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What is a hotel booking engine? Key functions and top 6 software providers

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By Lana Cook

Are you wondering whether you need a hotel booking engine? Many hoteliers question if it’s worthwhile investing in a direct booking strategy or if they can solely rely on online travel agencies (OTAs) like Airbnb, Booking.com, or Trip.com to fill occupancy.

What many lodging businesses overlook are the different ways direct bookings can be captured. Using an online booking engine, hotels can drive direct reservations on their own website, metasearch engines like Trivago and Google, social media platforms, email, messaging apps, and more.

Mastering the art of direct bookings is pivotal for a property’s success. It’s not just about filling rooms but creating and owning an experience that speaks to each guest. At the heart of this strategy lies booking engine software that can elevate the guest experience, optimizing it for convenience and profitability. 

In this guide, we’ll examine how an integrated booking engine brings value to lodging operators, using real-world examples from our customers and advice on what to look for in a new booking system.

What is a hotel booking engine? 

A booking engine is a platform used by lodging businesses to capture direct bookings anywhere a guest might be online. Think of your booking engine as a bridge between potential guests and your property, facilitating a seamless booking experience without the need for third-party intervention via online travel agencies (OTAs), GDSs, travel agents, or online marketplaces. 

Today, lodging operators can choose an integrated booking engine that seamlessly collects and sends reservation details and payment information to their property management system (PMS), channel manager, payment gateway, and more. 

In the following sections, we’ll look at how a hotel booking system can help you customize the traveler journey, secure more commission-free bookings, increase revenue, and gain valuable insights into guest behavior, and explore six of the top hotel booking engines on the market. 

Customize the traveler’s journey 

Consumer preferences have shifted significantly with the introduction of highly personalized technology like Netflix, Amazon, and Uber. To keep up with travelers’ desire for convenience and personalization, lodging operators must leverage their booking engine’s features.

Your online booking system can help to customize the guest journey through the following methods. 

• Upsells and add-ons. Travelers crave experiences. Your booking engine can introduce guests to a range of activities and experiences both in-house and with your partners that can enhance their stay and increase your overall revenue. Think room upgrades, bike rentals, city tours, or wine tastings – all available during the reservation process.
• Multiple rate plans. On your booking engine, showcase your different rate plans like breakfast included, early-bird, or extended-stay discounts so that travelers can choose the plan that best fits their needs. 
• Transparency. Travelers should have full transparency when looking at your booking engine’s calendar to see restrictions like length of stay, closed-to-arrival, and closed-to-departure so they can easily choose dates without running into errors. 
• Branding. First impressions matter. When a potential guest moves through your hotel website and lands on your booking engine, it should provide a consistent look and feel. A customizable booking engine will allow you to tailor design elements to ensure your brand’s colors, fonts, and overall aesthetics are met to reinforce trust and confidence with website visitors.
• Language and currency. The world is more connected than ever. To cater to this global audience, booking engines must offer multi-language support and currency conversion to streamline the booking process for international guests. 

The ZERO Hotels customizes its booking engine to instill trust in travelers 

The ZERO Hotels are a unique collection of properties across Portugal that offer guests an unparalleled lodging experience. Their ZERO Box Lodge is the most popular offering, inspired by Japanese capsule hotels where guests stay in minimalistic wooden boxes equipped with a private bathroom in a shared dorm. 

Bernardo Thierstein, General Manager at The ZERO Box Lodge Porto, knew they needed a hospitality platform and booking engine that was easy to use and provided the freedom to experiment with rate plans and promotions to drive more direct bookings.

The ZERO Hotels adopted the Cloudbeds Platform and seamlessly integrated the Cloudbeds Booking Engine to match the design of their existing website and collect payments securely. They’ve seen a huge increase in direct bookings thanks to their connection to Google Hotel Search, and Bernardo plans to experiment with the Booking Engine’s design and promotional offerings to drive even more. 

Secure direct bookings 

Travelers have a ton of options when it comes to making online reservations. To steer them towards your direct channels, it’s important to provide a secure and seamless guest experience. 

Here’s how your booking engine can help drive more direct bookings. 

• Secure payment processing. Financial security tops the list of concerns for most travelers booking with their credit card online. Using a booking engine with a secure, encrypted, and integrated payment processor (made clear on your site) can reassure travelers and increase conversion rates.
• Automated emails and messages. Instant gratification is the hallmark of the digital age. Once a booking is made, guests expect prompt confirmation via email and other messaging platforms (ie. SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger). 
• Mobile functionality. An Expedia study found that 32% of travelers booked their most recent trip on mobile. A mobile-responsive booking engine ensures a user-friendly experience for travelers to effortlessly make reservations on the go.
• Metasearch integrations. Travelers use booking sites like Trivago and Tripadvisor to compare hotels and book. Integrating with these engines and offering real-time pricing and availability ensures that guests book directly instead of with an OTA.
• Rate comparison widget. Price comparison is second nature today, so a rate comparison widget is vital to any booking engine. This widget displays how your rate compares to OTAs, nudging guests to book directly (assuming you’re offering the lowest price). 
• Deals and promotions. To urge travelers to book direct, allow them to book special offer rates or use promotion codes only available via your booking engine. Consider offering weeknight rates, promo codes for special events, or loyalty discounts for repeat customers. 

Himmapana Villas experiences massive growth in direct bookings

Located in the Kamala Beach area in Phuket, Thailand, are four dreamy luxury resorts that make up the Himmapana brand . Thomas K. Petersen, Managing Partner, went from managing three villas to building Himmapana, which consists of 41 high-end villas complete with luxury pools, massage services, private chef bookings, and much more. 

The Himmapana Villas manage around 2,000 bookings annually and needed a reliable hospitality platform, especially a booking engine that could take bookings 24/7.

Since adopting the Cloudbeds Platform, Thomas and his team have seen massive growth in the volume of direct bookings over the past year. He attributes this success to a strong presence on social media channels in conjunction with the Cloudbeds Booking Engine and payment processor on their website. 

Increase revenue and profitability 

An integrated booking engine is a game-changer for increasing revenue and overall profitability. It can help you pocket more from guests with little to no output. 

Here are a few ways a booking engine can help increase your revenue and profitability.

• Diverse distribution mix. Creating a more diverse distribution mix made up of both OTAs and direct sources is crucial for optimal profitability. If you rely too heavily on OTAs, you risk giving away your profit in commissions. 
• Intelligent pricing. Booking engines integrated with a pricing intelligence engine or revenue management system can help you price more strategically using automation, adjusting rate plans and room types based on demand, seasonality, and other factors in the hospitality industry.
• Multi-property functionality. If you have multiple properties, your booking engine can serve as a unified portal for guests to search across your portfolio. This provides a better user experience and can strategically guide visitors towards higher-margin properties or dates with greater availability. 

Insights into guest behavior

Your website collects immense amounts of data, and your booking engine can help you understand it.

Here’s how your booking engine can help provide insight into your guests. 

• Robust reporting. Integrated booking engines come equipped with in-depth reporting capabilities since data is centralized from your PMS and channel manager. These reports can shed light on booking trends, average length of stay, and guest preferences to help guide decision-making. 
• Integration with Google Analytics. Use Google Analytics to track and generate reports on every shopper that passes through your booking engine to gain a granular understanding of guests’ online behaviors. 
• Facebook Pixel tracking. If you’re running Facebook ads, you can keep track of conversions and optimize your audience and messaging to boost ad performance and drive more bookings. 

What to consider when choosing a booking engine provider

Now that you know what to look for in a reservation system – it’s time to choose the right provider. Some must-haves include:

Pricing model. Does the provider work on a per-booking commission basis? Does a flat fee/subscription model apply? Are there mandatory setup fees? 

Onboarding and ongoing support. Before deciding on a provider, you’ll want to know what it takes to get started. How long is the onboarding process? Is there guidance for setting up your account? What kind of support do they offer? How robust is the knowledge base for self-service learning and troubleshooting?

Safety and security compliance. When it comes to software that handles sensitive data, like your room rates and guest payment information, you’ll want to ensure your data is secure. Inquire about compliance: PCI DSS, SCA, Guest data compliance, and GDPR. 

Customer reviews. Check online reviews on reputable software review sites like Capterra, Software Advice, and Hotel Tech Report. 

6 best booking engine software for hotels 

We’ve included six of the top booking engine systems on the market to help increase direct bookings and revenue.

1. Cloudbeds

Cloudbeds’ award-winning, commission-free booking engine seamlessly integrates with a hotel’s website to capture reservations across distribution channels. It offers a range of rate plans, add-ons, and promotional codes to maximize revenue and offers real-time payment processing integrations for a smooth and hassle-free booking process.

The Amadeus Integrated Booking Suite offers an end-to-end eCommerce platform leveraging best-in-class web, reservations, and guest management solutions. 

Cendyn Booking Engine is a robust booking engine that offers real-time inventory management and dynamic pricing capabilities. 

SynXis Booking Engine (Sabre) is an online booking platform designed to help hotels expand their market reach while improving direct channel conversion rates. 

5. Siteminder

The Siteminder Booking Engine is a sophisticated online reservation platform designed to drive direct bookings for hotels, boosting revenue while minimizing dependency on third-party booking sites. 

The SHR Booking Engine is an advanced booking engine platform designed to enhance direct bookings and revenue management for hotels. 

Earn more with an integrated online booking engine 

The right booking engine can completely transform your booking experience. It customizes the traveler’s journey to instill trust with potential guests, facilitates secure direct bookings, helps increase revenue via dynamic pricing and relevant upsells, and provides crucial insights into guest behavior. 

About Lana Cook

Lana Cook is a Content Writer at Cloudbeds where she is able to combine her love of writing and passion for travel. She has spent the last few years writing about all things technology and the ways in which it can be used to help businesses thrive. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her checking out the latest movie or searching for a new TV show to binge.

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You might also be interested in..., ai in hospitality: 12 ways artificial intelligence is impacting hotels, the impact of modern housekeeping technology on hotels’ costs and operations, cloudbeds to usher in the era of ‘decision intelligence’ at upcoming passport conference.

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Dive into the World of Hotel Booking Engines: A Complete Guide to Features, Benefits, and the Future

Hotel booking engines are not merely tools; they are catalysts for transforming the guest experience. From simplifying reservations to enhancing personalization and embracing future technologies, these engines play a pivotal role in shaping the future of hotel bookings. By demystifying the complexities surrounding booking engines, hotels can harness their power to provide seamless, enjoyable, and memorable experiences for every guest.

