What is an integrated booking system?
An integrated booking system is software that connects your website and your direct booking engine to create a simplified and unified guest booking experience, making the job of handling reservations easier for a hotelier.
Integrated booking systems are specifically designed to get your website and booking engine working together to drive more reservations of greater value, offering a seamless and fully branded experience to your guests.
What is an integrated booking and payment system?
An integrated booking and payment system will also include a payments solution within the same platform to create an even more efficient and effective way of driving bookings and revenue.
Guests like using it because it’s more convenient for them. Instead of having to wait for you to be at your desk, they can quickly check your availability, book, and confirm their stays online.
Hotels of all sizes have had to adapt to the increasing demand for online bookings. Consider that a third of all spending on travel – to the tune of $145 billion – goes through online booking.
Your integrated booking and payment system is the key to securing more online direct reservations with minimal effort. It allows you to sell your rooms through:
- Your own website
- Your social media pages
- Metasearch sites like Google Hotel Ads
The system can take credit card details and work with an online merchant service or integrate with a payment gateway, or online payment processing software, to process deposits and payments.
Instead of having to manually input online bookings, the booking system automatically processes them, safely storing all of your customers’ data.
This article will explore how an integrated booking system can transform your property’s operations, helping you attract more direct bookings and enhance the guest experience from start to finish.
Boost direct bookings with Little Hotelier's all-in-one system
With features like real-time channel management, direct booking capabilities, and automated guest communications, Little Hotelier is designed to save you time and reduce OTA commission fees.
Watch demoWhy is an integrated booking system important for small properties?
Boosting direct bookings is essential for the success of your small property. The more you can rely on your own website, the less commission you have to pay to online travel agencies and the stronger your relationship with guests will become.
However, it’s not enough to simply have a beautiful website. You also need to give travellers a hassle-free way of completing their booking online from any device. That’s where an integrated booking system comes in.
Smooth integration between your website and booking engine is vital for providing a smooth and fast experience for guests as they complete their reservation.
When you’re owning and operating your bed and breakfast, managing these systems can quickly become a painful time-consuming task in itself!
Here are a few more scenarios that highlight the importance of having your B&B systems perfectly synchronised.
When you update your room rates and availability
Without well-integrated systems, you will spend hours updating multiple websites for rate and inventory changes. Each time a booking is made over the phone or on your website, you will have to rush to update your availability on the third party distribution sites being managed by your channel manager.
Sometimes, you’re just not quick enough. Guests get double booked! This can scare you from connecting to more online travel agencies (OTAs), even though it would mean that you tap into new, potentially lucrative markets.
On the other hand, a well-integrated solution will give you one place where you can update your rates and apply stop-sells. Using a pooled inventory model, the system automatically reduces availability when a room is booked on any one of your sales channels.
This means all your booking sites display the correct inventory without you having to stress or adjust a thing! The pain of double bookings can be washed from your memory.
When you have to reschedule guests
Without well-integrated systems, when one of your double-booked guests wants to reschedule, or be moved to another room, it could trigger a chain reaction of even more double bookings. Imagine that you log into your front desk system to reflect the changes, but within that time you received yet another booking that was not yet reflected on your calendar! Now, you have to tell another guest that their room needs to be changed, apologising profusely.
On the other hand, you can trust your calendar to be accurate when your systems all talk to each other. Everything is perfectly in sync! Also, it should be a simple drag and drop process to amend booking dates, and you should only be a few clicks away from logging a point of sale booking. The availability updates are immediately pushed across all of your online booking channels.
When guests check in or out
Without well-integrated systems, you’re scared to leave your desk because you’re not sure when guests will check in. The reason you don’t know is because it was never a required answer upon booking online – whether through a third party site, or your very own website.
You then struggle to organise your schedule. You have plenty of things to do around your property – including cooking and cleaning – but you can’t afford to have no one greeting guests as they arrive. Guests then need to wait as you prepare the room for them, resulting in further delays.On the other hand, when your booking engine and channel manager talks to your front desk system, all of the booking information is immediately accessible from your reservations calendar. You can make it a required field to provide check-in and check-out times at the time of booking. That way you can be totally organised and plan out your day with confidence.
If you can find an all-in-one solution, like Little Hotelier, that integrates a front desk system, channel manager, and booking engine, you’ll be set up perfectly for success!
What are the benefits of a hotel booking integration?
The integration of a booking system with your hotel website, and the subsequent ability for your guests to book directly, results in a wealth of compelling benefits. Here are four of the most compelling:
1. Generate more revenue
One of the biggest advantages of direct bookings is that you don’t have to pay commission fees to online travel agencies (OTAs), which typically take 15-25% of each booking. This means more money stays in your pocket.
