In 1996 Booking.com was only a Dutch startup, today it is a giant of the travel sector; its portal has established itself in the world market, offering 1,754,664 facilities in 130,898 destinations in 227 countries and regions all over the world.
More than 1,550,000 overnight stays are booked on the platform every day.
9 out of 10 managers of accommodations have found themselves in recent years to sell their rooms on Booking, increasingly wondering how convenient it is and looking for solutions to optimize their sales strategies.
In this article we will try to shed light on how to use a channel manager to sell their rooms on Booking.com in the right way!
Let’s start from the basics: what is the channel manager?
A channel manager is a software that can synchronize availability, rates, restrictions and reservations between your hotel management system and online sales portals.
We had already talked about the characteristics of a good channel manager here.
How can we connect a Channel Manager to Booking.com?
In this section we will explain what procedure an hotelier must follow to connect his channel manager to the Booking.com OTA.
First of all it is essential that the channel manager you have adopted is the official partner of Booking.
After that you will need to access the Booking.com extranet:
• Click on the Settings icon and choose channel manager from the drop-down menu;
• Choose the channel manager with which you want to connect and send the request;
• The channel manager provider will receive a request from Booking to confirm the connection with the structure.
• The channel manager provider after confirming the request, will perform the map (connection) of the rooms between Booking.com and the management software.
Price management: Parity Rate yes, Parity Rate no
On August 2nd, after a three year long journey, the Italian Senate approved with 146 yes and 113 no, the “DDL Concorrenza”, with which the clauses of the Parity Rate are definitively abolished.
After an initial blow and response between Federalberghi and Booking.com, the debate has not subsided and many have wondered what strategy to adopt: sell on all channels at the same price or apply a discount for direct sales?
Let’s make an example!
On the one hand, some hoteliers have decided to place better offers on their websites, by inserting on Booking surcharges that usually correspond to commissions, for example:
- € 100.00 on theri booking engine (direct booking);
- € 120.00 on OTA portals (e.g. Booking.com, Expedia);
Other hoteliers have decided to keep the same price both on the official website and on Booking, choosing to be more competitive on the latter, despite the final commissions.
Why do I need a 2-way XML channel manager to manage Booking?
Whether you want to respect the price parity between the various sales channels or want to apply surcharges on certain portals, in any case you need a software that can manage the operations automatically.
The channel manager has the task of synchronizing: prices, availability and reservations on all online sales and distribution portals; this is because managing manually availability, restrictions and tariffs is a truly exhausting effort that must be absolutely delegated to a software, so as to automate and simplify its management.
A hotel that wants to sell on Booking.com therefore needs to have a 2-way channel manager with an XML system, because it has a bidirectional interface with a “server to server” communication able to exchange data between the channel manager itself. and OTAs, with which prices, availability and registration of bookings are exchanged.
It will also need to be able to update:
- prices;
- minimum stay restriction;
- maximum stay restriction;
- availability;
- closures.
But it must also allow you to receive real-time updates on registered bookings; this implies that for a simpler and more efficient management of the structure it is advisable to use an all-in-one software that integrates booking engine and channel manager, so you can keep everything under control.
Slope Channel Manager
If you are wondering if the Slope’s Channel Manager is able to help you manage the various OTA channels, through automatic updating of prices, availability and reservations … the answer is yes 🙂 Contact us!