In the ever-evolving landscape of the hospitality industry, hotel booking engines have become integral tools for both hoteliers and guests. This comprehensive guide aims to demystify the innerworkings of hotel booking engines, shedding light on key features, benefits, and the profound impact they have on the overall guest experience.

Understanding the Basics: What is a Hotel Booking Engine?

At its core, a hotel booking engine is a software application integrated into a hotel's website that allows guests to reserve rooms directly. Unlike traditional booking methods, these engines provide real-time information on room availability, rates, and promotions. They act as a bridge between the hotel and potential guests, facilitating seamless and instant bookings.

Key Features of Hotel Booking Engines: Unveiling the Machinery

User-friendly interface, exploring intuitive interfaces: elevating the booking experience.

In the realm of hotel booking engines, the user interface serves as the digital gateway that connects potential guests with their desired accommodations. An intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface is a cornerstone in shaping a positive user experience, ultimately influencing guests to make swift and informed booking decisions.

The significance of such an interface lies in its ability to empower guests with the information they need promptly. From displaying real-time room availability to presenting transparent pricing details, every aspect is meticulously designed to instill confidence and encourage swift decision-making.

Real-Time Availability

The importance of real-time updates in hotel booking engines.

In the intricate dance of hotel bookings, real-time updates emerge as the unsung heroes, ensuring a harmonious symphony between guest expectations and hotel operations. The significance lies in the precision and immediacy these updates provide, offering guests accurate information on room availability.

In the fast-paced world of travel, guests crave certainty. Real-time updates serve as the beacon, guiding them through their booking journey with confidence. The engine's ability to reflect the actual availability of rooms prevents the nightmare scenario of overbookings, a pitfall that can lead to disgruntled guests and operational chaos.

Moreover, these updates act as a safeguard against discrepancies, aligning guest expectations with the hotel's capacity. Imagine the frustration of a guest expecting a luxurious suite only to find out it's not available upon arrival. Real-time updates eradicate such scenarios, ensuring a seamless and transparent booking experience.

 For hoteliers, the implementation of real-time updates is a strategic move towards operational efficiency. It stream lines the booking process, minimizes the risk of errors, and ultimately contributes to the overall satisfaction of both guests and staff. In the intricate ballet of hotel management, real-time updates take center stage, orchestrating a flawless performance that elevates the entire guest experience.

Pricing Transparency

Transparent pricing: building trust for a positive booking experience.

One of the cornerstones of a positive booking experience lies in transparent pricing, where hotels openly communicate room rates, special offers, and discounts. This transparency is not just a pricing strategy; it's a fundamental element that fosters trust with potential guests.

When hotels provide a clear breakdown of costs, guests feel confident in their decision-making process. The openness about room rates, additional fees, and any applicable discounts eliminates uncertainty, creating a sense of fairness. This clarity is especially crucial in an era where consumers value honesty and authenticity.

Special offers and discounts playa pivotal role in this trust-building process. By showcasing promotions prominently on the booking engine, hotels signal their commitment to offering value. Guests appreciate knowing that they are getting the best possible deal, and this assurance contributes significantly to their overall satisfaction.

Moreover, transparent pricing aligns with the broader trend of consumer empowerment. In an age where information is readily accessible, guests appreciate hotels that respect their intelligence by providing straightforward pricing information. This transparency not only attracts bookings but also establishes a foundation for positive guest relationships, encouraging repeat business and positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

Mobile Responsiveness

In an era dominated by mobile technology, the role of mobile responsiveness in hotel booking engines is pivotal. The growing trend of on-the-go bookings underscores the necessity for seamless experiences across devices. Mobile responsiveness ensures that potential guests can effortlessly navigate the booking process, whether they are using smartphones or tablets. This adaptability not only caters to the evolving preferences of travelers but also significantly expands a hotel's reach. A well-optimized mobile experience contributes to increased booking conversions, as users enjoy a smooth, user-friendly interface. Emphasizing the importance of mobile responsiveness is crucial for hotels aiming to capture the attention of tech-savvy travelers and provide them with the convenience they seek in their booking journey.

Benefits of Hotel Booking Engines: Transforming the Guest Experience

Streamlined booking process.

Hotel booking engines streamline the reservation process, empowering guests to book directly, eliminating the need for intermediaries. This direct booking approach translates to heightened efficiency and convenience. By cutting out middlemen, guests gain real-time access to accurate room availability, rates, and promotions. This transparency fosters trust and expedites decision-making. The seamless interaction with the booking engine not only enhances the user experience but also ensures that guests have a direct line to the most up-to-date information, facilitating a smoother and more immediate booking experience.

Increased Revenue Opportunities

In the dynamic landscape of hotel management, features such as dynamic pricing and upselling capabilities play a pivotal role in optimizing revenue. Dynamic pricing adapts room rates based on real-time demand, allowing hotels to capitalize on peak periods and adjust prices strategically during low occupancy. Simultaneously, upselling features encourage guests to enhance their experience with additional services or room upgrades, creating opportunities for increased spending. This symbiotic relationship ensures a win-win scenario, where guests receive personalized offerings, and hoteliers maximize revenue by leveraging flexibility in pricing and enticing guests with tailored, value-added options.

Enhanced Guest Personalization

Hotel booking engines empower hotels to create personalized guest experiences by gathering and leveraging guest preferences. As guests engage with the booking process, the system captures vital information, such as room preferences, special requests, and desired amenities. This data becomes a valuable resource for hotels to tailor services, ensuring guests receive precisely what they desire. From room configurations to additional services like spa treatments or dining preferences, this personalized touch enhances guest satisfaction, fosters loyalty, and sets the stage for a memorable stay. The integration of guest preferences into the booking experience exemplifies the transformative capabilities of modern hotel booking engines.

Improved Operational Efficiency

Booking engines revolutionize hotel operations, acting as efficiency catalysts by automating intricate processes. Their impact is profound, reducing manual errors associated with traditional booking methods. With real-time updates on room availability, rates, and promotions, these engines streamline workflows, allowing staff to dedicate more time to personalized guest service. The result? Improved operational efficiency, heightened guest satisfaction, and a shift towards a guest-centric approach. By automating administrative tasks, hoteliers can redirect their efforts towards creating memorable experiences, ensuring a seamless balance between technological advancement and exceptional hospitality.

The Guest Journey: Navigating the Booking Experience

Browsing and selection.

Embarking on a seamless guest journey starts with the initial browsing phase, where potential guests explore your hotel's offerings. Clear, visually appealing displays entice visitors to move to the next step. As they progress, the intuitive design of the booking engine simplifies the selection of dates, room types, and any desired amenities. This user-friendly experience ensures a frictionless journey, enhancing the likelihood of conversion. From the first click to final confirmation, each step is carefully crafted to engage and assist guests, making their booking experience both efficient and enjoyable.

Confirmation and Post-Booking Communication

In the realm of hotel bookings, the significance of automated confirmations and post-booking communication cannot be overstated. These features go beyond mere transactional elements; Hey form a crucial part of the guest experience journey. Automated confirmations provide guests with instant reassurance, confirming their reservation details promptly. Subsequent post-booking communication keeps guests engaged by offering relevant information, personalized recommendations, and details about upcoming stay experiences. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also establishes a proactive and guest-centric approach, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable journey from the moment of booking to the actual stay.

Looking Ahead: Future Trends in Hotel Booking Engines

Ai revolutionizing hotel bookings: a glimpse into the future.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the landscape of hotel bookings with transformative advancements. Chatbots, powered by AI, offer instant assistance, handling queries and reservations efficiently, providing a seamless guest experience. Moreover, predictive analytics, a product of AI, is optimizing pricing strategies. By analyzing patterns and demand fluctuations, hotels can dynamically adjust rates, ensuring competitiveness and maximizing revenue. This AI-driven evolution not only streamlines processes but also promises a more personalized and responsive booking environment, setting the stage for a future where technology enhances every aspect of the guest journey.

Unlocking Security with Blockchain in Hotel Bookings: A Paradigm Shift

In the realm of hotel bookings, the integration of blockchain technology marks a revolutionary leap insecurity. Blockchain's decentralized ledger ensures tamper-resistant records, eliminating the risk of fraud in transactions. Guest information, from personal details to payment data, gains an unprecedented level of protection through cryptographic encryption. This not only builds trust but also safeguards against data breaches. The immutable nature of blockchain creates a transparent and accountable system, assuring both hotels and guests that their transactions and information are secure, laying the foundation for a new era in trustworthy and secure hotel bookings.

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Crafting powerful hotel online experiences

At P3, we collaborate with hotels worldwide to enhance their online presence, boost conversion rates, and cultivate guest loyalty through a seamless online guest journey. Our full-featured integration with OPERA streamlines operations, saves time and drives revenue growth. Partner with P3 to elevate your hotel's brand and deliver exceptional guest experiences.

Drive Direct Bookings with a Powerful Booking Engine

The   P3 Booking Engine  is placed at the heart of your hotel e-commerce. We design and build customized, user-friendly booking journeys with rich functionality to enhance your guest experience. Featuring payment integration, interconnected rooms, mobile and geo-location discounts, and full integration with OPERA via OWS or OHIP.

Improve Efficiency with Online Check-in/out

Automate complex manual tasks and free up your staff to focus on more meaningful interactions  with our Contactless   Online Check-in   and   Online Check-out . Our solution is integrated into your hotel's website as a responsive web page, so guests can easily engage with your brand online without downloading an app.

Simplify the Check-in with a Self-Serve Kiosk System

Allow guets to independently check-in, pay, cut room keys and check-out through our  Self-Serve Kiosk  system. Travelers who choose to check in online no longer need to be at the mercy of front desk queues to get their keys. They can head straight to the kiosk, issue their own keys, and be on the way to their room in less than a minute.

We are 100% Integrated with OPERA

P3 is a Strategic Oracle Partner . Our 2-way integration with OPERA V5 and OPERA Cloud  ensures  streamlined data flow, ease of use, time savings, and increased revenue for your hotel.  We were one of the first Oracle Partners to integrate with OHIP (Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform) and unlock exciting new features to drive operational efficiency.

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Guest journey

Create winning guest experiences.

