Why do hotels need a Channel Manager?
What is a Channel Manager?
A Channel Manager is a utility software that connects hotels to all online distribution channels and manages bookings from these channels.
Channel Managers can connect to dozens or hundreds of sales channels, global OTAs channels. It’s a powerful tool to boost your bookings while automatically updating and synchronizing your information in real-time on all channels.
How does Channel Manager work?
Thanks to the emerging technologies, travelers prefer to book their stays online, we see the rise of online booking agents (OTAs) such as Agoda, Booking.com, or Expedia. In the old way of doing, hoteliers would go and negotiate with each of these OTAs and then manage their bookings separately.
Channel Managers were created to remove these hassles, to help hoteliers get a better chance to enter new market places without losing revenue. Through Channel Manager, you can sell your inventory via online distribution channels around the world.
• Close/open inventory quickly
• Update room, rate plans, availability in real-time
Fully integrated with other distribution channels and 3rd party software let you automate business process without maing human mistakes
Channel Manager can act as a stand-alone system connecting distribution channels with your hotel, or even better, it can be integrated with the hotel’s PMS to fully automate your operations.
As an independent system:
You will have an account to access the Channel Manager dashboard where you can manage information such as room rates, room availability, and promotions. Channel Manager will automatically update this information for every channel. Because it operates independently, you have to monitor the Channel Manager dashboard regularly and manually update bookings to the PMS system (if any).
PMS integration:
- One-way integration: with this, once a booking is created, Channel Manager will send this information to your PMS.
- Two-way integration: The two-way integration between Channel Manager and PMS means room availability and room rates will be updated from PMS to Channel Manager and vice versa in real-time. This way will save you a lot of time in operations between two systems.
Channel Manager works independently or integrates 2-way with PMS system
Why you need a Channel Manager
Minimize operation time: a channel manager can integrate with your property management system or central reservations system as well as a booking engine to create a central control for your bookings.
Remove manual processes: with Channel Manager systems, you can say goodbye to manual data entry, which is time-consuming, and sometimes, creates errors. Besides, you will reduce the risk of overbookings as guests can only book a room that is actually available.
Increase profit, improve brand recognition: a channel manager can help you put your brand into the new markets, and there is a good chance that travelers will first discover your hotel on one of the top online travel channels. Connect to more online channels, more online bookings.
In short, a channel manager is a powerful tool to boost your bookings and revenue, while making life easy for you to manage inventories across distribution channels. Should you need further information on Channel Manager solutions, feel free to contact us!