Key feature to look for: Integration with online sales channels
While direct bookings are ideal, you still need to maintain visibility on OTAs and other channels. Your booking system should include channel management integration, which ensures that your availability and rates are updated across all platforms in real-time. This avoids overbookings while maximising exposure.
2. Price more competitively
Without OTA commission fees, you have the flexibility to offer lower prices while maintaining your margins. This makes your hotel more competitive, helping to attract more guests who prefer booking directly.
Key feature to look for: Dynamic pricing with advanced reports
Look for a booking system that includes advanced reporting features. These allow you to track room demand, occupancy rates, and competitor pricing, enabling you to adjust rates dynamically. By pricing strategically, you can remain competitive and maximise your revenue based on real-time data.
3. Enjoy greater control
Using an integrated booking system gives you full control over your bookings, allowing you to customise the reservation process. Unlike OTAs, you can collect detailed guest information and control how you manage that data.
Key feature to look for: Visual calendar and accessible guest data
A visual calendar helps both you and your guests easily view availability and pricing. In addition, having accessible guest data in a centralised, cloud-based system ensures you can retrieve information anytime, anywhere. This gives you deeper insights into your guests’ needs and preferences, allowing for better customisation of their experience.
4. Establish deeper customer connections
Direct bookings allow you to capture more guest data than you would through OTAs. This information enables you to build stronger relationships with your guests by offering personalised services, which lead to higher satisfaction and loyalty.
Key feature to look for: Automated emails and secure online payments
Automated email features ensure that each guest receives timely communications like booking confirmations, pre-arrival reminders, and post-stay follow-ups. Personalising these emails with your brand identity creates a consistent and professional experience for your guests. In addition, secure online payments help ensure guests feel confident when entering their payment details, fostering trust in your direct booking system.
How does an integrated booking system work?
Let’s walk through how using an integrated booking system can make your life as a small hotel or small accommodation owner easier, while improving guest satisfaction and increasing revenue.
Step 1: Maximise revenue and control with a channel manager
Imagine you’re running a small property and want to expand your visibility on platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb. Without a channel manager, you’d be logging in manually to each platform every day, updating your room availability, adjusting prices, and checking for new bookings.
With an integrated channel manager, this process becomes automatic. For example, let’s say you receive a direct booking through your website. Your channel manager instantly updates the availability across all OTAs you’re listed on, ensuring there’s no risk of overbooking. It also adjusts your rates in real time, so if your rooms are filling up fast, it can automatically increase your prices to capitalise on demand. Now you’re maximising your revenue without constantly logging in to multiple systems.
In practice: You receive a direct booking for two rooms through your website. Your channel manager syncs this information across platforms, and your updated availability is instantly reflected on OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia, reducing the chance of an accidental double booking.
Step 2: Make your website work for you 24/7
Let’s say a potential guest is browsing your website at 11 PM from their mobile phone. They’re interested in booking a room but want to see more details about the property. If your website is clunky or outdated, they might give up and move on to another option. But if you’ve integrated a mobile-friendly booking engine, your website is designed to work perfectly on their phone.
They can quickly view a visual calendar showing availability, check rates, and even take a 360-degree tour of your property. With one click, they book a room directly on your site, and their payment is processed securely. You wake up the next morning to see a confirmation email, knowing that everything was taken care of while you were sleeping.
In practice: A guest books a room on your site at midnight, selecting their dates using the visual calendar and paying securely with their credit card. The booking engine confirms their reservation instantly, syncing with your channel manager to update room availability across all platforms.
Step 3: Seamless and secure payments
Let’s say it’s checkout time. Without an integrated booking system, you’d be manually processing payments, logging into different systems, or chasing down invoices. But with an integrated system, the guest’s payment is already processed securely when they booked online.
Your secure payment gateway takes care of everything—whether guests paid with a credit card, PayPal, or another method. And since this is synced with your property management system (PMS), you don’t need to manually track or reconcile payments. It’s all done automatically.
In practice: A guest checks out after a weekend stay. Their payment was already processed when they booked through your website, and you don’t have to worry about chasing invoices or manually processing payments.
Step 4: Automate routine tasks
Running a small hotel or B&B often means managing countless tasks like sending booking confirmations, answering guest queries, and keeping track of special requests. Manually managing these can be time-consuming and prone to error.
With an integrated system, automated emails are sent for every important step. When a guest books, they get a confirmation email. Before they arrive, they receive a personalised welcome message with check-in instructions. After their stay, they get a friendly email asking for feedback or a review.
