It’s easy to get used to doing the same thing over and over again when managing your hotel business. Whether you’re using pen and paper to keep track of guests, or have a reservation system in place, it’s important to evaluate how much your current system is benefiting your property.
Having the right hotel reservation system in place can do wonders for your staff, guests, and your own productivity! In this blog, we’re giving you 4 key reasons why a hotel reservation system is beneficial for hotel owners.
Before we jump into it, let’s go over what a hotel reservation system is and how it works. A hotel reservation system is a hotel software that connects your front desk and room availability with your website to allow guests to book online with a “virtual front desk”. The reservation system will act as your front desk manager by showing available rooms, dates, pricing, and providing steps for guests to complete the booking online.
1. Increased efficiency for hotel staff
A hotel reservation system is designed to improve hoteliers time management through decreasing the need for manual reservations. Goodbye to the old fashioned way of calling to make reservations or using pen and paper to track rooms. With a hotel reservation system in place, hotel staff will be able to easily see room reservations online and make changes as needed. Plus, most hotel reservation systems come with additional revenue tools that allow you to create reports, track income, and make changes as needed (without having to calculate it all yourself). With live updates from your booking engine and weekly performance reports, hotel staff will save time and be able to serve your guests better!
2. Easy booking for guests
A hotel reservation system allows your guests the ease of booking online. With the growth of technology and virtual communication over the last decade, guests are turning to reserving rooms at the click of a button, instead of calling a property. With these changes, hoteliers need to make sure their system in place caters to guest booking styles.
An online booking engine is the key component that will allow for easy booking for your guests. This booking engine is shown to guests via your website and syncs directly with your hotel. Guests will be able to view information about your hotel, choose rooms, dates, make secure payments, and reserve their space directly from their phone or laptop! Maximize your hotel reservation system usage by ensuring it is mobile friendly so guests can book on the go. Having a hotel reservation system will improve your guest experience, reduce booking errors, and gives guests peace of mind when completing a transaction.
3. Expanded visibility for hoteliers
A key benefit of using a hotel reservation system that is often forgotten is the amount of visibility it will bring to your property. Most hotel reservation softwares will include channel management features that sync directly with your booking engine and reservation platform.
A channel manager will highlight your property on 100’s of online travel agent sites where guests are looking to book hotels! We know what you’re thinking, will I have to manually update my rooms and rates on every site? Nope! Channel managers sync your room and rates in real time across all channels so you can easily update your inventory with one click.
By utilizing the channel manager in a hotel reservation system, you’ll be opening your property’s doors for guests around the world. In fact, over 3 million reservations have been created for innRoad customers through OTAs. When choosing a hotel reservation system, having a channel manager is a game changer.
4. Improved reservation management for front desk workers
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a business that can run on auto-pilot with little help needed? Having a hotel reservation system for your property gets you close to accomplishing that! With guests reserving rooms all hours of the day, from anywhere in the world, your front-desk team is able to sit back and watch the reservations come in automatically. Of course, there’s always work to be done at a hotel, but hey, this definitely helps!
With a hotel reservation system in place, your team will have reduced human errors and more time to chat with new guests and build loyalty. Plus, your team will be able to access all reservations on the go. A hotel reservation system gives you the flexibility to manage your property from a desk, a car, a plane, a pool, an island in the sun… you get the point. Say goodbye to being chained to a desk and hello to easy property management.
Checking Out
It’s no secret that having a hotel reservation system in place will benefit your property. From simple online bookings, to increased visibility, to easier management and increased efficiency for your team, there are multiple ways a hotel reservation system will help your property continue to grow.
If you’re looking for a hotel reservation system that has the features mentioned above, our team would love to chat with you!