Enhance your high-class service with tools that motivate your guests to improve their stay, while empowering your staff to focus on delightful interaction instead of boring administration.

Happy guests powered by Clock PMS+

Upsell and delight guests throughout their journey from check-in to check-out. With the guest journey powered by award-winning Clock PMS+, you have everything you need to deliver world-class experiences.

Online booking engine

Get more direct bookings, increase website booking conversions.

Make room and non-room bookings natural with the included booking engine that allows guests to book directly on your site and in popup mode without redirects or interruptions.

Make the booking process smooth

Get more bookings and less abandonment with the simple and fast booking engine that optimises every step and gives special promotions at the right time.

Offer a first-class checkout

Give your guests the option to pay how they prefer with fully integrated payments and guarantees, ensuring smooth checkout and booking finalization.

Sell more than your rooms

Use your existing non-room revenue streams or create new ones with tools to upsell and increase the average purchase value of guests wanting more than your rooms.

Market special rates

Apply promotions for your new guests and company customers, agents, event participants, and other regulars with personalised offers on rates and availability.

Book your complete hotel group

Cross-sell and merchandise all your group's properties directly in your booking portal on your website.

Guest mailer

Inform your guests, communicate in style.

Guide, upsell, and offer self-service options with professional email templates in your brand design to satisfy your guests before, during, and after their stay.

Personalise your messages

Use placeholders that personalise guests' messages with their information and booking details for first-class touch.

Send the right messages at the right time

Segment your guests and use automated sending rules that ensure you send relevant information, reminders, or call-to-actions to the right guests at the right moment.

Let guests control their stay

Save time by giving your guests the power to manage requests digitally with email call-to-actions and links to online guest services in Clock or other integrated systems.

See what sells

Track email conversion rates directly in Clock without using third-party marketing solutions to see what message resonates best with new and regular guests.

Digital guest services

Boost productivity and guest delight, offer guests a personal portal.

Create better experiences by letting the system create a personal, digital portal where guests can manage their entire booking and interact with you before, during, and after their stay.

Control arrivals before they happen

Collect guarantees, save time on administration, and release more rooms on time with the before-arrival services allowing guests to guarantee, change, and cancel their bookings.

Check-out online check-in

Free your staff from hours of repetitive administrative tasks with online check-in, so all left is giving your guest a smile and their room key upon arrival.

Simplify stays and make extra revenue

Delight your guests with an online portal where they can add special requests, order extra services like room service and spa visits, check their bills, request invoices, and more.

Let guests depart in style

Let guests preview their bill, fill in their invoice details, make payments, request late check-outs, or order a taxi transfer — including tools to become a member or leaving a review.

Speed up guest service

Extend check-in and check-out options with self-service kiosks and tablets to speed up guest service in busy moments or offer a completely contactless process.

“Clock lets you to book in just a few clicks. Upon the automatic confirmation, guests get access to the MyBooking portal to manage their booking, easily pay and get their invoice all by themselves. All of this significantly speeds up front desk operations, giving guests a greater control over their stay.”

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See why Clock PMS+ makes it easy to stay competitive, empower staff, and delight guests.

Run your hotel or group like clockwork.

Get paid quickly and securely for all your hotel services.

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Host and manage delightful connected events.

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Use a POS for smooth restaurant and bar operations.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

How is your booking engine unique, can your engine handle bookings for an entire hotel group, how do your guest apps differ from 3rd-party ones, how easy is integrating your booking engine into our website, can we customise the look of your booking engine and guest app, can guest-facing apps and communication be in different languages, do your apps support advanced traffic data tracking using google analytics, can we use third-party booking engines and guest apps with your solution.

Connect any extras you want

Connect the world’s greatest hospitality solutions with seamless integration with Clock. Use the open API to build custom applications and automate workflows. Succeed with unlimited connections to certified public and private apps.

Delight your guests the best

Discover the functionalities that empower guests to control every aspect of their stay while freeing time for your staff to focus on what matters — with tools to boost revenue and get valuable feedback. Book your tour. We’ll be on the other side to help you win.

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Dedicating ourselves to your growth in direct bookings, brand loyalty, and team expertise.

Direct Sales

Earn more from each reservation with Booking Engine . Have your high-converting website made by choosing Hotel Website Development , or create it yourself in  Hotel Website Builder !

Booking Engine

Hotel website builder, hotel website development, easy distribution.

Increase your occupancy by selling on as many booking platforms as you want with Channel Manager . Benefit from the seamless syncing to free up your hotel staff’s time. Eliminate overbooking and human errors.

Channel Manager

Brand management.

Elevate your hotel’s online image with Reputation Manager . Create a successful pricing strategy by tracking your competitors’ rate changes in Price Monitor and managing the dynamic pricing in  Price Assist .

Reputation Manager

Price monitor, price assist, automated operations.

Reduce repetitive tasks with our Property Management System . Manage bookings and housekeeping from any device. Generate performance reports. Store guest details to check guests in with just a couple of clicks.

Property Management System

Elevate your hotel’s online image with Reputation Manager. Create a successful pricing strategy by tracking your competitors’ rate changes in Price Monitor and managing the dynamic pricing in  Price Assist .

Technology partners

Tailored Solutions for Upper and Midscale Hotels

Discover solutions designed for Luxury and Upper Midscale hotels & resorts. Elevate your business with specialized strategies crafted to meet your unique needs and ambitious goals.

Exely is a hospitality software provider dedicated to helping hoteliers maximize profits through growing direct sales and enhance brand image.

We prioritize increasing your visibility and providing seamless control over hotel occupancy, reputation, and profit. By sharing our expertise and best market practices, we offer free educational services to empower hoteliers.

At Exely, we do it all

Our hotel success suite.

Empowering. Flexible. Innovative.

Our Solutions are made to meet the dynamic and evolving needs of hoteliers. They drive online bookings and help you build a base of loyal repeat guests. There are seven Exely Solutions: Booking Engine, Channel Manager, Property Management System, Hotel Website Builder, Hotel Website Development, Reputation Manager, Price Monitor, and Price Assist.

Available for iOS, Android and web browsers

Customer Service

Caring. Goal-orientated. Proactive.

Our Customer Support and Customer Success managers accompany your business on its way to success by analyzing your sales performance and working out strategies with a personalized touch.

Your hotel’s win is our win

Exely’s main purpose is to help hoteliers reach their most ambitious sales and revenue targets. We believe that these goals are achievable if your hotel opts for direct sales. Our Customer Service guides you through every step to increase your revenue, drive bookings, and share tricks for effective room sales.

Choose a quality business partner

Dedicated support.

Our Customer Support solves 90% of requests within the first hour. If your issue is more complicated, we involve tech teams to help you quicker.

Focus on success

Our Customer Success team contributes to your hotel’s sales performance. They regularly monitor your analytics and suggest ways to improve the figures.

No lock-in contract

There are no penalties or charges for terminating a contract with us. Cancel at any time.

Experience the seamless workflow

Our Success Stories

From aditya resort.

“Our work was not happy with previous services as they were difficult to approach and not prompt in solving issues. There were no suggestions on improving systems, etc. Always got hold of a person in charge to solve the issues. Lack of communication. With Exely everything changed. Price, company reputation, and service were the keys to our choice.”

Head of Sales and Marketing, Aditya Resort, Galle, Sri Lanka

From Wink Hotels

“ Great platform - Ease of use and High Efficiency. It is just amazing. With a short period of time using Exely Booking to replace the legacy one, our revenue increases significantly. Especially, a commission fee and no onboarding fee are completely affordable, and comfortable for Wink Hotels. We are very happy that we have been able to increase our brand website sales , and Exely support team works fast and efficiently. We are very satisfied with everything including how Exely customizes the platform to meet our operational needs.”

Head of IT, Wink Hotels, Vietnam

From Hotel National

“We found out about Exely from other hotels. The reviews and the cost satisfied us. Exely’s service is excellent! The support team is quick to respond and helpful with everything.”

Director of Sales and Marketing Department, Hotel National, Yerevan, Armenia

From J7 Angkor Hotel & Prince Angkor Hotel

“Our revenue increased by 20% after using Exely Booking Engine. The branding of Exely and teamwork made us choose you among others. A commission fee and no onboarding fee are pleasantly affordable. Extranet and destination marketing as well were significant for us.”

General Manager, J7 Angkor Hotel & Prince Angkor Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

From Sun Spa Resort

“Price, convenience, and friendliness were important to us. We found all of this in Exely. We use Exely Booking Engine, and we are very happy that we have been able to increase our direct sales from the site. The support team works fast and high quality. We are very satisfied with everything!”

Sale OTA, Sun Spa Resort, Quang Binh, Vietnam

From Krokus Plaza

“I found out about Exely on my own. After learning about Exely Booking Engine, I became very interested in it. Gradually, we moved on to other Exely products as well. Simplicity, convenience, and accessibility — these characteristics were key for us. Your products are easy to use, no special skills are required. The support team is great.”

General manager, Krokus Plaza, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

From The Orchid Retreat

“I discovered Exely through a WhatsApp group. We use Exely Channel Manager and Website Builder. My workload has decreased. During the tourist season, it used to be chaotic. now I only need to handle guest check-ins and check-outs, as everything else is managed by Exely Channel Manager. I am currently satisfied with my decision to work with Exely.”

Owner of the hotel, The Orchid Retreat, Agra, India

From Sphera by Stellar Hotels

“Exely is the best company in the hotel business. We use Exely Channel Manager. Everything is very easy to work with, the interface and functionality are clear. Exely is the number one support solution for me at the moment. Tasks are resolved quickly. The support team even contacts us themselves and suggests new changes and what can be improved.”

General Manager, Sphera by Stellar Hotels, Yerevan, Armenia

From Hotel City Star, Ritz and Prime Balaji Dx

“We use Exely Booking Engine in all our hotels. We used to have very low direct online bookings. After we started using Exely Booking Engine, bookings increased by 30%. We chose you because we were attracted by the price.”

Revenue manager, Hotel City Star, Ritz and Prime Balaji Dx, New Delhi, India

From Heroes Hotel

“We learned about Exely through research. Exely stands out among others on prices, company reputation and efficiency. Exely has helped us a lot in managing our OTA extranets. The products are efficient and easy to work with. Very friendly support team that always helps to sort out all problems.”

