Why do you need an online booking engine?

Your booking engine will allow your hotel to increase direct reservations and profit by:

Providing a simple booking process that allows guests to choose and pay for their rooms quickly and easily

Seamless website integration that means the guest enjoys a consistent brand experience

Secure online payments that give you your money fast and keeps guest data safe

Channel manager integration to eliminate manual data entry and to track performance

What should inventory management software include?

Managing and disitributing your room inventory requires you to use multiple features that work seamlessly together. At a minimum, to manage your inventory effectively, you’ll need:

A channel manager.

A booking engine.

A front desk system.

This will allow you to automate your inventory management and limit any doubling up of data. Ideally, these features will be from the same software provider so that integration is seamless and functionality is smooth. An all-in-one solution like Little Hotelier is a perfect option for small accommodation businesses.

What should inventory management software do for your property?

The best inventory management software will allow you to:

Sell your rooms on additional channels with no extra effort.
Sell your rooms directly on your website or via your Facebook page.
Enjoy automated updates performed in real-time.
Get key performance insights.

It’s important that your software is easy to use, saves you time, and offers the right features and data for you to make better decisions. Ultimately, you should see increased revenue and greater efficiency at your property.

How to choose the best inventory management software

When choosing your provider it’s a good idea to ask some key questions:

Is the software an all-in-one solution that provides everything I need?

Will the software be customisable to suit my brand?

Does it enable seamless integration?

Will it save time and increase revenue?

Is there one interface to oversee all inventory management?

Why choose Little Hotelier as your hotel room inventory management software

Trusted by more small properties than any other global provider.

Connected to 400+ booking channels.

Backed by SiteMinder’s powerful technology – processing over 100 million reservations each year.

Designed with small properties in mind, prioritising ease of use and putting you back in control.

Frequently asked questions about hotel inventory management software

What is an inventory management system for hotels?

An inventory management system is a tool that will allow you to automate the way you manage and distribute your property’s rooms online. It’s automated, cloud-based, software that uses the internet to help perform and communicate inventory updates instantly. Hoteliers use inventory management systems to ensure they are selling as many of their rooms as possible in the right places, for the right price.

How does inventory management software work?

Inventory management software such as a channel manager uses two-way communication to share data between booking channels and the hotel itself. This allows data to be correct in all places at the same time and ensures any updates are implemented in real time. An example of this is when a guest books a room on Booking.com. The inventory management software will ensure that the booking data is shared to the hotel and across all other connected booking channels. The result is that the room that was booked cannot be booked elsewhere, preventing the risk of overbookings. It also saves the hotelier time because they no longer have to manually update their inventory on their front desk system or within the extranets of the booking channels.

What is the best hotel inventory management system and method?

The best inventory management system is an all-in-one system that can cover all the bases you need to effectively manage and sell your inventory. For instance, Little Hotelier includes a front desk system, channel manager, and booking engine. This allows you to optimise the way you sell your rooms online, via OTAs and your own direct channels, while utilising automation to save time and reduce human error.

The best inventory method is pooled inventory, as enabled by channel management software. Pooled inventory means you can advertise your entire inventory on every booking channel you connect to, and your own website. You don’t have to worry about sending some rooms to one channel, and some to another.

Can you get inventory hotel management software for free?

Yes, you can get started for free using hotel management software. Little Hotelier offers a free period of 30 days so that you can experience the full benefits of the features, and see how it helps your property’s inventory management. After your free period you’ll move to a paid subscription based on the plan that you signed up on. You can check out your pricing options here.