings get multiplied.
Benefits of having a chatbot:
- You’re always available for your guests
- Your website visitors get their answers instantly
- Escalates all the unanswered questions to you
- Get a detailed analysis of website conversion
Time to step ahead with a smart chatbot for your hotel by answering inquiries 24x7 and hikes reservations digitally.
What is the ideal cost of a booking engine?
Budget is, of course, an important factor for hoteliers to consider while choosing a software for their property. And, often these prices will be pretty comparative amongst the top brands that you are looking for.
A booking engine is usually offered on multiple subscription plans. But, it totally depends on the vendor that you choose as well as the company that you are purchasing from.
It also varies on your property requirements i.e size of your property, hotel chain, no.of rooms as well as any 3rd party integrations, that you take or any more custom requirements that you wish to add on.
So, the cost totally depends on the type of plan that you select as per your business requirement. To mention, the ideal pricing of an online booking system that covers all the features mentioned here roughly starts from US $29.
Who can use a booking engine?
The booking engine is a cost-effective and reliable online reservation solution, that eliminates intermediaries and allows hoteliers to sell their inventory directly to their guests. Hoteliers can make use of a booking engine to simplify their booking process and receive commission-free direct bookings.
Reservation manager: The reservation personnel can easily retrieve information on each reservation along with all necessary information like payment, guest details, preferences, etc using an online hotel reservation system.
Revenue manager: Revenue managers use booking engine software to perform operations like forecasting, pricing, inventory management, marketing and sales. Further, they can also analyze and compare your competitor's pricing as well as revenue using a rate shopper tool.
General manager: General managers use a hotel booking system to oversee their property’s performance data and analyze it. They use the data from the system to form business strategies and optimize performance.
Moreover, for hotels having extremely limited resources and operations, the front desk staff looks after the inventory distribution. In such cases, they too make use of a hotel booking system.
Frequently asked questions
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Why do you need a hotel booking engine?
Hoteliers generally need a booking engine to get direct bookings, stand ahead of their competition and stay open for more business. Having a reservation system allows your guests to book their preferred room type from PC, tablet or phone thus making their booking process simple and effective. Below are a few major reasons for the same:
- Your property is instantly bookable through your hotel website.
- You're not entirely dependent on OTAs.
- You pay fewer commissions.
- Increases your direct bookings.
and much more.
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Which kinds of properties can use a booking engine?
A booking engine can be used by all property sizes be it small, mid-sized or large. Also, it can be used by all types of properties such as a hotel, hostel, B&B, guesthouse, property chains as well as vacation rentals.
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Which is the best hotel booking engine?
There is no such tool as the best hotel booking engine. It all depends on your property and its requirements. If the software fulfills all your property needs then consider it as the best online hotel booking software.
You can check and compare some of the best ones here: Capterra, SoftwareAdvice, SoftwareSuggest, HotelTechReport, etc.
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What is the difference between a booking engine and a booking site?
A hotel booking engine is an application on hotels’ website and social media pages to capture and process direct online reservations. Whereas booking sites are travel websites that allow guests to book a room, flight, villas and such likes.
Examples of booking sites are Booking.com, Google, Trivago, Expedia, TripAdvisor, Agoda, etc.
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What is the difference between a booking engine and a channel manager?
A hotel booking engine is a software to take direct reservations for your property through your hotels’ website. It is your key to commission-free direct bookings and a way to optimize your property's sales strategy as well as maximize profit.
Whereas a channel manager is a system that broadcasts your property’s inventory to multiple channels and keeps all the information in "sync" between those channels. Further, it manages the online distribution of rates and inventory of your hotel.
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What are the advantages of receiving direct bookings?
An online booking system works 24*7 and gives freedom to your potential visitors to book a room anytime. Some of the advantages are:
- Creates brand value and saves your staff time.
- Easy booking procedure.
- Greater sales and better hotel marketing.
- More control over the online guest experience.
- Increases revenue by upselling extra services.
- Enhances competitive position.
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Can I get a free trial of the hotel booking engine?
Yes, you do get a 14-day free trial of the hotel booking system. This will help you to make sure that the software is suitable for your property type and fulfills all your requirements.
Evaluate and wisely choose the software!!
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Simplify your reservations by with a 14-day demo of the hotel booking engine.
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One step more to benefit your hotel
Stay updated on the latest hotel trends with our various FREE resources!
Explore Free hotel resourcesFurther reading
- A complete buyer’s guide to choose the best hotel booking engine
- 15 Ways to Increase Direct Bookings on Your Hotel Website
- Do’s and Don’ts for enhancing online hotel booking conversions
- 4 ways to track bookings on your hotel website
- 17 Ways to Improve Hotel Guest Experience
- Yield Management in Hotel Industry: Key Factor of Revenue Generation
- 5 ways to reduce last minute no-show & booking cancellations at your Hotel
- How to Effectively Design Hotel Booking Confirmation Email? [FREE Templates Inside]
- 15 Essential Hotel KPIs to Track Your Performance
- How to Perform Hotel Competition Analysis? [Step-by-step Guide]
