Your "channels" are all the different ways that customers are able to book rooms or services in your hotel/guesthouse/B&B or tourism business. These can be:
- Your own website
- OTA's (Online Travel Agencies) e.g. booking.com, expedia.com, agoda.com or airbnb.com
- Telephonic bookings
- Email bookings
- Walk-in customers
A Channel Manager is usually an online cloud-based technology solution. This means there is no software to install on your computer; it all happens through a website. A channel manager allows you to combine the daily management of your distribution channels on one platform and calendar.
The channel management software uses a single dashboard for all your channels, allowing you to instantly update rates and availability without needing to update several individual websites.
Managing inventory
The number of rooms that your business has available to sell or distribute across all channels is called an inventory.No matter where a booking is made - be it directly on your website, through a third party booking site, or via email or telephone - inventory always needs to be up-to-date so that you are never overbooked or underbooked.
The cost of overbooking or underbooking
Without a channel manager, you're forced to split your inventory (rooms) between channels and risk double-bookings or failing to reach full occupancy (underbooking). Instead, pooled inventory and automated updates of availability and rates in real-time means guests can only ever book a room that is actually available.While channel management software can be expensive, its cost must be weighed up against the cost of overbooking or underbooking. If you accidentally overbook a room, you risk getting a bad reputation for turning booked guests away or having to pay for your guests to be accommodated in another hotel.
Similarly, if you are underbooked because the rooms that you have allocated to one channel are full, but other channels are leaving you with empty rooms, you lose the income that you could have generated from the successful channel.
Do I need a channel manager?
If you have a small homestay or only a couple of apartments, or a tourism business with limited types of services, you probably don't need a Channel Manager.If you have more than that, or several room types, then you should really look into using one.
But if you have more than 10 rooms and you're not already using a channel manager, you're probably losing out.
Why? Because it will help you send and synchronize your availability and rates in real-time to more Online Travel Agencies than you could do it manually.
Choosing a channel manager
There are very many channel managers to choose from. Here are some points to consider:- Is the system purely a channel manager or does it include functions such as a website booking engine for your own website and/or a PMS (Property Management System) - other functions that you would need to pay for separately?
- Do you prefer a fixed monthly flat rate or do you prefer to pay a commission-based on sales?
- Is the channel manager aimed at your type of business e.g. a small guesthouse, a boutique hotel or an adventure tourism business?
- Cloudbeds - suitable for any type of accommodation
- Hotelrunner - has a low monthly fee plus 1% commission
- Siteminder - suitable for hotels with 20 rooms or more
- TrekkSoft - specialising in bookings for day tours and adventure activities
- Ezeecentrix - options from channel manager only to full all-in-one system
- Staah - channel manager + booking engine
Summary
- Your "channels" are all the different ways that customers are able to book rooms or services in your hotel/guesthouse/B&B or tourism business.
- The number of rooms that your business has available to sell or distribute across all channels is called an Inventory.
- Channel managers help you send and synchronize your availability and rates in real time to more channels and Online Travel Agencies than you could do manually.