Executive Assistant to the CEO, Heroes Hotel, Manila, Philippines

From ALTERUM, Real Estate Asset Management & Advisory Group

“ Working with Exely is a good solution at an affordable price. Fast and quality work of the support team, which is very important for us. Using Exely tools, hotels increase their revenue, control their pricing policy according to the season, and increase demand by attracting quality guests.”

CEO, ALTERUM, Real Estate Asset Management & Advisory Group, Baku, Azerbaijan

Maximize the Potential of Your Hotel Business

Boost Your Direct Bookings

Step into the future of hotel booking with our award-winning Profitroom Booking Engine 360, designed to revolutionize how you drive direct bookings, increase revenue, and deliver exceptional guest experiences. Our comprehensive and user-friendly booking engine platform adapts to your unique needs, enhancing your direct booking strategy and leaving a lasting impression on your guests. With an onboarding team for a quick and hassle-free start, and a customer success team at your side, leveraging data-driven insights to drive conversions and optimize performance, you can expect impressive outcomes in weeks.

Profitroom Booking Engine

Watch the video

Seamless Website Integration

• Designed to improve your direct booking strategy - our Booking Engine is seamlessly integrated with your hotel's website, enhancing the direct booking process and improving conversion rates.
• Seamless booking experience - delight your website visitors and show them your unique offer in a booking engine that facilitates hassle-free navigation through packages, rooms and special offers with direct links to online reservations.
• Guest-centric UI for the best user experience - the guest-centric, intuitive interface ensures the best user experience and simplifies the booking process, while providing potential guests with all necessary reservation details.

No More Lost Direct Bookings

• Availability assistance - automatically suggest alternatives for unavailable dates or rooms, plus other properties within a hotel group. Retain potential guests by offering them similar options and ensuring more online bookings. 
• Abandoned cart recovery mechanism to boost conversions - a powerful abandoned cart recovery feature is integrated to our Booking Engine to recover lost bookings and boost conversions significantly.
• Security - we prioritise security with GDPR and POPIA compliance, PCI-DSS Level 1 certification, and 99.9% uptime, ensuring your guests' data is always safe. Our booking engine also integrates with secure payment gateways for a smooth and secure transaction process.

Leading-Edge Features to Boost Direct Revenue

• Packages - maximise your direct channel and increase revenue by bundling services. Our Booking Engine supports the creation of attractive packages that add value for your guests and provide them with unforgettable memories.
• Dynamic pricing - our system supports multiple pricing methods and applies a dynamic pricing mechanism to improve booking efficiency and increase value.
• Discounts & promotions - handle advanced discounting and promotional codes with ease. Our system allows for time-sensitive activations and selective online distribution, helping you attract more guests and drive direct bookings. Use promo codes and extended stay discounts to further incentivise your guests.

Integrated Gift Vouchers

• Generate & manage - adds another layer to your direct booking strategy with gift vouchers, promotional vouchers, or special packages. Our booking engine offers flexibility and convenience in generating and managing vouchers so you can increase your revenue.
• Monetary vouchers - issue monetary vouchers that can be redeemed directly in your booking engine, providing an additional incentive for guests to book with you, or allowing guests to spread the word about you by offering monetary vouchers as gifts.
• Voucher instead of cancellation - don’t lose your guests to cancellations. Offer vouchers instead of refunds, encouraging guests to return at a later date. This approach helps in maintaining direct revenue and improving overall guest experience. 

Proposal Engine for Reservation Departments

• Convert offline to online - transform guest inquiries from any channel into an effective sales offer that can be booked online. Ensure consistency in offers, prices, and availability and relieve your reception, saving hours of manual work.
• Secure the reservations - enable guests to take immediate actions and make reservations and payments during the conversation, securing bookings on the spot. This feature is particularly beneficial for direct reservations and increases efficiency in the booking process.
• Increase efficiency - speed up the quoting process, automate follow-ups, and ensure a hassle-free payment process, making your reservation department more efficient and effective. Our direct booking technology again supports improved guest experience and higher conversion rates.

Success stories

Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve

• 99% Occupancy rate
• 66% Bookings through the website

Heywood Spa Hotel: Boosting direct online revenue at super speed

• 128% increase in direct booking share
• 34% growth in package sales

Wilderness Hotels: How a multi-property online customer experience increases booking value and package sales

• 38% Increase in average booking value
• 83% Of online sales are now packages

Solutions Completing the Booking Engine 360

Recommended Complementary Products

Our high converting booking engine is completed with a portfolio of products designed to support the guest and the hotelier throughout the entire guest journey. We offer a comprehensive suite of marketing tools and services, a channel manager and reception engine, stay personalization mechanisms, as well as automated messaging mechanisms. Check our other products and don't miss the opportunity to use the full potential of the Profitroom Suite.

Digital Marketing Services

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• Channel Manager
• RM as Service
• Web Booking Engine

Hotel Booking Engines: How they Drive Direct Bookings and Delight Guests

Table of Contents

Over the decades, the hospitality industry has undergone a profound transformation, with technology playing a pivotal role. While there are many technological advancements, hotel booking engines have been a game-changer that revolutionized how hotels operate.

These sophisticated software solutions have simplified the reservation process for hoteliers and guests, significantly enhancing both efficiency and customer experience. Their adoption has multiplied due to several factors, including the increasing prevalence of online bookings, the shift towards direct bookings, and the convenience they offer.

If you're considering implementing an online booking engine at your hotel to boost more direct sales, then today's blog is for you.

We will guide you in detail about online hotel booking engines, how they work, their ability to seamlessly integrate with other property management technologies, and the key features to look for to help your hotel business drive direct bookings.

Let’s get started.

What is a Hotel Booking Engine

While online travel agents offer the benefit of reaching a larger audience, listing your hotel on their platform comes with a commission fee, which can bleed your profit margins. Things get more frustrating when the commission fee exceeds 20%.

That's where an online booking engine helps.

It's a tool that encourages guests to book directly from your website. It delivers a hassle-free booking experience to your guests while helping your hotel business manage reservations more efficiently. Through it, your hotel can optimize sales strategy and maximize profit by avoiding commission fees.

How Does a Hotel Booking Engine Work

A hotel booking engine gives your business a centralized platform to manage reservations. You can view inventory, update room rates and availability in real-time, and even receive instant guest bookings.

Key Features of a Hotel Booking Engine

So, what makes a booking engine stand out? Let's explore the key features that make these technological marvels the ultimate companion for seamless reservations.

1. User-friendly Interface: Where Usability Meets Efficiency

When it comes to hotel booking engines, UI (User Interface) is the gateway to a hassle-free reservation experience. Today's discerning travelers seek simplicity; a user-friendly interface delivers just that.

From intuitive navigation to straightforward search filters, a well-designed booking engine guides guests effortlessly through the reservation process. By prioritizing usability, these engines eliminate guesswork, making it a breeze to find the ideal room, select dates, and finalize the booking.

2. Mobile Optimization: Reservations On-the-Go

Today, mobility is critical, and hotel booking engines have adapted accordingly. With the increased use of mobile phones and tablets, travelers now rely heavily on their smart devices for all their travel needs.

A top-notch booking engine embraces mobile optimization, ensuring a seamless experience across various screen sizes. Whether your guests use iPhones, Android devices, or iPads, these engines' responsive design allows them to book accommodations, even on the go.

3. Integration with Other Hotel Systems: A Symphony of Efficiency

A good booking engine should seamlessly connect with property management systems (PMS), channel managers, and revenue management systems.

This integration ensures a harmonious data flow, eliminating the need for manual updates and reducing the risk of errors. Also, by syncing information across platforms, your hotel can maintain accurate availability, streamline pricing, and manage reservations more efficiently.

4. Customization Options: Tailor-Made Experiences

No two hotels are the same, and customization options are the secret ingredient for your hotel business to create unique guest experiences. A remarkable booking engine empowers your hotel business to align the booking process with their brand identity.

From customizable color schemes and imagery to personalized messages and promotional offers, the possibilities are endless. By infusing your brand essence into the booking engine, your hotel can forge deeper connections with guests and ensure a seamless transition from reservation to arrival.

Benefits of Implementing a Hotel Booking Engine

The advantages of using a hotel booking engine are many. Your hotel can bolster revenue streams, deliver unparalleled guest experiences, and forge lasting connections.

Here are a few other benefits to make a note of:

1. Increases Direct Bookings

In an era dominated by online travel agencies (OTAs), your hotel can reclaim independence by implementing a good booking engine. It empowers your business to drive direct bookings through your website while bypassing the commission fees associated with third-party platforms.

This way, your hotel can boost the bottom line and retain greater control over revenue streams. Not just that, capturing bookings directly from guests enhances profitability, strengthens your hotel's brand identity, and fosters a sense of trust and authenticity.

2. Enhances Guest Experience

The guest experience is at the heart of every successful hotel, and booking engines are pivotal in elevating that experience. With user-friendly interfaces, intuitive navigation, and real-time availability, these engines provide guests with a seamless and hassle-free booking journey.

Travelers can effortlessly explore room options, check rates, and make reservations from the comfort of their homes or on the go. The convenience and transparency offered by booking engines attract guests, contribute to higher satisfaction rates, and increase loyalty.

3. Reduces Dependence on OTAs

While partnering with OTAs can extend your hotel's reach to a broader audience, it comes at a cost. Commission fees can eat into profits, hindering your business's long-term growth and sustainability. But implementing a booking engine allows your hotel to reduce dependence on OTAs and regain control over the distribution channels.

By encouraging direct bookings, your hotel can establish stronger relationships with guests and foster loyalty, ultimately minimizing the reliance on third-party platforms.

How to Choose the Right Hotel Booking Engine

Choosing the right hotel booking engine is an important decision that can significantly impact your hotel's success. With a myriad of options available, finding the right one can be a daunting task. So, what factors should you look for when buying a booking engine tool? Ler's unveil.

1. Make Sure its Cost-Effective

Set up a budget that aligns with your business goals. Consider the upfront costs for implementation and ongoing fees such as subscription or transaction fees. Balance your financial constraints with the value the booking engine provides.

Ensure to weigh factors such as increased direct bookings, enhanced guest experiences, and potential revenue growth. Remember, the goal is to find a booking engine that offers a favorable return on investment while staying within your budget.

2. Ask About its Scalability

Scalability is a crucial factor to consider when selecting a booking engine. Your hotel is a dynamic entity that keeps evolving, so your booking engine should be able to grow and adapt alongside your business.

