The Internet Booking Engine or Hotel Booking Engine is an application that allows customers to book online directly on the hotel brand website.
What is a Hotel PMS?
PMS or Property Management System is a software solution which can be installable or cloud-based for managing hotel operations like handling guest profiles, check-in and check-out, occupancy management, checking room availability and bookings.
The Week, That Was – November 2019 Week 2
Russian upscale hotel recommends RateTiger for optimizing online revenue
Russian upscale property Petro Palace Hotel has recommended RateTiger, powered by LiveOS, for stable connectivity with online sales channels and competitor rate intelligence. The hotel has been a long-standing customer of RateTiger, using Channel Manager and Shopper for its online distribution.
https://bit.ly/2XkNf6A
Wholesalers impact on corporate hotel bookings
A study from American Express Global Business Travel and GfK finds that as many as 40% of US business travelers book outside of policy. This is not good news for hotels that still agree to static net rates, because as wholesale rates start to appear on the CBTs, these hotels will find their negotiated direct corporate rates undercut yet again.
http://www.eyefortravel.com/distribution-strategies/hospitality-staying-open-race-bottom
TripAdvisor: Trip.com deal ‘exciting opportunity’ in China
The strategic partnership between Trip.com Group, the company formerly known as Ctrip.com International, and TripAdvisor includes content agreements, a joint venture and a seat on TripAdvisor’s board for Trip.com Group.
Google pushes travel websites down in free search results
Google dominates the online search market, with at least three quarters of the market. People use the search engine to research trips, so for at least a decade online travel agents have refined their websites with trustworthy content and easy booking tools to show up high in Google results.
Booking Holdings sees brand collaborations as key to restoring growth on steroids
Are online travel agencies’ glory days, when revenue was growing 25 or 30 percent and room nights booked were jumping at similar clips, long-gone history? Is today’s competition in online travel, with Airbnb breaking through and Google asserting itself ever-more intensely, too rigorous to replicate the robust growth of a few years ago?
Business Travelers Sentiment Remains Strong With Most Frequent Travelers Wanting Even More Travel
Business travelers remain optimistic and sentiment remains strong despite economic headwinds in some parts of the world. Senior-level business travelers including senior/executive management (74 percent) and directors (77 percent) agree the health of the economy is excellent, according to the second wave of research out today from the GBTA Business Traveler Sentiment Index™ in partnership with RoomIt by CWT™, the hotel distribution division of CWT.
https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4095846.html
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Things to Consider Before Choosing a Hotel Channel Manager in 2019
It is necessary to have a wonderful hotel channel manager in the hotel industry. It will let you sell rooms efficiently, reduce the number of unsatisfied guests and minimize your monetary losses as well as reduce the amount of time that you waste on double bookings, under bookings and overbookings. In the absence of a channel manager, hotels need to manually update availability and inventory on every channel. Before picking a hotel channel manager in 2019, here are a few things that you need to consider.
Real-time updates
Real-time rate and availability updates are important features of any capable hotel channel manager. The channel manager of your choice must let you adjust hotel rates and room availability with convenience. It should be connectible to many booking sites. Thus, when there is booking of a room, the availability should automatically change across every distribution channel.
Channel performance report
A proper channel manager needs to offer you detailed reports on every channel. It will allow you to view how every channel is performing, what has to be fixed, the amount of money that you are making and more. You should get higher visibility on your channel distribution network, which can boost your performance, and reduce your expenses. The channel managers that are best-in-class heavily invest in cutting edge analytics and reports that are easily understandable and show revenues, reservations and occupancy for a particular time period.
Connectivity to many markets and OTAs
You should also check the way your channel manager forms connections to all your preferred markets and various OTAs. The connection established to many OTAs around the globe will let you enter your chosen markets that you supposed to be out of your reach. The process needs to be fast and easy, similar to ending a connection with an Online Travel Agency that you do not regard as important for your business. The best kind of channel managers let you use your most productive channels to advantage, and also experiment with channels that are less apparent and might help you gain access to markets that are tough to reach otherwise.
