What are direct booking tools?
Direct booking tools allow your guests to book rooms directly from your hotel’s website or social media platforms. They are designed to streamline the booking process, making it easier for guests to make reservations, and for you to manage those reservations. Here are a few examples:
- Little Hotelier. An all-in-one property management system that is designed specifically for small hotels. It includes a booking engine that integrates with your website – as well as its own website builder – and allows guests to make reservations directly with you, no OTAs required. It also offers a front desk system, a reservation system, and a channel manager (and much more) to manage your online distribution channels.
- The Hotels Network. This platform includes a booking engine, a price comparison tool, and a personalisation tool that allows you to customise the user experience based on their behaviour.
- SiteMinder. Voted the #1 booking engine in 2023 by HotelTechReport, SiteMinder offers a seamless 3-step mobile booking experience, competitor and rate parity insights, and the ability to drive bookings from social media. It also provides a range of powerful third-party apps to maximise your direct revenue.
This blog will give you a full guide to direct booking tools and their importance for your property.
Why are direct booking tools important?
One of the biggest challenges that small hoteliers face is the dominance of Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia. While these platforms can help increase visibility and reach a wider audience, they can also charge high commission fees that eat into your profits and reduce your opportunities to grow.
Direct booking tools level the playing field by allowing you to take control of your bookings and reduce your reliance on OTAs. They also provide a more personalised experience for your guests, which can help to build loyalty and encourage repeat bookings.
In fact, direct booking tools are so powerful that they can help you get direct bookings even when you don’t have a website!
How can hotel direct booking tools improve revenue?
Direct booking tools offer a number of benefits that can help to boost your revenue. These include:
- Boosting website conversion. By providing a seamless and intuitive booking process, direct booking tools can help to increase the conversion rate on your website via a faster, more user-friendly experience.
- Greater control. Direct booking tools give you greater control over your pricing and availability, allowing you to manage your inventory more effectively. No more needing to dance to the tune of the OTAs – you set your own rates and policies.
- Monitoring and managing price parity. Some direct booking tools offer rate parity insights, allowing you to ensure that your rates are competitive across all platforms. Little Hotelier, for example, provides a powerful Competitor Insights report that helps you keep a close eye on the competition.
- Lower OTA expenses. By driving more direct bookings, you can reduce your reliance on OTAs and the associated commission fees. Some OTAs charge exorbitant commissions for even low value bookings; a direct booking tool empowers you to cut out the middle man.
- Improving guest experience. Direct booking tools allow you to provide a more personalised experience for your guests, which can help to improve satisfaction and encourage repeat bookings. When guests book directly, you have a better opportunity to gather and analyse their data and feedback, offering powerful insights on how to attract them or guests like them back to your business.
Convinced on the power of direct bookings? We can give you six clever ways to get more online reservations to boost your revenue.
What are the features of online booking tools?
The best direct booking tools offer a range of features designed to streamline the booking process and improve the guest experience. These include:
- Easy booking navigation. An easy-to-follow booking process with clear signposts around availability, pricing and policies help direct booking tools make it easy for guests to book with you.
- Customisable booking engine design. Many direct booking tools (including Little Hotelier) allow you to customise the look and feel of the booking engine to match your brand.
- Integration with other systems. Direct booking tools can often be integrated with your property management system (PMS), allowing you to manage your bookings and inventory from one place. Little Hotelier is an all-in-one solution, with our PMS and booking engine built on the same platform. No integration hiccups!
- Real-time availability. Direct booking tools show real-time availability, ensuring that your guests can see the most up-to-date information. More than that, they should also integrate with listings on other channels (like OTAs), so that you don’t risk double booking.
- Guest data capture. Direct booking tools allow you to capture valuable guest data, which can be used to personalise the guest experience and inform your marketing strategies.
- Secure payment process. Direct booking tools can offer secure payment processing, giving your guests peace of mind when making a booking.
When is it time to move to a new direct booking tool?
If your current booking system is not meeting your needs or helping you to achieve your goals, it may be time to consider a new direct booking tool. Here are a few signs that it might be time to make a switch:
- You’re not seeing an increase in direct bookings: The main purpose of a direct booking tool is to drive more direct bookings. If you’re not seeing an increase in direct bookings – well, it might be that the tool is to blame.
- You’re spending too much time managing bookings: If you’re spending a lot of time managing bookings and inventory, a high quality direct booking tool can help to streamline these processes and free up your time.
- You’re paying high commission fees to OTAs: If a large portion of your revenue is going towards OTA commission fees, a direct booking tool can help to reduce your reliance on OTAs and increase your profits. All direct booking engines can help with this, but some direct booking tools cost more money than they save. ROI is key!
- You’re not capturing valuable guest data: Direct booking tools allow you to capture valuable guest data, which can be used to personalise the guest experience and inform your marketing strategies. If your current system is not providing this data, it may be time to consider a new tool.
- You’re not seeing rate parity. It’s a fact that hotels that are undercut by OTAs see a 30% decrease in conversions on average. If your booking engine isn’t able to manage flexible rates for your rooms, you may need a better one.
Take control of your online bookings and increase your revenue
By using a booking engine like Little Hotelier, small hotels can reduce their dependence on third-party channels and increase their direct bookings. Best of all, with Little Hotelier, you get all-in-one direct booking management software with one single login, all in one place!
- Boost your website conversions with a seamless and intuitive booking process that makes it easy for guests to make reservations.
- Gain greater control over your pricing and availability, allowing you to manage your inventory more effectively and ensure that your rates are competitive across all platforms.
- Capture valuable guest data to personalise the guest experience and inform your marketing strategies, while also offering secure payment processing for peace of mind.
By using Little Hotelier, businesses can enhance their guest experience and revenue, with potential increases of up to 46% in bookings and an ROI of 63x!
By Dean Elphick
Dean is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist of Little Hotelier, the all-in-one software solution purpose-built to make the lives of small accommodation providers easier. Dean has made writing and creating content his passion for the entirety of his professional life, which includes more than six years at Little Hotelier. Through content, Dean aims to provide education, inspiration, assistance, and, ultimately, value for small accommodation businesses looking to improve the way they run their operations (and live their life).
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“The new app is a vast improvement, allowing our personnel to obtain price information while on the go, as well as providing a visual status for each booking.”