The key to a successful business lies in selling your products to as many customers as you can. Convincing your customer to buy your product equates to providing them with impeccable service. Superior services include having seamless user interaction and a visually stimulating user experience (UX) design on your website for easy accessibility.
This is especially important for the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry’s success is reliant on customer accessibility and satisfaction. A very prevalent business that falls directly under the hospitality market is the hotel business.
If you own or run a hotel business, you must know the importance of a booking engine. Today almost all hotel customers have access to the internet, and they can book a hotel with one click of a button.
As a hotel owner, it’s your responsibility to make your customer’s booking process as smooth as possible. That’s where a good booking engine comes to play. Although almost all hotels have a booking engine, they do not always have a good one.
So, how do you find the best booking engine for your hotel? To find out, you must first understand what a booking engine is and how it can grow your hotel. Continue reading to find out everything about a good booking engine.
What is a Booking Engine? 
A booking engine is an accommodation provider application used by hotel customers to book a room at the hotel of their choice. If a customer is looking to book a hotel room, they will do one of two things. Either book directly on the hotel’s website, or book through a third-party site.
Booking engines facilitate that booking process. If a customer finds a vacant Hilton room advertisement on Facebook and wants to book that room, the booking engine will showcase all the details entailing that room.
The engine’s role isn’t just limited to that. Booking engines also market your rooms and services to get maximum direct bookings for your hotel. Think of the booking engine as a modern salesman. It is the conduit to sell your hotel reservations to all your potential customers.
So, you need to find the best salesman out there to ensure maximum profit. A top-notch booking engine identifies the needs of your hotel. Then, it learns what your customer base looks for to provide a highly efficient and customizable application.
How a Booking Engine Helps Grow Your Hotel
Before we explore this question, ask yourself how a hotel can reach millions of customers and appeal to each one of them? Well, the answer is simple, by having a good marketing and accessible sales strategy. A good booking engine provides just that.
An online hotel booking engine will allow your customers to view all the necessary details and provide a concise booking system. Your customer won’t have to browse through multiple pages to find the information they seek. With a compatible booking engine, all your hotel’s best services and features are on display to the customer.
We all know the importance of walking hand in hand with ever-changing technology. Today most consumers prefer using third-party payment apps for online purchases. Payment apps like Paypal, Venmo, Apple Pay, and CashApp are the new norms for conducting transactions.
So, it is essential that your hotel also accepts those payment methods, and with a booking engine, you can do that. The benefits of a good booking engine don’t just end there. Booking engines also store accurate customer data.
In this day and age, data is king. Without data management, the likelihood of a business surviving is slim. A booking engine will help your hotel make smart marketing decisions by sharing valuable customer data with you.
So, the answer to the question, how a booking engine helps grow your hotel is in the precise data, marketing, and accessibility factors the engine provides. No matter the size of the hotel, every hotel needs a good booking engine to succeed.
Booking Through Your Website
Well, nothing brings more exposure to your hotel than a direct website booking. By booking through your website, customers experience the full package and impressionable hospitality.
Booking engines will ensure that your hotel’s official website and mobile application offer a premium user experience. These include having an easy installation, navigation, and checkout process. Right-thinking booking engines customize your platform and work with you to meet your goals of direct bookings.
Booking Through a Third Party Site
The dream of a hotelier is to book all your reservations on your official webpage. But that isn’t always realistic. With a booking engine, your hotel will have access to the best online platforms for third-party bookings.
Be it Facebook, Booking.com, or Expedia you need to make sure that customers see your rooms on these pages. A booking engine will ensure that your information on those websites is accurate and appealing to customers.
We know that most hotel owners prefer the direct booking option to avoid paying fees to third parties. But it would be foolish not to acknowledge the importance of third party hotel bookings.
How You Retrieve Customer Data
It is no secret that booking engines share valuable and accurate customer data with your hotels. Data allows you to analyze your customer base and enhance your overall business-consumer relationship.
Booking engines automatically store this data and share it for your use. So, are you wondering how you retrieve customer data? It’s simple, sign up for your choice of booking engine provider and let them do the rest.
The booking engine will gather customer information from third party websites, mobile applications, and your official website. Then, they’ll present you with the best data sets. The engines also use cookies, cache, online forms, and third party permission to get the most accurate customer data.
A customer goes on HotelTrivago for example. They instantly get a notification prompting them to accept cookies. If the customer accepts it and proceeds to book a room with you, the booking engine will record and transfer the user data to you.
Conclusion
So there you have it! If you would like to improve your hotel business, you must get a top-notch booking engine. Get a personal and customized booking engine like Booking Ninjas to ramp up your website traffic and overall customer base!