Support and training
A hotel channel manager of your choice needs to include support as well as training. In case it does not, you will be at risk of losing money and time. Without any training, you will not be able to get familiarity with a new hotel channel manager. It should help you to grasp all the particular features. The support needs to be great as well. Like any other software program, it can come with quite a few problems. When help is required, you need to be assured that it will be available right on time.
Pooled inventory
Proper channel management also needs a pooled inventory model. Make sure that there is sharing of your room inventory across every channel, instead of being manually allocated channel-by-channel. Pooled inventory makes sure that there is proper availability of rooms, so that the hotel rooms may be simultaneously promoted across every channel with no concern of overbooking.
Is Your Hotel Website ADA-Compliant
ADA or The Americans with Disabilities Act demands that every business need to make sure that customers can get access to the same services, irrespective of how physically capable they are. The Government is taking active steps to make sure that ADA-accessibility extends not only to offline businesses but also to online properties like mobile apps and websites. If you have a hotel website, you have to make sure that it is ADA-compliant, or you could be staring at trouble before long.
Focus on the text
Your website should have text that can be resized easily. Make sure that there is a high-contrast mode option which can make it easier for slightly vision impaired visitors to read the text. The site should have a text-only option, and all the functionalities need to be accessible via a keyboard for guests with mobility problems. Ensure that there is minimal formatting for the text. Those who experience problems in seeing might be incapable of reading colored text on colored backgrounds or text that is especially small in size. It is best for you to adhere to a common, large-sized font with dark colored text on white background.
Look at the photos and images
The photos must have proper text descriptions. Your social marketing strategies and website videos should comprise of transcripts and audio descriptions for all those who are hearing impaired. There is a text-based analog for all the visual media. The images must have “alt” text for content description. Suitable descriptive text must be added to videos. You can use screen reader software to describe your website images.
Offer accessibility information all through the site
Throughout your website, you have to feature accessibility information. Say a disabled traveler wants to know whether she can arrive and reach his room, get inside, take a shower and sleep and move about without problems, your hotel website should make all the details easily accessible. You have to include full information about how his experience with your hotel property would be upon arrival. You have to describe every space in your hotel, as well as how it would be like to move to and from each space. Mention all possible obstacles along your way, and also specify any inaccessible area.
Keep in mind that room details are not enough. Your hotel site needs to spot as well as describe every accessible area of your property in complete detail – such as the common spaces, the pathways from and to these spaces all through the hotel, the on-site amenities and more. There can be lawsuits in the absence of all these details. Due to this reason, hotel sites have to include entire accessibility content for every area of the property.
After you make all such changes to your hotel website to satisfy ADA guidelines, get your site evaluated by a web development firm that is familiar with all the issues of ADA compliance. Make sure that visitors using screen readers and other assistive technologies can fully access your website content.
The Week, That Was – September 2019 Week 1
In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!
Hoteliers take a harder look at how they set room rates
Amateurs cut rates to fill hotel rooms. Pros take more sophisticated approaches, such as coordinating to stimulate demand from the most profitable customers. Revenue managers tend to focus on price-setting. Sales and marketing teams typically look at stimulating demand, such as by running email marketing campaigns or advertising on search engines like Google.
https://skift.com/2019/09/03/mgm-resorts-bet-on-rate-setting-tech-catches-notice-of-rivals/
Metasearch: What hotels get wrong
Metasearch is the industry’s fastest-growing distribution channel, yet many hoteliers still struggle to match the success of OTAs on the platform. So what are hotels doing wrong? In this latest webinar, Dr Jan Sammeck, Director of eCommerce at Deutsche Hospitality, discusses the twelve biggest mistakes hotels are making in their meta strategy.
