Hotel Channel Manager – Why You Need One

You might wonder what a hotel channel manager can do for your hotel. You are an experienced hotelier and you know the ins and outs of your property management system (PMS) by heart.

But what if you could take that to the next level, with half the effort?

In the right hands, a hotel channel manager such as SiteMinder’s can revolutionise your day-to-day tasks on your PMS. Not only can it reduce your workload and allow you to focus on other aspects of running your hotel, but it can actually increase bookings.

 

Let’s take a look at how.

 

Hotel Channel Manager – What does it actually do?

A hotel channel manager provides a constant, two-way flow of information between your PMS and your selected online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Booking, Expedia etc. Availability, rates and bookings are constantly updated in real-time.

Something like this:

 

Without this easy communication you are in for a mountain of extra work. 

But let’s break it down and take a closer look at exactly what the advantages are.

No Duplication of Work

• Discrepancies

• Inventory Tasks

Real-time Updates

• Prevent Overbooking

• Cancellations

OTA Advantages

• New OTAs

• OTA Range

Hotel Channel Manager Advantages

No Duplication of Work

One PMS, one channel manager and no mistakes.

An integrated channel manager removes the need for manual duplication. Not only does this cut back on the day-to-day tasks, but it also improves your hotel management in two ways. 

Discrepancies

Real-time updates keep both you and your OTAs on the same page. Every single booking made is recorded and updated across your entire inventory in one moment. 

Without it?

Well your room availability would be all over the place until you manually update of course.

Inventory Tasks

If you work manually between your PMS and your selected OTAs, you will know the dreary task of splitting your inventory between them. Every so often you must monitor your availability, maybe juggle some rooms around between OTAs etc.

With a hotel channel manager, that is a thing of the past.

Using a pooled inventory model, all of your inventory is made available for OTAs all at the same time. You will never miss a single booking – at least until you are fully booked!

Real-time Updates

Real-time updates not only serve you in room availability, they can also save your bookings from unexpected incidents such as overbooking and cancellation.

Prevent Overbooking

While intentional overbooking may be a valid strategy for some hoteliers – more about that here – the consequences of accidental overbooking can be severe. They can also severely damage your reputation if not handled correctly.

With an integrated channel manager you simply need to update your PMS to adjust your booking availability. No need to worry if any maintenance work is ongoing, simply block out particular rooms over a time period within the PMS and your OTAs will get the message instantaneously.

Cancellations

No one likes cancellations, but they are an inevitability.

More often than not customers have made multiple reservations simply to make the choice between hotels at a later date – so it is nothing to take personally.

But it can damage your hotel bookings. These cancellations take up valuable rooms that other potential guests can be searching for. 

With an integrated hotel channel manager all of your OTAs are notified within moments of a cancellation. You automatically open up those cancelled rooms for more potential guests to make their own booking.

Then hope that they don’t cancel at a later date.

OTA Advantages

OTAs are a fantastic sales channel opportunity, even if we do prefer direct bookings…

But when it comes to attracting potential guests, they are second to none, and an integrated channel manager can streamline the process and reduce your workload easily.

New OTAs

International travellers are located across the world, so it takes time to pinpoint your ideal guest segment and geolocation.

It logically follows that you will need to sign up new OTAs depending upon your marketing strategy.

Thanks to an integrated hotel channel manager you no longer have to enter your inventory for each new OTA. All you have to do is connect with the leading OTAs in each country and the integration takes care of the rest.

OTA Range

International travellers tend to look around for what they believe to be the best prices, and they do this by surfing across multiple OTAs.

Now that your integration can quickly and easily connect with OTAs, you now have the ability to connect with even more OTAs. Suddenly your pool of potential guests has grown exponentially – with minimal work on your end.

So What Is The Best Hotel Channel Manager?

After meticulous, pain-staking research, we can definitively state that we have found the best hotel channel manager.

SiteMinder.

SiteMinder is the company behind the most user-friendly, yet powerful, hotel management solutions in the industry. Partnered with leading brands across the world, and processing 201 bookings per minute, SiteMinder is experienced when it comes to information processing.

But what’s so special about SiteMinder?

Because SiteMinder was designed by hoteliers, for hoteliers. The creators know the difficult job of being a hotelier and designed their channel manager in order to fix those issues.

That’s why here at Regent Marketing, we are happy to recommend their professional services for our clients. While you run the hotel, we fill up your rooms, and SiteMinder takes care of the laborious processing tasks.

Give us a call today if you have any more questions. Or better yet, contact us for a free consultation to understand the problems facing your hotel’s digital presence. We also have a range of guides available for hoteliers interested in brushing up on their knowledge!