Assess the ability of the engine to handle increased booking volumes, support multiple properties (if applicable), and accommodate future enhancements or integrations. See if it can seamlessly scale to meet the demands of your expanding business while avoiding the need for frequent upgrades or replacements.

3. Pay Attention to its Integration Capabilities

An effective booking engine should integrate harmoniously with your existing hotel systems. That's why it's crucial to assess the integration capabilities of the booking engine, particularly its compatibility with your property management system (PMS), channel managers, revenue management systems, and other crucial platforms.

Smooth integration ensures seamless data flow, eliminates manual work, and enhances operational efficiency.

4. Make Sure it's Mobile-Friendly

Today, mobile optimization is non-negotiable. Choose a booking engine with a responsive design that adapts flawlessly to various screen sizes and devices. This ensures your guests can effortlessly book rooms on their smartphones and tablets, regardless of location.

5. Look at the Customization Options

A booking engine with customization options helps your business stand out. So, see if it allows you to incorporate colors, fonts, and imagery that reflects your hotel's branding. Customization elevates the guest experience and fosters a sense of familiarity and authenticity.

6. Check for Analytical and Reporting Features

Data is power. Opt for a booking engine that provides robust analytics and reporting features. Insights into booking patterns, occupancy rates, and revenue performance will empower your business to make data-driven decisions, optimize pricing strategies, and maximize revenue potential.

7. Know About its Support and Reliability

Choose a booking engine provider with a good reputation and exceptional customer support. A responsive and reliable support team will ensure a smooth implementation process and assist you whenever you encounter any challenges. Read customer reviews and testimonials to gauge the provider's reputation.

Best Practices for Optimizing Your Hotel Booking Engine

Optimizing your hotel booking engine is a journey of continuous improvement and innovation. By following these best practices, you can unlock the full potential of your booking engine, drive direct bookings, harness the power of data and analytics, and deliver seamless experiences to your guests.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Promote Direct Bookings

Incentivize your guests to book directly through your website. Offer exclusive discounts, loyalty rewards, or additional perks to entice guests to bypass third-party booking platforms. Prominently display the benefits of direct bookings, emphasizing the advantages of lower prices, flexibility, and personalized experiences.

2. Leverage Data and Analytics

Data is the cornerstone of informed decision-making. Utilize the data and analytics your booking engine provides to gain valuable insights into guest behavior, booking patterns, and revenue performance.

Analyze the data to identify trends, understand guest preferences, and optimize pricing strategies. These insights empower you to make data-driven decisions, refine your marketing efforts, personalize the guest experience, and ultimately boost satisfaction and loyalty.

3. Regularly Update and Maintain Your Booking Engine

Just as your hotel evolves, your booking engine should too. Regular updates and maintenance are essential for ensuring optimal performance and delivering seamless experiences to your guests. Stay on top of the latest technological advancements, security updates, and industry trends.

Continuously enhance the user interface, streamline the booking process, and incorporate new features that align with your guests' changing needs and expectations. Regular maintenance ensures smooth operation, minimizes downtime and enhances overall guest satisfaction.

Final Words

Using a hotel booking engine is no rocket science. It is easy to use, streamlines your reservations, and optimizes revenue. Most importantly, when there's technology to aid your business, there's no reason to go old school. Think about it. Will you not want to cut down on higher acquisition costs from third-party listings and drive direct bookings instead?

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How to Set Up Conversion Tracking for Travel Booking Engines

This Article has been revised, edited and added to, by Poulomi Chakraborty.

What is Conversion Tracking?

Why is it crucial for booking engines, the tools of the trade, the strategic imperative of precision in conversion tracking, crafting a custom conversion vocabulary, quantitative insights: the numbers that narrate success, qualitative insights: understanding the emotional journey, integrating conversion tracking with broader business goals, the role of a/b testing in refining conversion strategies, elevating conversion tracking to a strategic pillar, define your conversion goal, choose the right tracking tool, set up the tracking code, create and monitor conversion funnels, linking ad campaigns (if applicable), regularly monitor and optimize, establishing a robust infrastructure for data capture, customizing tracking to reflect unique business processes, leveraging data for dynamic customer segmentation, integrating conversion tracking across marketing channels, adopting a culture of continuous optimization, the strategic journey of conversion tracking setup, event tracking for micro-conversions, enhanced e-commerce tracking, cross-domain tracking.

• Multi-Channel Funnels & Attribution Modeling
• Custom Audiences & Remarketing

Integrating CRM Data

Elevating data analysis with predictive analytics, enhancing user experience with behavioral analytics, optimizing for lifetime value through cohort analysis, integrating cross-device tracking for a unified customer view, utilizing advanced segmentation for precision targeting, the strategic evolution of conversion tracking, event tracking: beyond the basics, enhanced e-commerce tracking: maximizing insights.

• Multi-Channel Funnels & Attribution Modeling: Deciphering the User Journey
• Custom Audiences & Remarketing: Personalizing the Approach

Integrating CRM Data: The Bigger Picture

Harnessing the power of ai-driven analytics, exploiting tag management systems for agile tracking, building a data-driven culture with visualization tools, optimizing conversion paths with machine learning, leveraging natural language processing for enhanced customer insights, a strategic blueprint for advanced conversion tracking, conclusion: mastering conversion tracking for booking engines.

In the digital realm of the travel industry, where experiences begin long before the actual journey, the ‘booking’ stands as the most crucial touchpoint. It signifies a traveler’s commitment, and in business terms, it’s the moment where browsing transforms into revenue. But how do travel businesses ensure they’re optimizing their booking processes? More importantly, how do they measure the success rate of visitors converting into customers? Enter the world of conversion tracking for booking engines.

Conversion tracking offers a telescopic view into the customer journey. It’s not just about recognizing that a conversion happened, but about understanding the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind it. With booking engines playing a pivotal role in the travel and hospitality sectors, having robust conversion tracking in place is non-negotiable.

In this comprehensive guide, we will journey through the intricacies of setting up conversion tracking tailored specifically for booking engines. Whether you’re a hotelier, a travel agency, or an adventure tour operator, this guide aims to simplify the technicalities and provide actionable steps towards perfecting your conversion tracking mechanism.

The Foundations: Understanding Conversion Tracking

Before diving into the setup process, it’s essential to grasp the core concepts behind conversion tracking.

In digital marketing lingo, a ‘conversion’ signifies a specific action that a business desires its users to take. In the context of booking engines, this usually refers to successful bookings. Conversion tracking, therefore, involves monitoring and analyzing these actions to derive insights and optimize strategies.

For businesses in the travel industry, the booking engine is the heart of the revenue stream. Understanding its efficiency, recognizing potential pain points, and ensuring a seamless user experience can substantially impact profitability.

Several digital tools facilitate conversion tracking. From Google Analytics to specialized booking software solutions, understanding which tool aligns with your needs is the first step in the setup journey.

In the bustling digital marketplace of the travel industry, the journey of a prospective traveler from interest to confirmed booking is fraught with decision points. For startups, particularly those venturing into the travel and hospitality sectors, the imperative lies not just in tracking conversions but in understanding each nuance of the customer’s journey. This precision in conversion tracking enables businesses to discern not merely the ‘what’ and ‘how’ but the intricate ‘why’ behind every booking.

Before embarking on the technicalities of setting up conversion tracking, it’s crucial for startup founders to develop a bespoke conversion vocabulary. This tailored lexicon goes beyond the standard definitions of conversions and micro-conversions, encompassing a broader spectrum of user actions that are pivotal to the business model.

Whether it’s the initial interest indicated by a newsletter subscription, the engagement shown through interactive elements like virtual tours, or the final commitment of a booking, each action must be precisely defined and tracked.

The Dual Lenses of Conversion Tracking: Quantitative and Qualitative Insights

At its core, quantitative tracking offers a numerical representation of your booking engine’s performance. It’s about counting the clicks, bookings, and interactions, providing a macro-level view of your conversion landscape.

However, the strategic depth comes from not just tracking these numbers but analyzing them to identify trends, patterns, and anomalies. This data-driven approach empowers startup founders to make informed decisions, optimize their offerings, and tailor their marketing strategies to align with observable behaviors.

While numbers narrate the story of success in clear terms, the qualitative aspect of conversion tracking delves into the emotional and psychological journey of the prospective traveler. This involves analyzing the feedback on user interfaces, the ease of navigation, the clarity of information, and the overall user experience.

For startups, focusing on qualitative insights means understanding the friction points, the moments of delight, and the unmet needs that influence a traveler’s decision-making process. This nuanced understanding is critical for refining the user experience, crafting compelling narratives, and ultimately, enhancing conversion rates.

For travel startups, conversion tracking should not exist in isolation but as an integral part of the broader business strategy. This entails aligning conversion goals with key performance indicators (KPIs) such as customer acquisition cost (CAC) , lifetime value (LTV) , and customer satisfaction scores.

By doing so, startups can ensure that their efforts in optimizing the booking engine are directly contributing to the overarching objectives of growth, profitability, and customer loyalty.

A/B testing emerges as a powerful tool in the arsenal of conversion optimization. By systematically testing variations in the booking process, landing pages, and promotional messages, startups can empirically determine what resonates with their target audience. This continuous process of testing, learning, and iterating allows for a data-driven approach to enhancing the user experience and maximizing conversion rates.

In the digital age, where data reigns supreme, conversion tracking stands as a pivotal strategic pillar for travel startups. By delving deep into both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the customer journey, startups can gain invaluable insights, refine their strategies, and craft experiences that not only convert but also enchant and retain travelers.

The journey of setting up and optimizing conversion tracking is ongoing, demanding a blend of strategic foresight, technical acuity, and a relentless focus on the customer. In this endeavor, the rewards are manifold, promising not just increased bookings but the cultivation of lasting customer relationships.

Setting Up Conversion Tracking for Booking Engines: A Step-by-Step Guide

Every journey begins with a destination in mind, and in the realm of conversion tracking, your goal is that destination. For booking engines, the primary conversion goal is typically a successful booking. However, you might also have secondary goals such as newsletter sign-ups, inquiry form submissions, or downloading a brochure.

Insight Tip: While the actual booking is the main conversion, don’t neglect the smaller actions that lead up to it. These micro-conversions can provide additional insights into user behavior.