Listen the recording – http://email.triptease.com/yoLV8mES0O03DJf05D00020
Hotels embrace role as curators of niche products
One of the most interesting opportunities for hospitality brands is to be a new and intimate discovery channel for consumers. This idea is nothing new, of course. Brands have been placing themselves in hotel rooms for ages: Aesop likely owes some of its initial rise to being placed in the rooms at Park Hyatt Tokyo before anyone knew the brand. The taste-making audience who stays there helped with global pollination at an early stage. It was old-school seeding. Right people, right context, new-feeling product. Magic can happen from that.
https://skift.com/2019/09/03/hotels-embrace-role-as-curators-of-niche-products/
Booking.com, Skyscanner, Ctrip and TripAdvisor join travel sustainability pact
Booking.com, Skyscanner, Ctrip, and TripAdvisor, alongside payment giant Visa, have come together to form Travalyst in an effort to “mobilize the travel industry as a catalyst for good, aiming to transform the future of travel for everyone.”
https://www.phocuswire.com/Sustainable-tourism-online-travel-launch-Travalyst
2020 Budget season tips: Mapping your hotel’s digital marketing budget
Should we invest in search marketing, display advertising, and/or metasearch advertising? In truth, there isn’t one standard way to divide your marketing budget up – it really varies from property to property. However, adopting a multi-channel approach is best to expand your reach and target different customers throughout their travel journey.
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The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 4
In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!
eRevMax announces strategic partnership with Indonesian hotel technology provider HUNTECH
Indonesian hotel technology solution provider Huntech has signed a strategic partnership with eRevMax to offer RateTiger as a preferred channel manager to its affiliated properties. The agreement makes Huntech the official provider of RateTiger Suite, the industry’s leading distribution platform with smart channel connectivity, market intelligence and revenue management capabilities.
Hotel sourcing in 2020: What’s really changing?
Some companies have made headlines recently by declaring traditional sourcing models dead. However, there are still some practices that will remain the same, according to CWT. There are exciting changes coming to the sourcing world in 2020 including new rates worth exploring, tools that will make data collection and analysis easier, and methods that will improve negotiations.
https://news.carlsonwagonlit.com/blog_posts/hotel-sourcing-in-2020-whats-really-changing-85618
18 ways to boost hotel bookings
Net Affinity shares 18 tips together that will help you get more bookings and, in turn, more revenue.
https://blog.netaffinity.com/18-ways-to-boost-hotel-bookings-and-get-more-revenue-2/
Google wants industry-wide standards to balance privacy and ads personalization
Google is seeking to navigate a middle path that balances privacy and user control over data and personalized advertising, which the internet has become increasingly dependent on.
How hoteliers create, monetize the guest experience
The hotel industry is in an era where experience matters most to guests, which is why it’s important for hoteliers to find ways to create great experiences from the travel search phase to hotel arrival while making those efforts profitable.
http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297681/How-hoteliers-create-monetize-the-guest-experience
Social preferences of young business travelers
Hilton Hotels & Resorts released new survey findings uncovering the travel highs and lows for young professionals, ages 23-35, who attend meetings while on the road.
The survey revealed that while young business travelers prefer a buzzing social environment and in-person interactions during regular work hours, they would rather spend their evenings on their own.
https://lodgingmagazine.com/survey-reveals-social-preferences-of-young-business-travelers/
What’s next for Google’s expansion into vacation rentals?
Google is constantly improving its offering, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that Google could open up the Book on Google addition of Hotel Ads for rentals.
https://www.phocuswire.com/google-vacation-rentals-whats-next
How should my hotel market to “Bleisure” travelers?
Travelers, on average, are adding on 2-3 days of leisure travel on top of a business trip, resulting in more revenue for a hotel and filled inventory on days where occupancy slows down.
https://screenpilot.com/2019/08/bleisure-travel/
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The Week, That Was – July 2019 Week 3
In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!
