Integrate Your Channel Manager with Your Booking Engine to Streamline Your Guest Booking Experience

By integrating your channel manager with an Internet Booking Engine (IBE), you open the possibility of generating commission-free direct bookings. With a booking engine, flexibility and seamlessness are key: Most hotel booking sites suffer from an abysmal 2% (!!) conversion rate, meaning that for every 100 people who visit the site, fewer than 2 will actually book a room. The reasons for this are partially technological and partially market-oriented. Almost two-thirds of website traffic comes from mobile devices, and 53% of visitors will abandon a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Alternatively, over 69% of travelers worry about finding the best price, and in a digital version of “showrooming,” often visit a hotel’s website only to turn around and book through an OTA. Consequently, it’s important to have a booking engine that has a fast and seamless integration with your channel manager and PMS. It should also be mobile-optimized, with a colorful interface that makes it as easy as possible to view availability and book a room. You should also have a channel manager that can easily establish rate parity between your hotel’s website and various OTA listings to limit the incentive to “showroom.” Conversely, leveraging a booking engine’s ability to create custom add-ons, package deals, and specialized rates gives customers a reason to book direct 一 and keep booking directly in the future. Finally, being able to incorporate a customizable booking widget into any webpage makes it easy to drive bookings from social media and outreach campaigns.