How a Hotel Reservation Software Can Help You Enhance Your Hotel Business

Every year, the number of walk-ins in the hotel business decreases. In this era of global digitization, the bulk of hotel reservations is done online. Within that amount, 24.3% of reservations are made through an OTA, and 66% are booked through a hotel's website. This underlines how critical it is for hotels to connect to multiple internet booking platforms in order to grow and attract more consumers. And for exactly that, a central hotel reservation software is used to manage and improve all reservation-related procedures. In this blog, we will describe what is a central hotel reservation software, and why it is essential for hotels to integrate one with their hotel management software.

What is a Central Reservation System?

Let's begin at the beginning: what precisely is a central hotel reservation software? A CRS system is used in the hospitality industry, specifically in hotel management, to manage room rates and availability and to share this information across various distribution channels, such as online travel agents (OTAs) and the Global Distribution System (GDS). Because it connects and centralizes information from the property management system, different distribution channels, and call centers all in one platform, it is a critical tool for streamlining the operational processes that run behind a hotel, such as inventory management, guest profile management, generating necessary reports, and more. Different users, such as contact center personnel or remote reservations agents, can create and change bookings in one central location using the CRS. The CRS is your core source of reservation data, and it usually comes with or at least connects easily with your booking engine and hotel management system, ensuring that hotel rooms aren't overbooked across several channels. When a hotel room is booked on your website, the CRS notifies your property management system and distributes updated hotel reservation data to your website as well as third-party channels like GDS and online travel agents. Furthermore, it can manage not just single property bookings but also numerous journeys for a single property or several journeys throughout a chain of properties, all from a single tool.

The need for reservation software for hotels

Based on the hotel market mix, you might be getting bookings from a distribution channel outside of your website. Having control of all the distribution and booking channels ensures easy management and increases footfalls.

It helps hotels be flexible and increase direct booking

A central reservation system allows hotels and hotel chains to be more agile when it comes to implementing new hotel prices in response to changing the market. Because the worldwide market is not consistent, you can adjust the rates for different rooms, and the most recent pricing will appear on the booking website. You can alter the commission and cost of distribution resources in response to market movements in addition to occupancy rates.

Direct booking is the difference between a profitable and unprofitable hotel company, with OTAs receiving commissions ranging from 10% to 30% on each booking. Through the integration of the CRS with your website, you can offer guests an enhanced booking engine that not only takes care of single property booking but also allows guests to book multiple trips within a property or across different properties at the same time. It also gives them an opportunity to get a single itinerary for multi-property visits, which helps sell services and the use of promo codes. Additionally, it offers new, responsive designs that are mobile-friendly and allow easy access across devices be it smartphones, tablets, or laptops.

It improves profitability

Increased booking rates and income are other benefits of having a central reservation system at your hotel/ hotel chain property. With the help of a CRS, you can gain sophisticated data insights on your hotel chain's revenue, bookings, occupancy, and much more in the form of graphs and reports. This can help you understand your guests' booking habits, understand the time period when you are at your best and why your hotel is experiencing an off-season, and what you can do to turn things around. Let's presume your hotel's business is abnormally slow in the last two weeks of February. You can know it's recurring since you have the previous year's booking information in your CRS. Why do the bookings drop at that time of the year? It may be because it's just after Valentine's Day, or because many tourists are on a tight budget after overspending on New Year's and Valentine's Day. In this situation, the traveler's refusal to choose you is due to a lack of funds. Could you reduce your prices for these two weeks or entice your potential guests with a special offer? Even if this results in your hotel being 80 percent booked rather than the normal 30 percent, you'll still make more money with the cheaper cost. Secret discounts, blended prices, retrieving abandoned carts, and monitoring competitor pricing are all examples of capabilities offered with a CRS that can help your hotel increase profits.

It keeps booking mistakes under control

 It is human to make mistakes, but reserving the same accommodation for two distinct visitors harms the company image and leads to consumer unhappiness. Because a CRS maintains communication between various distribution channels, it decreases the possibility of booking errors. With a centralized reservation system, you can get a comprehensive view of room availability and inventory across all your hotel chain properties. Additionally, with the help of a CRS, you can see the room status across all your hotel properties in real-time, all your reservations are synced under one platform and real-time information is updated across all your booking platforms. This enables you to avoid overbookings and increase profitability.

You can offer personalization with a CRS

To improve footfall, you must think outside the box and provide exceptional customization and personalization to your guests. Using the CRS system, you may save the customer's birthday, anniversary, preferred cuisine, room kinds, and other information to provide a more customized experience in the coming future. With more than 70% of guests having a favorable experience with personalization, neglecting it might be the difference between success and failure. Surprisingly, 58 percent of individuals over the age of 55 don't mind when hotels use their personal information to give unique bargains, incentives, and even loyalty points. Customers who shop online demand an experience that is tailored to their needs. Consider how a regular visitor to your hotel would react if you offered them a complimentary birthday cake or a spa treatment. They'd be overjoyed. You've most likely created a customer for life by utilizing the power of personalization. A CRS also aids in the decoding of a customer's buying habit, which is critical in establishing long-term connections. Service and customer experience are essential in the hotel industry, and you must have a system in place to better understand your customers.

It allows you to keep track of your bookings

It may be difficult to keep track of your bookings, especially if you have numerous properties and use a variety of distribution methods. CRS gives you a simple way to instantly synchronize all of your reservations in one system, preventing multiple bookings and overbookings. Through the CRS system, hotel staff can view all bookings not just from one hotel but the entire hotel chain from a centralized location. It clears up any ambiguity or scheduling issues. You'll be better prepared for peak season and will be able to relax your team during the off-season. 

Secondly, your hotel's inventory and bookings are as necessary as water to a thirsty person. You won't have to worry about overbooking or other booking errors if your hotel's inventory is managed by a reliable central reservation system.

Additionally, with CRS, you can even keep tabs on the hotel's marketing efforts. Using the central reservation system, evaluate the marketing strategy's efficacy and make required adjustments.

It reduces operational costs

Booking a room, reserving a table, and other tasks are automatically handled by the software, which relieves the front-desk workers of their load. This frees up your front-office staff to devote their time to more important tasks, such as guest engagement. It enables hotels to more clearly define employee duties, resulting in significant time savings daily.

A central reservation system for hotels is an investment that will pay off in the long run by increasing efficiency and production at your hotel. You'll have access to automatically updated pricing and availability, as well as a simple booking and reservation process. You can improve your visitor experiences and keep track of bookings using the information acquired. You can also prevent all of the booking errors that come with manual booking, and correcting such errors will keep your guests satisfied, and they'll most likely tell their friends about you. Finally, and maybe most importantly of all these advantages, there's the chance to reach a large worldwide audience. You'll never go back to using a CRS once you've used one.

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Created on May 9th 2022 14:40. Viewed 288 times.

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