ARABSOFT completes technical connectivity with eRevMax
eRevMax, the leading travel technology provider, has certified Tunisian PMS developer ARABSOFT after having completed 2-way technical integration. Mutual hotel clients can now leverage the interface to benefit from direct rate and inventory updates to online sales channels and receive reservations seamlessly into their hotel management System, Xlia by ARABSOFT.
Deep dive into APAC online travel agencies – Part 2
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, five of the world’s ten fastest growing tourism cities are in Asia, making it the hot spot for the travel marketers. Propelled by high penetration of mobile, the region has been witnessing double digit growth in online booking, making it a priority region for global OTAs. However, the market is still dominated by local and regional players, even as global OTAs make strategic investments to make inroads.
https://www.erevmax.com/blog/index.php/2019/07/deep-dive-into-apac-online-travel-agencies-part-2/
Google downplays dominant role in travel
If you run a hotel, airline, or online travel agency, and you thought you needed to buy advertisements in Google search or Google Trips, then guess again — it’s probably not as essential as you have long believed because consumers begin their travel searches with “specialist competitors.”
https://skift.com/2019/07/16/google-to-congress-were-not-a-travel-monopoly/
Travelport optimistic about constructing a customer-centric future
The Internet of Things, mobile, Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics and cloud computing are combining, to forge a future that’s more customer-centric than anything that’s gone before.
The next generation of systems are not going to own the system of record, but will own the system of intelligence, using data analytics to intelligently connect supply with demand.
TripAdvisor: How reviews impact bookings
The global study, conducted in partnership with Ipsos MORI, polled over 23,000 TripAdvisor users across 12 markets on the use of online reviews and their role when booking hotels, restaurants and experiences.
https://www.traveldailymedia.com/tripadvisor-how-reviews-impact-bookings/
The basics of keyword research for Search Engine Optimization: a guide for hotels
There are a lot of factors that contribute to SEO success. But in short, search engines make it a priority to provide the best content for users based on a given query. This is often referred to as “intent-based search” and it’s at the heart of Google’s machine learning algorithm.
Could your hotel’s channel strategy be costing you direct bookings?
Hotels of the past faced serious challenges in driving occupancy, with static and siloed inventories spread across a number of third-party partners. A solution to this was to use wholesalers, whose objective was to give travel agents competitive B2B inventory and provide reach all over the world to facilitate bookings.
https://triptease.com/blog/could-your-hotels-channel-strategy-be-costing-you-direct-bookings/
BCD Travel unveils new version of TripSource app
The app will now include self-service features, pre-trip planning and booking, improved design and navigation and will be made available to all travellers in mid-July 2019 in over 113 countries and in five languages.
https://www.traveldailymedia.com/bcd-travel-unveils-new-version-of-tripsource-app/
How hotels should adapt to Google Travel and intent-based search
Today, if you want your hotel website to move up through the search results, you need to give travelers what they’re really looking for. You need to match their intent. There’s another reason why Google has stopped rewarding keyword-focused content. PPC and display ads convert at a higher rate when they match a person’s intent.
https://www.traveltripper.com/blog/how-hotels-should-adapt-to-google-travel-and-intent-based-search/
Google experiments with hotel room booking module placement
Changes could be coming soon to the layout of Google’s hotel search as the company tests some modification on its room booking module. According to Koddi, if Google pushes this change live to a wider set of traffic and device types, this would allow travelers to see a greater variety of information and options for hotels within the same view.
https://koddi.com/google-experiments-room-booking-module-placement/
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5 Best Ways to Make Your Hotel Service Sought After through the Search Engines
When a traveller wants to find a hotel, they try online options and take help of the search engines like Google or maybe Bing. These search engines provide reviews, rates of different rooms, location of the hotel and the data on vacant rooms. The hotel business owners would therefore like more visibility for their website and the information regarding the hotels. The best way is to turn to search engine optimization ways and improve the ranks of the site.
