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There was a time when all you needed to do to draw customers was to offer outstanding customer service and hope that word-of-mouth would spread widely. Both the times and your visitors have changed. These days, being a hotelier means more than just providing excellent service. Even if word-of-mouth matters, you are expected to do more to get customers. It entails anticipating the requirements of your visitors and being present for them before they ever make a reservation. How do you reach out to potential clients and capture their interest before your rivals? How can you get ahead of clients who are busy organizing their next trips and accommodations?
A channel manager is what?
A channel manager is a software that enables your hotel to simultaneously sell all of its rooms on all the associated online travel agencies and direct booking channels. When a booking is made, space is closed to sales, or you wish to make wholesale adjustments to your inventory, a channel manager can instantly update your availability on all websites.
A channel manager might assist if you are trying to market your hotel rooms via several internet channels, such as your website and online travel agencies, and you find it challenging to keep your listings current and optimized.
Channel managers were developed to assist hoteliers in navigating the new market without losing customers or revenue in light of the recent explosion in travelers preferring to book their accommodations online and the growth of online booking agents. A channel manager can significantly increase a hotel's ability to attract bookings and maximize profit. This blog gives you a comprehensive overview of the hotel channel manager.
What is a channel manager's process?
A channel functions by automating and updating your hotel's inventory in real-time and exchanging reservation information back and forth with your property management system. When a room is reserved, the channel manager will update your inventory across all your linked channels and communicate this information to your PMS.
Check out this extensive list of advantages a channel manager may provide for a hotel
Boost online reservations
A channel manager puts you in the most fantastic position to benefit from this new traveler booking habit as phone and walk-in reservations are declining, and online bookings are increasing. Connect to more internet booking platforms where more travelers are reserving their accommodations.
Boost hotel income
Given that a channel manager shows real-time prices and availability across all your channels at once and automatically refreshes, you may accept reservations more quickly and almost eliminate the possibility of multiple bookings. Additionally, you can make sure that your rates are continually optimized and that you are using the most profitable channels by analyzing the data provided by your channel manager.
Lessen the possibility of overbooking
You are compelled to divide your inventory among channels without a channel manager, running the risk of multiple bookings or not reaching full occupancy. Customers may only ever reserve a genuinely available room thanks to pooled inventory and automatic real-time updates of availability and rates.
Increase brand awareness
With the help of the best channel manager online, you will have two-way, unfettered access to hundreds of booking channels, allowing guests who would never have heard of you to book accommodations at your establishment. Additionally, since OTAs know your inventory will always be accurate, they are more inclined to approve your listing.
Boost direct reservations
Although it may not make sense, it is real! Many visitors will initially see your property on an OTA, but they want to know more about you before making a reservation. They frequently browse your website before deciding to make a reservation. Consequently, your hotel will make more money because the direct sale originated on the OTA website. The billboard effect is what is meant by this.
Eliminate manual procedures
We all know entering data manually takes a lot of time and is frustrating. You would realize how much more productive you can be if you used a channel manager to reduce this friction. Prioritizing anything that has to be delayed will help the firm.
Build a tech stack that is smooth and integrated
A channel manager may link with your property management system, central reservation system, revenue management system, and booking engine to establish a single control system for your hotel's activities, eliminating the need to update information in several extranets.
To become a potent business platform
A good channel provides total data transparency across all systems and media, allowing you to use the information you get to determine which channels or rooms are operating at their peak efficiency. It implies that you may regularly adjust your corporate strategy. Check out your reservation trends, channel yield, and channel analysis reports to discover where things are going good or wrong!
Become less dependent on conventional booking methods
There is no recommendation that you abandon established practices like accepting walk-ins or phone bookings. Saving a portion of your inventory for specific uses may be pretty beneficial. However, if you use a channel manager, you won't need to be concerned about crowding your rooms this way. Connecting to a sizable number of internet booking websites will guarantee that your occupancy is consistently constant.
Keep everyone in agreement
Hotels frequently utilize numerous staff members to use the system since quality channel managers are so simple. You may readily mark important dates in the system if the primary user is departing or won't be accessible to make modifications, letting everyone know if they need to modify a rate, shut a room, etc. For instance, they may indicate when school breaks are so that you might raise charges.
Key conclusions
The best management tool for managing your online sales is a
channel manager . Online travel agencies, metasearch engines, your website, and social media pages are some examples of your online distribution channels. Technology and strategy are required for effective channel management. Numerous channel manager businesses cater to properties of various sizes. Integration of channel managers with your current systems is necessary.