Every hotel aims to increase its direct bookings.
NB: This is an article from eRevMax
They not only save on the commission cost paid to third parties like OTAs but also have full control over relation-building with guests from the beginning and build loyalty. Hotel Booking Engine is the gateway to direct bookings. The success of your hotel’s direct booking depends on how efficient your hotel booking system is and how seamless it makes the booking experience for the guests. Here comes the role of the hotel’s website.
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The website is your storefront. It is a reflection of your brand and what you promise to deliver. A slow-loading website is one of the prime reasons guests shift to other booking platforms like OTAs or other hotels by abandoning their bookings on your website. Along with this, other reasons include boring design, clumsy user interface, and Immobility. Booking experience can change the entire travel plan.
It’s true that a good online hotel booking engine will enhance the user experience by simplifying the process and allowing potential guests to make a reservation with a few clicks. But only an attractive website design and interface will motivate the guest to click on the “Book Now” button and reach the booking page. Can a booking engine provide this with a lagging website?
Hotel Booking Engine & Website Goes Hand-in-Hand
The majority of hoteliers treat booking engines and websites as 2 different products and aren’t aware of the effect of one on the other. Even the best hotel internet booking engine needs the support of the hotel website it is hosted on to convert visitors into guests.
FYI: Your hotel’s booking engine and website are the support system for each other.
Let’s see how they are interrelated:
1. Website Design Influences Traffic to Booking Engine
The look and feel of your hotel website have a significant impact on the traveler’s booking pattern. However efficient or user-friendly the booking engine may be, it won’t thrill the guest to click on the “Book Now” button if your website is dull and slow. Thereby affecting the traffic on your hotel’s booking engine. A non-appealing hotel website design won’t engage the user to make it to the booking gateway. Therefore, it is essential to successfully integrate your hotel booking system with an appealing website.
2. Proper Optimization Simplifies ARI Management
According to a recent poll conducted by eRevMax, 57% of hoteliers update their room rates and inventory multiple times a day. Consider manually updating the rates and availability individually across each platform every time you change it. It will not only waste your time but also delay the update and affect the performance. With a properly optimized internet booking engine and hotel website of the same degree, it will be much easier and faster to update your ARI in real-time. The 2-way XML connectivity will automatically pull in data simplifying hotel reservation management for you.
3. Seamless Integration Decides the User Experience
If the two aren’t integrated properly, your prospective guest may end up entering the search term again and again and landing on the wrong page. This repetitive process will increase the booking time and decrease the user’s rating on the experience scale. That’s why it is suggested to apply for a booking engine and website design & development by the same company as RateTiger.
4. Mobile Functionality Triggers Booking
As per Stratosjets, 70% of US travelers begin their booking journey on smartphones. Imagine the booking engine you are using is mobile-responsive, but your website isn’t or vice-versa. Will it allow the user to seamlessly book a room in your hotel from their mobile phone? Restricting the user experience on your site you will be losing prospective guests to top OTAs known for providing a mobile-friendly booking experience throughout the booking journey. Therefore, having a mobile-friendly hotel booking system and website is the key to winning direct bookings.
As a hotelier, your ultimate goal is to get the user to click on the Call-to-Action button on your website. To achieve this, your website must be intuitive enough to attract the user’s attention and properly integrated with the hotel booking engine to provide a seamless booking experience. Both the hotel booking engine and brand website work together to drive direct bookings and more revenue for your property.