There are multiple tools available for conversion tracking. One of the most popular and comprehensive tools is Google Analytics. Its flexibility and integration capabilities make it a favorite among businesses of all sizes.

Insight Tip: If you’re using a specialized booking platform, check if it has built-in analytics or if it supports integration with popular analytics tools.

Once you’ve chosen a tool, the next step involves embedding a tracking code onto your website. This code will monitor user actions and relay the data back to your analytics tool.

• For Google Analytics :
• Sign in to your account.
• Navigate to the ‘Admin’ section.
• Under the desired account, go to ‘Tracking Info’ and then ‘Tracking Code’.
• Implement this code on every page of your website, preferably in the header.

Insight Tip: Always check the tracking code’s functionality post-implementation. Tools like Google Tag Assistant can help validate the setup.

A conversion funnel illustrates the path a user takes leading up to the conversion. For booking engines, this might start with landing on your homepage, browsing packages or rooms, viewing pricing, and finally making a booking.

By setting up a funnel in your analytics tool, you can identify where potential customers might be dropping off and optimize these stages accordingly.

Insight Tip: Regularly review and adjust your conversion funnels. As user behavior evolves or as you make changes to your booking process, the funnel dynamics may shift.

If you’re running paid ad campaigns to drive traffic to your booking platform, linking them to your conversion tracking setup is crucial. This allows you to measure the ROI of your ad spend accurately.

For platforms like Google Ads :

• Link your Google Analytics account with your Google Ads account.
• Ensure that you’ve enabled auto-tagging in Google Ads for seamless data integration.

Insight Tip: Monitor which ad campaigns or keywords drive the most conversions. This data is invaluable for future campaign optimization.

Once everything is set up, the journey isn’t over. Regularly reviewing the collected data, understanding user behavior, and making necessary adjustments to your booking engine or marketing strategies is essential.

Insight Tip: Consider setting up monthly or quarterly review sessions. Analyze the data, understand the trends, and strategize accordingly.

The journey of setting up conversion tracking is akin to laying the foundation for a building. It’s about creating a robust infrastructure that not only supports the current needs but is scalable for future growth. For travel startups, this means selecting a tracking tool that offers both depth in analytics and flexibility in integration.

The choice of tool should be guided by the complexity of your booking engine, the volume of data you anticipate handling, and the granularity of insights you aim to achieve.

Beyond the selection, the implementation requires a meticulous approach, ensuring that every piece of code is accurately placed and functional across all pages and platforms, thereby guaranteeing a seamless capture of data across the customer journey.

Within the realm of travel and hospitality, no two businesses are the same. Each startup has its unique processes, customer engagement strategies, and success metrics. As such, a one-size-fits-all approach to conversion tracking falls short. The strategic imperative lies in customizing your tracking setup to reflect the unique contours of your business model.

This involves defining custom events that are critical to your booking engine, such as specific searches, customization of travel packages, or the use of loyalty points. By tailoring the tracking setup to these unique interactions, startups can gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, facilitating more informed decision-making and strategy development.

In the digital age, data is not just a record of past actions but a beacon guiding future strategies. For travel startups, the data captured through conversion tracking serves as a rich resource for dynamic customer segmentation. This involves categorizing customers not just based on demographic parameters but on their behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns with the booking engine.

By analyzing this data, startups can create highly targeted marketing campaigns, tailor the booking experience to meet the expectations of different segments, and ultimately, enhance the effectiveness of their conversion strategies.

In the multifaceted digital ecosystem, customers interact with brands across multiple channels before making a booking decision . Therefore, integrating conversion tracking across all marketing channels is critical for a holistic understanding of the customer journey.

This strategic integration allows startups to track the performance of each channel, understand the interplay between different touchpoints, and optimize their marketing mix accordingly. Whether it’s social media, email marketing, or paid search campaigns, each channel’s data contributes to a comprehensive view of how customers discover, engage with, and convert on the booking engine.

The setup of conversion tracking is not a one-time task but the beginning of an ongoing process of optimization. In the dynamic landscape of digital marketing, where customer behaviors and market trends evolve rapidly, startups must adopt a culture of continuous optimization. This entails regular reviews of tracking data, experimentation with new strategies, and refinement of existing processes based on actionable insights.

Whether it’s tweaking the design of the booking engine, adjusting the targeting parameters of marketing campaigns, or enhancing the customer support experience, every decision should be data-driven, aimed at incrementally improving conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

For travel startups, the setup of conversion tracking is more than a technical exercise; it’s a strategic journey that lays the groundwork for data-driven decision-making, customer-centric optimization, and sustainable growth.

By building a robust data capture infrastructure, customizing tracking to business specifics, leveraging data for segmentation, integrating across channels, and fostering a culture of continuous optimization, startups can not only enhance their booking engine’s performance but also position themselves for success in the competitive digital travel market.

Related: Check out our free SEO suite

Advanced Conversion Tracking Techniques for Booking Engines

The world of digital analytics is ever-evolving, and while the foundational steps lay the groundwork for effective conversion tracking, delving into advanced techniques can provide deeper insights, better segmentation, and more tailored user experiences. Let’s explore these sophisticated tactics.

While the final booking is your primary conversion, understanding micro-conversions, or smaller actions leading up to the final booking, can be incredibly insightful. Event tracking can monitor:

• Video plays (e.g., property tours, travel vlogs)
• Clicks on specific offers or deals
• Interaction with chatbots or customer support widgets

Insight Tip: Tools like Google Tag Manager make event tracking easier by allowing you to set up tags and triggers without diving deep into code.

Especially pertinent for booking engines, enhanced e-commerce tracking in platforms like Google Analytics provides granular data regarding user behavior in the buying process. This includes:

• Viewing product details (e.g., room descriptions, tour packages)
• Additions to and removals from a cart
• Checkout behavior

Insight Tip: Beyond just understanding conversions, enhanced e-commerce tracking offers insights into average order value, cart abandonment rate, and product affinity.

If your booking process involves multiple domains (for instance, a separate payment gateway domain), cross-domain tracking ensures that user journeys are tracked seamlessly across all involved websites.

Insight Tip: Ensure consistent tracking setups across domains to avoid data discrepancies and use tools like Google Tag Manager for a smoother setup.

Multi-Channel Funnels & Attribution Modeling

Travelers rarely convert on their first visit. They might discover your site via a blog post, return through a social media ad, and finally book after a remarketing campaign. Understanding this multi-touch journey is crucial. Multi-channel funnels show the interaction paths, while attribution modeling assigns value to each touchpoint leading to conversion.

Insight Tip: Experiment with different attribution models (e.g., last-click, first-click, linear) to understand which channels play pivotal roles in your conversion paths.

Custom Audiences & Remarketing

Leveraging the data from your conversion tracking, create custom audiences to target users who’ve shown interest but haven’t converted. For instance, users who abandoned their cart can be retargeted with specific ads or offers.

Insight Tip: Tailor your remarketing campaigns based on the exact stage users dropped off for maximum effectiveness.

For businesses with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, integrating this with your analytics platform can provide richer insights. This amalgamation allows for tracking post-booking behaviors, feedback, and overall customer lifetime value.

Insight Tip: Tools like Zapier can assist in creating integrations between different platforms if direct integrations are not available.

In the realm of advanced conversion tracking, predictive analytics stands as a beacon of strategic foresight, offering startup founders the ability to not just understand past behaviors but to anticipate future trends. This involves the application of machine learning algorithms and statistical models to the wealth of data collected through conversion tracking.

The goal is to identify patterns and predict future booking behaviors, enabling startups to proactively adjust their strategies, tailor their offerings, and optimize the customer journey for increased conversions.

By integrating predictive analytics into your conversion tracking toolkit, you’re not merely reacting to the market; you’re staying a step ahead, crafting experiences that meet the emerging needs and desires of travelers.

The journey of a potential customer through a booking engine is laden with decisions, influenced by the seamless interplay of design, content, and functionality. Behavioral analytics provides a microscopic view of this journey, tracking each click, scroll, and interaction.

By employing advanced techniques such as heatmaps and session recordings, startups can gain a deep understanding of user behavior on their platforms. This insight is invaluable for identifying friction points, optimizing page layouts, and ensuring that critical elements such as calls-to-action and special offers are positioned for maximum impact.

The strategic application of behavioral analytics turns the booking engine into a dynamic environment that evolves in response to user preferences and behaviors.

Cohort analysis is a technique that segments users into cohorts based on shared characteristics or experiences, such as the month of their first booking or the marketing campaign that led them to the booking engine.

This approach allows for a nuanced understanding of customer behavior over time, providing insights into retention rates, lifetime value, and the effectiveness of specific marketing strategies. For travel startups, focusing on cohort analysis means shifting from a transactional perspective to a relational one, where the goal is to cultivate long-term customer relationships.

By analyzing cohorts, startups can identify which segments are most valuable, tailor their marketing efforts to these groups, and allocate resources more efficiently to maximize the lifetime value of each customer.

In today’s multi-device world, a customer might discover your travel offerings on a smartphone, do more in-depth research on a tablet, and finalize their booking on a laptop. Cross-device tracking is essential for providing a unified view of the customer journey, ensuring that conversion tracking data reflects the complex, multi-device reality of user behavior.

This advanced technique involves identifying and linking the multiple devices used by a single user, offering a holistic view of their interactions with your brand. For startups, implementing cross-device tracking means being able to offer a seamless, personalized booking experience across all platforms, thereby increasing the likelihood of conversion and fostering customer loyalty.

Advanced segmentation goes beyond basic demographic and geographic criteria, diving deep into the psychographics and behaviors of your audience. By leveraging the detailed data collected through conversion tracking, startups can segment their audience with precision, identifying niche groups with specific interests, preferences, and behaviors.

This enables the creation of highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns, which are far more effective in engaging potential customers. Advanced segmentation allows for the allocation of marketing resources in a way that maximizes ROI, ensuring that startups are not just reaching their audience but engaging them in a meaningful, conversion-driven manner.

As we delve into the advanced techniques of conversion tracking, it becomes evident that the journey towards mastering these strategies is both complex and rewarding. For travel startups, leveraging predictive analytics, behavioral analytics, cohort analysis, cross-device tracking, and advanced segmentation represents the pinnacle of strategic marketing.

These techniques offer a depth of insight that transcends basic analytics, providing a competitive edge in the fast-paced travel industry. By embracing these advanced conversion tracking methods, startups can optimize their booking engines, craft compelling customer journeys, and ultimately, drive greater conversions and long-term loyalty.

