Get people to your reservations desk online!
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Take bookings and host express booking on your home page.
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A booking engine is becoming an essential element of a successful accommodation or attraction web site. People expect to be able to check availability and book quickly, effectively and securely for larger, branded chain properties and that expectation is rapidly extending to independent hotels, inns, guest houses and self-catering accommodation.
Brightspark offers several versions of our booking software that can be tailored to your business look and feel. The exact specification is dependent upon the type and scale of your business - we don't try to shoehorn you into a one-size-fits-all solution. We are also happy to implement third party solutions for you should you prefer to source your own and your supplier does not handle integration (or if they do offer web design but you would prefer a more bespoke style).
Many customers are happy to use the booking engine provided by their marketing consortium, preferring to pay up to 15% of the value of their bookings for the privilege. Why not see if Brightspark can help you to keep more of the business you attract?
How does it work?
There are literally hundreds of available booking engines for you to choose from but they all tend have some important common features. These typically involve a login area so you can load details and images of the types of accommodation units (e.g. rooms) and the inventory you have and then a section where you update the availability against each type of unit for a particular timescale.
The engine then allows users to search against this availability database, returning results against a series of preferences selected. Typically the results are presented in the form of a table from which the user selects and books. Generally bookings are secured at this stage either by a credit card number, or a deposit or the full amount is collected through a payment gateway.
Which will have most impact?
When considering whether to add email marketing, content management or a booking engine to your site it is important to recognise that the results should be additive and mutually supporting - not either/or.
Content management is a good way for non-technical owners or employees to make frequent changes to their web sites which helps to keep them up-to-date and interesting for visitors and search engines alike. Clearly this should result in more sales through the site.
Email Marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your site and to announce special offers and other news of interest to your existing guests and potential visitors and is excellent for building relationships through an opt-in list. Again this can drive sales through your site.
Booking engines are very useful in that they allow you to offer visitors availability and to sell directly. Sites with booking engines typically make more sales than those that require the user to request a booking and then wait to find if a room is available.
All three elements produce greater income for different reasons and the net effect is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts as each potential guest is given many different ways to interact easily with your business.