1) Optimization of the site through search engine
The online business owners work with the strategy of bringing their site to a better ranking position of the search engine. This gets the pages of the website of the hotel more visibility and takes care of the complex algorithms of the search engines. The site of the hotel is optimized when more people land into its pages and gather the information provided in various contents of the pages. They find it fruitful and come back for more and this way increase the ranking.
2) Site must be for the readers and users
When one wants such higher ranking for their websites, they should check on the loading of the pages of the site and its contents. The site should also be mobile friendly to bring in more users to its pages. You should check the contents of the site from the user’s point of view and make them as user friendly as possible. This will bring more users for the site pages.
3) Make your content more relevant
The website’s content is the main thing on which the users would like to depend. This is the reason why the content should be updated at regular interval and the information, text or images of the web pages must be reliable and effective to the topic that is being discussed. The blog that is regarding your business would bring in more interested people to your site and when you provide high quality content that is helpful or interesting for the reader, they make it a point to visit your site regularly.
4) Connect through local search engines
The site that you develop should be good with the local search engines. This helps the bigger search engines like Google to optimize the sites that are doing well with the local search engines. You can create a page for your business through Google and add the name of your property to the virtual directory. You can add the contacts of your business and also keep those details in your websites too. This will help optimizing your site.
5) Building of links can be helpful for optimizing
The sites can include in its pages both incoming links and links that connects to other pages. The SEO service providers will tell you how these links can improve the footsteps in your site. The links that will bring in viewers from other popular sites of the same genre can be real good for your new site. You will do good to include links into your site content from other sites to make your site a better place for gathering information.
Get more traffic through sharing from social media
The simple step of sharing your pages through the profiles of social media can be real effective way to get direct traffic. This will encourage people who are interested in the topics of your website – to land into your pages. You can also connect the Hotel Directories, Google Places and various other digital platforms so that your website gets more visibility through any of the digital pages. You will find more like minded people pouring into your website to go through the information and content provided.
Reviews from Google users can improve your ranking
The review from customers has been given more and more important from the search engine Google. The developers find these reviews bring in more customers and viewers for the website and hence it plays most important role in improving the ranking of a site. Hence the hotels that want a better ranking should encourage their customers to provide positive and truthful reviews.
Get Hotel channel manager software at https://www.erevmax.com/ratetiger/ratetiger.html
The Week, That Was – July 2018 Week 3
In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!
Expedia says packages are better for hotels than room-only
Hotels are achieving higher average daily rates (ADR) from consumers who book packages rather than just rooms, according to data from Expedia Group.
The online travel giant said consumers buying packages paid around 30% more in ADR than those making standalone hotel bookings.
https://www.tnooz.com/article/expedia-says-packages-are-better-for-hotels-than-room-only/
Indian budget hotel endorses RateTiger Channel Manager for online distribution
Kolkata based IndiSmart Hotel has endorsed RateTiger for simplifying online distribution. The property has been using eRevMax’s cloud-based Channel Manager and Shopper for managing their online sales channels and has improved their business operational efficiency.
Hotels.com launches hideaway hotels category
Hotels.com has introduced the Hideaway Hotels category in response to a lift in bookings in the last two years, with a 60% spike in guests leaving positive reviews for off-the-grid hotels.
Is hotel luxury dead?
When hotel discount brokers offer “luxury” accommodations at $49 a night, as occurred during the recent Independence Day holiday, does the word “luxury” have any useful meaning?
Read the interesting article: http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/is-hotel-luxury-dead/travel-hospitality-event-management#When:13:51:00Z
How Booking.com is trying to solve travel’s pain points
The CMO of Booking.com explains how the company is trying to ease some of those unhappy surprises. Learn more about it by watching the video.
Google tests location tab for hotel knowledge panels
Google is testing a new location tab and section within the hotel knowledge panels. The location tab contains information that tells you what is around the hotel, including sections such as highlights, top sights and a getting-around section.
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