Diving Deeper: A Closer Look at Some Advanced Techniques

At its core, event tracking helps understand how users interact with content. But beyond just tracking clicks, sophisticated event tracking can offer a wealth of information:

• Scroll Depth : Determine how much of your content visitors are viewing. Are they scrolling to the end of your landing pages or just skimming the top? Insight Tip: High scroll depth on essential pages can indicate that visitors are engaged. If they’re not scrolling, consider reevaluating your content placement and design.
• Dynamic Elements : Track interactions with sliders, carousels, or any AJAX-loaded content. This helps you understand the efficacy of interactive elements. Insight Tip: If an essential CTA or offer is on the third slide of a carousel but hardly anyone interacts with it, you might consider placing it more prominently.

This tool offers far more than transaction data. Some advanced uses include:

• Affiliation Data : If you collaborate with other brands or companies, you can track revenue from these partnerships. Insight Tip: Understanding which affiliations or collaborations bring in the most revenue can guide future partnership decisions.
• Coupon Tracking : Track the redemption and impact of discount codes or promotional offers. Insight Tip: This is especially useful in identifying which promotions drive the most conversions and why.

Multi-Channel Funnels & Attribution Modeling: Deciphering the User Journey

• Path Length Report : This report shows the number of interactions a user had before converting. Was it after the first interaction or the tenth? Insight Tip: A longer path might indicate that users need more nurturing before they decide to book.
• Time Lag Report : How long does it take users to convert after their initial interaction? This helps in gauging the consideration period for your offers. Insight Tip: If the time lag is extensive, consider retargeting strategies to keep your brand at the top of users’ minds during this period.

Custom Audiences & Remarketing: Personalizing the Approach

• Segmentation : Instead of creating broad remarketing campaigns, segment your audiences. For instance, users who abandoned after selecting a premium package might be retargeted differently than those who opted for budget options. Insight Tip: Tailored messaging for segmented audiences often yields better results as it addresses specific pain points or desires.
• Frequency Capping : Ensure that users aren’t bombarded with your ads. Limit the number of times an ad is shown to a specific user within a set time frame. Insight Tip: Too much exposure can lead to ad fatigue, making users blind to your messages.
• Feedback Loop : Post-booking feedback stored in CRMs can be invaluable. Integrating this data can help in understanding areas of improvement. Insight Tip: Patterns in feedback—like repeated mentions of a complicated booking step—can guide optimization efforts.
• Lifetime Value (LTV) Tracking : Understand the long-term value of customers. Which users come back to make multiple bookings? What channels do these high-LTV users come from? Insight Tip: Allocating more budget to channels that bring in high-LTV users can optimize ROI in the long run.

In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing industries, leveraging AI-driven analytics for conversion tracking offers a formidable advantage. AI algorithms can process vast amounts of data at an unprecedented speed, uncovering insights that would be impossible for human analysts to find in a reasonable timeframe.

For travel startups, this means the ability to predict customer behaviors, personalize offerings, and automate decision-making processes in real-time. Implementing AI-driven analytics into your conversion tracking framework allows for a more dynamic and responsive strategy, where adjustments to marketing efforts and user experience can be made almost instantaneously based on real-time data.

As digital landscapes become increasingly complex, the use of tag management systems (TMS) has become crucial for efficient and agile tracking. TMS allows startups to manage tracking codes, or “tags,” across their websites and booking engines without needing to alter the code directly.

This facilitates a rapid deployment of tracking changes, tests, and updates, significantly reducing the time and resources required for these tasks. By adopting a sophisticated TMS, startups can ensure that their conversion tracking remains flexible and scalable, ready to adapt to new technologies, marketing strategies, and customer behaviors as they evolve.

Data is only as valuable as the insights it generates and the actions it informs. To this end, visualization tools play a pivotal role in translating complex data sets into understandable and actionable insights.

For startups in the travel sector, incorporating advanced data visualization tools into the conversion tracking strategy enables stakeholders at all levels to grasp key trends, patterns, and anomalies in the data.

Interactive dashboards and real-time reports can democratize data access within the organization, fostering a data-driven culture where informed decisions are made swiftly, and strategies are continuously optimized based on empirical evidence.

Machine learning (ML) offers the capability to not only analyze past user behavior but also to anticipate future actions and optimize conversion paths accordingly. By training ML models on historical data, startups can identify the most effective pathways through their booking engine that lead to conversions.

These models can then predict the likelihood of conversion for different user journeys and adjust the user experience in real time to guide potential customers along the most promising paths. This level of optimization ensures that each user’s experience is personalized and optimized for conversion, significantly boosting the efficiency of the booking engine.

Natural language processing (NLP) enables startups to delve deeper into the qualitative data gathered from customer interactions, reviews, and feedback. By analyzing the sentiment, preferences, and pain points expressed in natural language, startups can gain a richer, more nuanced understanding of their customers’ needs and experiences.

This insight can inform everything from product development to customer service strategies, ensuring that the offerings are closely aligned with customer desires and expectations. For conversion tracking, NLP techniques can be used to refine targeting strategies, personalize communication, and enhance the overall customer journey, leading to higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

The journey towards mastering advanced conversion tracking techniques is both challenging and rewarding. By embracing AI and machine learning, leveraging tag management systems, utilizing data visualization tools, and incorporating NLP, travel startups can transform their approach to conversion tracking.

This strategic blueprint not only enhances the ability to monitor and optimize conversions but also aligns closely with broader business objectives, driving growth, customer satisfaction, and competitive advantage in the dynamic travel industry.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, staying ahead requires a blend of strategy, technology, and insight. For businesses operating booking engines, conversion tracking isn’t just a tool; it’s an imperative. From understanding user behavior to refining the customer journey, it’s the heartbeat of optimization efforts.

We’ve journeyed from the foundational steps of setting up basic conversion tracking to exploring the depths of advanced techniques. At every turn, the goal remains the same: to provide users with a seamless, intuitive experience that not only fulfills their immediate needs but also fosters loyalty and repeated bookings.

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About The Author

Poulomi Chakraborty

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Sell your hotel’s spa experiences easily, online, and all in one unified booking engine

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Our spa module integrates with industry-leading software to bring you a unified booking engine that keeps your spa busy and your revenue high. And for your guests? It's the booking experience they've always wanted.

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Spa booking made easy

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Online Booking Engine for Tour Operators: What You Should Look for

By: Chimmu Augustine

June 4, 2021

Table of Contents

Everything is becoming digital in the tour and transport industry. The traditional pen and paper bookings are replaced by online bookings, allowing real-time reservations around the clock.

Tour and transport operators should be equipped with the best available technology to provide their guests with an exceptional online booking experience. As convenience and flexibility take center stage in the booking process, an online booking engine for tour operators is now table stakes to streamline their booking process and drive more revenue.

Online Booking Engine for Tour Operators

An Online Booking Engine refers to the booking platform on your website where guests can directly book tours, activities, and transportation services.

When guests visit the website and decide to book your tours or routes, they click the Book Now  button. The Book Now button is your Call To Action button that takes your guests to the booking widget or online booking engine, where they’ll complete the booking process in a few clicks. 

As the online booking engine is connected to your booking system, the guest will have up-to-date availability information. A calendar view also provides guests with a clear birds-eye view on all available dates. The booking engine allows your potential guests to select their dates, the number of people and process payments in one go.

Adding an online booking engine to your website will allow your guests to make direct bookings. Direct bookings are 12.5% more profitable than those from OTAs . With guests booking directly through you, you’ll have the whole share of the pie without having to split commissions with OTAs or third-party sellers.

What should Tour Operators Look for in an Online Booking Engine

Simple and easy integration.

Integrating an online booking engine into your website should be effortless and straightforward. If your newly introduced booking widgets can embed on your website seamlessly, you can save time and money from making extra edits and customization.

For a cohesive brand experience, ensure that the internet booking engine’s colour schemes and fonts match your company’s branding.

Also, go over various options available to embed your booking engine on your website. For instance, within the Zaui system, there are a few ways to add the booking engine to your website via:

• Embedded Button Overlay (Light frame that pops up)
• Button (Redirect to a separate page)
• Direct Link (Dedicated link for resharing with the commission and wholesale agents) 

With these options at your fingertips, the choice is yours in how you customize the booking engine to suit the look and feel of the website and brand.

As you evaluate reservation software and booking engines, prepare a checklist of what you need it to do for your business and your guests.

User-friendly Design

Easy on the eyes is a rule of thumb for any user interface. The rule remains the same for an online booking engine as well. 

An online booking engine for tour operators with an easy-to-navigate interface keeps the booking process streamlined and simplifies your guest’s booking journey. The clutter-free widget with an easy, quick booking process offers guests a frictionless user experience. In fewer clicks, your guests will finish the booking, growing your guest list and revenue.

Your tours and activities should be displayed distinctly for your visitors without any ambiguity. Guests should be able to search through it based on their interests and preferences and finally, make the bookings with ease.

Zaui’s online booking engine display options include activity-specific and package-specific, which shows all your categories. You can also choose a single category calendar view, displaying activities in a calendar view and listing activities chronologically. 

Knowing the significance of visual storytelling, Zaui’s refreshed online booking engine lets you incorporate many eye-catching images to the booking widget, engaging your guests. You can also add a detailed description that could sell your tour and other booking details, including cancellation and postponement policies.

Mobile-friendly Interface

In 2017, 79% of mobile travelers completed a booking after doing research on their smartphone . And the digital trend is unlikely to change. Mobile will soon become one of the dominant mediums for booking.

As most guests use mobile for searches and bookings, the browsing experience for your guests is crucial. Creating a disruptive user experience for your guests will end up in you losing out on mobile bookings.

If the online booking engine for tour operators is not quick to load or cannot display booking details, the guest will likely abandon the purchase out of frustration. 

Another reason for operators to focus on mobile is that activities are mostly last-minute decisions for many travellers after they have reached their destination. As in-destination travellers rely on their smartphones to search and book tours and activities, an easy-to-use mobile booking process will help you attract and convert more guests.

Guest-centric Features

Adopting features on your online booking engine that cater to your customers will always give you an upper hand. You will have a higher conversion rate by allowing guests to book your tours in their preferred language. That’s the case with payments too. Making payments in local currency, a currency they understand, will be convenient for your guests.