In practice: A guest books a room for a week’s stay. The system automatically sends them a booking confirmation. A few days before arrival, they receive an email reminding them of check-in times and offering tips about local attractions. After they leave, they receive a thank-you email with a request for feedback—all without you lifting a finger.
Step 5: Manage everything from one login
Let’s say it’s a busy Saturday afternoon and you’re juggling check-ins, housekeeping, and answering guest questions. In the middle of this, you receive a new booking, but you don’t have time to update your availability across all platforms manually.
With an integrated system, you don’t have to. From one dashboard, you can manage everything—bookings, rates, availability, and guest communications. It all syncs automatically, so you’re not scrambling to keep things up to date.
In practice: You log into your integrated booking system and can see all the new bookings for the week, manage room availability across all channels, and check guest details—all from one place. No need to switch between systems.
Ways to implement an integrated booking system
- Integrate with your existing website
If you already have a website on a platform like WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix, integrating a booking engine is as simple as adding a plugin. WordPress has plenty of booking plugins available, but you’ll want to choose one that offers secure payments, real-time syncing, and customisation options. Keep in mind that not all booking engines provide true two-way integration with OTAs, so ensure the one you pick can manage your inventory across all platforms.
- Use a booking system widget
Another option is to add a booking system through a widget—a snippet of code that you add to your website’s HTML. While this can be a simple way to add booking functionality, finding the right widget that’s secure, compatible, and customisable may take some trial and error.
- Host your website with an integrated provider
The simplest solution might be to host your website with an all-in-one booking provider, like Little Hotelier. Platforms like this offer a website builder that’s fully integrated with your booking system, ensuring smooth functionality from the start. You don’t need any coding knowledge or web development experience—everything is built and maintained for you. This option ensures the booking engine and website are fully compatible, providing the best user experience for your guests.
What is the most commonly used integrated booking system?
The most commonly used integrated booking systems in the hotel industry are platforms that offer seamless connection between booking engines, channel managers, and other property management tools. Here are three widely used examples:
- SiteMinder: SiteMinder offers integrated solutions for booking management, channel distribution, and guest engagement. We connect hotels to over 450 booking channels, helping properties manage their inventory, pricing, and reservations in real time. SiteMinder is trusted by thousands of hotels worldwide.
- Little Hotelier: Specifically designed for small hotels and B&Bs, Little Hotelier provides an all-in-one solution that includes a booking engine, property management system, and channel manager. This platform helps small properties manage daily operations while increasing direct bookings through an easy-to-use interface.
- Cloudbeds: Another popular system, Cloudbeds integrates channel management, a booking engine, and a property management system into one platform. It’s widely used by hotels of all sizes, offering tools to manage guest data, room inventory, and payments seamlessly.
Factors that affect the pricing of integrated booking systems
So it’s easy to see why a booking engine is a clever investment. But just how much money will you need to invest?
There are many things that could affect the price of this intelligent piece of technology. Here is what can affect the cost of your booking engine, as well as all the factors you need to consider.
Business model
The cost of using the software will either be in a commission-based or monthly subscription format. For example, it can be a flat $99 fee per month, or 10% of each booking.
At Little Hotelier we believe a monthly subscription is better for budgeting purposes, and it will allow you to reinvest most of your revenue back into the property as you grow (instead of taking a significant chunk of it).
Number of rooms
Many companies that offer monthly subscriptions will tier pricing according to the number of rooms per property. The more rooms you have, the more it will cost you.
This is understandable – more rooms means it’s a bigger job for your system to manage your room descriptions and inventory.
Number of users
Some companies charge you per additional user that you add to your account (for example, if you want to give your new receptionist access to it).
Your booking engine should allow you to set up different types of user roles, placing restrictions on what some users see. For example, your accountant would not need access to all parts of the system – only to certain reports.
Number of channels
If your online booking engine is part of an all-in-one business solution and also comes with a channel manager, there are two business models:
Plug and play
This is where you pay a flat fee and gain instant access to the channel manager’s existing integration. Little Hotelier is one example. You do not need to pay each time you want to link your inventory to any of the hundreds of channels that Little Hotelier integrates with. You simply pay Little Hotelier a flat fee per month for access to the technology and it is included in the cost.
Add on
This is where you have to pay your vendor a fee each time you want to link your inventory to a booking channel. This can be very expensive in the long run.
Support
Your booking engine is the core of running your business, so make sure you choose a company that is easy to reach, and very helpful. Find out if your online booking system will charge you for initial setup and training. Most will provide this at no cost.
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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“Using the calendar to look for upcoming and prior bookings is a breeze thanks to the well-designed layout and intuitive navigation.”
Claire Moseley,
Owner
Derwent House