Another example of a customer-centric feature would be giving your guests a sense of control by offering a self-service option for guests to edit their booking should plans change. The self-edit feature would provide them with a choice to amend their booking—changing their tour date and time, passenger totals or even pickup/dropoff location.

We have learned from the pandemic that the system needs to be adaptive to unexpected changes. If your guests want to change their trip due to unforeseen situations, they should be able to amend their booking on their own without having to call your reservations team. It would make them comfortable and save you a lot of administrative time.

Curious to know the guest-centric features offered by Zaui? Head over to our post on 4 Guest Centric Features You May Not Know.

Upselling Options

Upselling is the most effective method to increase your average booking value.

Guests who are already on your website and have already placed a product or route in their cart may want to further enhance their tour experience with additional tours. They might be willing to add more to their itinerary or products to make their tour or journey memorable.

Your online booking engine should have a feature that helps you upsell additional tours and activities. Complementing their purchase with another valuable trip will improve their travel experience and further boost your cart value.

Some of the opportunities include equipment or products such as safety gear, additional luggage, food/snacks, or even cancellation insurance. When your guests are ready to check out, relevant product add-ons on the product page or the cart page should be displayed. 

Secure Payment Method

It is essential to ensure a secure payment process, given that your revenues are tied directly to how your guests can pay you. A reliable and safe payment gateway for transactions will protect your guests’ data and privacy, so it is key that it is SSL encrypted and PCI compliant.

On the payment gateways and processing front, there are a number of payment infrastructures to choose from (Stripe for our Free Plan, and a wide range of the world’s top payment gateways with Enterprise). As you’re going through this process of selecting a booking engine, you may be evaluating payment processors as well. Consider the country support, processing fees, fraud and security measures, payouts, and other integration perks when selecting a payment gateway that works with your chosen booking system.

On the credit card processing side, it is also important to note the various credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Union Pay etc) that your business can accept and process. As cashless payments are becoming popular in a post-pandemic society, it’ll be increasingly important to offer secure ways to your guests to pay by their credit card or digital wallet, guaranteeing a hassle-free, contactless buying experience.

Social Media Integration

One in five travelers uses social media to search for travel information . With 3.96 billion people active users globally, social media is becoming an integral part of a buyer’s journey.

Social media has a great influence on your guest’s purchase decision. Your potential guests may see your content on social media, perhaps engage, and best yet, if they like what you offer, they book your tours and activities. Giving them an option to make the reservation from the social media platform itself, helps you win more bookings.

Integrating your online booking widget into your social pages is imperative to convert your social traffic to direct bookings. For instance, you can link the Book Now button on your Facebook business page to your online booking engine. 

When guests click the Book Now button, they will be taken to your online booking engine to reserve their tours and activities.

Curious to know how Zaui online booking engine can enhance the guest experience and get you more bookings? 

See a Quick Demo Specific to your Industry

Zaui users, if you want to make the best use of Zaui online booking engine features to increase sales, connect with our Customer Success team today.

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Introducing our NEW Booking Engine

Website and Booking Engine integrated into one seamless shopping flow.

20% increase in direct conversion rate

*Average conversion rate increase seen by Amadeus iHotelier customers in a/b testing

Our highest converting booking engine yet reduces friction along the guest journey

The New iHotelier® Booking Engine — the latest innovation from the Amadeus Integrated Booking Suite of products — seamlessly combines web and booking engine to deliver a more frictionless and experiential guest journey. Built in response to industry demand for a simple, design-forward, and more personalised shopping experience, the New iHotelier Booking Engine delivers a unified experience from looking to booking to help increase direct conversions and maximise guest spend at every step of the shopping flow.

Deliver seamless navigation for the guest

Leverage an integrated website and booking engine to deliver a more frictionless and intuitive shopping experience that maximises conversions.

• Provide a consistent experience from website to booking engine with a consistent look, feel, and navigation
• Engage guests and simplify the booking process by keeping reservation and view details all in one window
• Allow guests to easily change room details, book multiple rooms, and/or start over at any point in the booking flow

Increase guest spend

Intelligently upsell rooms and enhancements throughout the shopping flow, encouraging guests to build an experiential stay while driving ancillary revenue.

• Prominently feature upsell and enhancement opportunities throughout the booking flow
• Merchandise on-property and third-party experiences as well as on-property Food & Beverage reservations at key points in the booking journey to help guests build their ideal experience
• Fully integrate with Amadeus Reward and Redeem loyalty programs to enable guests to pay with points

Maximise conversion and minimise friction for guests

Download the fact sheet to learn more about the New Amadeus iHotelier Booking Engine.

Provide a highly shoppable booking flow

Deliver a more intuitive and flexible shopping experience that meets the expectations of today’s eCommerce-savvy shoppers.

• Allow guests to build their ideal experience with new filter and sort options
• Offer multiple view options (rooms, rates, packages) to configure the shopping experience in the way the guest prefers
• Encourage membership sign-up by merchandising members-only rates throughout the booking flow

Ensure the entire shopping experience is on-brand

Tailor your aesthetic and configuration for a consistent guest experience that builds trust and the right flow for your business priorities.

• Ensure consistency of Branding (logos, colors, fonts, layouts) across website and booking engine to deliver a consistent and reassuring experience
• Easily configure the shopping experience and related components in the manner that best suits your property and business needs

Want to learn more about the Amadeus New Booking Engine?

Submit this form and one of our UK & Ireland experts will be in touch with more information on how your hotel can benefit from the iHotelier® New Booking Engine.

Meet the new StayPlus, where marketing and revenue strategies converge.

iHotelier StayPlus

Go beyond rooms with a booking solution that enables you to sell more, sell broader, and personalize the guest experience all in one place. With a strategic set of integrated capabilities, the new StayPlus makes it simple for hoteliers to capture, curate, and convert more bookings, featuring:

• Experiential Stay Builder
• Dynamic Offers
• Intelligent Merchandising
• Performance Analyst

Empower your business to create personalized experiences and promotions within minutes to maximize revenue potential and win more business.

Contact your local team of experts to learn more about StayPlus!

Book a Demo with your local team of experts

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5 Must-Have Travel Booking Sites Europeans Swear By

While Americans often turn to sites like Expedia and Google, Europeans have their own go-to travel platforms. These local favorites might make navigating Europe’s trains, buses, and flights easier.

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Europeans swear by certain booking sites to get their travels in order and score the best deals.

We all know the classics—Expedia, Kayak, good ol' Google Flights—but when it comes to booking travel in Europe, sometimes you need something a little more... specialized. After all, navigating Europe's vast train networks, quirky bus routes, and budget airlines can feel like solving a Rubik's Cube. So, I did what any curious traveler would do—I asked some of my friends who live in Europe what they actually use to book their trips. Turns out, there are a few gems out there that make booking trains, planes, and everything in between a whole lot easier. Here are a few.

Omio: Your One-Stop Travel Shop

First up, Omio. Several friends raved about this one. It's kind of like having a personal travel agent who does all the hard work for you—but without the fancy fees or that awkward, overly polite small talk. Omio lets you search and compare trains, buses, and flights all in one place. You just type in where you are and where you want to go, and it spits out the best options for your route. It even compares prices across different providers, so you don't accidentally blow your whole weekend budget on a train ride from Paris to Berlin.

Omio covers 35 countries across Europe, which is a major win because each country has its own quirky booking system. If you've ever tried booking a train in Italy versus Germany, you know things can get a bit… complicated. Thankfully, Omio handles that for you—no need to brush up on your Italian.

Trainline: For When You're All About That Rail Life

Now, if you're someone who loves the idea of traveling by train (I mean, who doesn't love a scenic train ride?), Trainline is your new best friend. One of my pals from London swears by it. With just a few taps, you can book train tickets across 45 countries in Europe, including the UK. Plus, Trainline throws real-time train updates and mobile tickets so that you can skip the whole paper ticket situation.

What's extra cool about Trainline is it remembers your discount cards—like the UK Railcard or France's Carte Avantage—and automatically applies them when you book. So, no more fumbling around for your discounts while rushing to catch a train. One friend even told me she managed to book a spontaneous train ride from Paris to Amsterdam with it—just because the app made it look that easy.

Skyscanner: Flights, Hotels, and a Little Bit of Everything

Another favorite? Skyscanner. You might know this one as a flight comparison tool, but it's way more than just flights. It also lets you book hotels and car rentals, so it's kind of a one-stop shop for travelers who need a little more flexibility. One of my friends said it's her go-to for booking flights, especially because of the "Everywhere" feature. You can literally type in your departure city and search for flights to anywhere—perfect for when you're in the mood to go wherever the wind (or budget airlines) take you.

Skyscanner's app is super easy to use, and it won't surprise you with hidden fees at checkout. What you see is what you pay. So if you're prone to booking flights at 2 a.m. after scrolling through Instagram travel pics (no judgment), Skyscanner's got your back.

FlixBus: The Budget-Friendly Option

FlixBus is another recommendation that came up, especially for those long-haul, budget-friendly trips across Europe. You've probably seen those neon green buses zipping around everywhere. FlixBus connects over 2,500 destinations in 40 countries, so if you're looking for a dirt-cheap way to get from one country to another (or just from one city to another), this is the way to go. One friend said she scored a bus ticket for just five euros and used the extra cash to splurge on dinner.

And if you're worried about being trapped on a bus for hours, fear not. FlixBus has a surprisingly flexible booking system, frequent departures, and an app that keeps you updated on arrivals and delays, so you're not left wondering if you missed the bus.

Rome2rio: Map Out Your Entire Journey

Finally, if you're the kind of person who likes to have all your options laid out in front of you, Rome2rio is a must. A friend in Italy said this site is perfect for piecing together complicated journeys—like when you need to take a train from London to Paris and then catch a bus to some remote French town. It gives you a full breakdown of every transportation option, from trains and buses to flights and even ferries.

Rome2rio also estimates the travel time and cost, which is great if you're juggling different transport methods and need to know how much of your trip will be spent sitting in transit. It doesn't handle the booking itself, but it gives you direct links to all the relevant sites, so you're never far from securing those tickets.

Whether you're a rail enthusiast, a spontaneous flyer, or just looking for the cheapest way to get from point A to point B, these travel booking websites have your back. So, give these platforms a whirl next time you're planning a European adventure (or just a weekend escape).

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