What is a hotel booking engine? Key functions and top 6 software providers

Still debating whether you really need a hotel booking engine? Some hoteliers lean too heavily on OTAs, paying steep commissions and handing over valuable guest relationships in the process.

The truth is, direct bookings can come from everywhere: your website, metasearch, social media, email, and even messaging apps. A booking engine ties it all together, making it effortless for guests to book with you, not through someone else.

When you control the booking experience, you keep more revenue, strengthen guest loyalty, and shape every step of their stay. In this guide, we’ll explore how the right booking engine makes that possible, with real-world examples and the features worth investing in.

Today, hotels can choose an integrated booking engine that seamlessly collects and sends reservation details and payment information to their property management system (PMS), channel manager, payment gateway, and more.

In the following sections, we’ll look at how a hotel booking system can help you customize the traveler journey, secure more commission-free bookings, increase revenue, and gain valuable insights into guest behavior, and explore six of the top hotel booking engines on the market.

Customize the traveler’s journey

Consumer preferences have shifted significantly with the introduction of highly personalized technology like Netflix, Amazon, and Uber. To keep up with travelers’ desire for convenience and personalization, lodging operators must leverage their booking engine’s features.

Your online booking system can help to customize the guest journey through the following methods.

• Upsells and add-ons. Travelers crave experiences. Your booking engine can introduce guests to a range of activities and experiences both in-house and with your partners that can enhance their stay and increase your overall revenue. Think room upgrades, bike rentals, city tours, or wine tastings – all available during the reservation process.
• Multiple rate plans. On your booking engine, showcase your different rate plans like breakfast included, early-bird, or extended-stay discounts so that travelers can choose the plan that best fits their needs.
• Transparency. Travelers should have full transparency when looking at your booking engine’s calendar to see restrictions like length of stay, closed-to-arrival, and closed-to-departure so they can easily choose dates without running into errors.
• Branding. First impressions matter. When a potential guest moves through your hotel website and lands on your booking engine, it should provide a consistent look and feel. A customizable booking engine will allow you to tailor design elements to ensure your brand’s colors, fonts, and overall aesthetics are met to reinforce trust and confidence with website visitors.
• Language and currency. The world is more connected than ever. To cater to this global audience, booking engines must offer multi-language support and currency conversion to streamline the booking process for international guests.

The ZERO Hotels uses customizations to instill trust

The ZERO Hotels are a unique collection of properties across Portugal that offer guests an unparalleled lodging experience. Their ZERO Box Lodge is the most popular offering, inspired by Japanese capsule hotels where guests stay in minimalistic wooden boxes equipped with a private bathroom in a shared dorm.

Bernardo Thierstein, General Manager at The ZERO Box Lodge Porto, knew they needed a hospitality platform and booking engine that was easy to use and provided the freedom to experiment with rate plans and promotions to drive more direct bookings.

The ZERO Hotels adopted the Cloudbeds Platform and seamlessly integrated the Cloudbeds Booking Engine to match the design of their existing website and collect payments securely. They’ve seen a huge increase in direct bookings thanks to their connection to Google Hotel Search, and Bernardo plans to experiment with the Booking Engine’s design and promotional offerings to drive even more.

Secure direct bookings

Travelers have a ton of options when it comes to making online reservations. To steer them towards your direct channels, it’s important to provide a secure and seamless guest experience.

Here’s how your booking engine can help drive more direct bookings.

• Secure payment processing. Financial security tops the list of concerns for most travelers booking with their credit card online. Using a booking engine with a secure, encrypted, and integrated payment processor (made clear on your site) can reassure travelers and increase conversion rates.
• Automated emails and messages. Instant gratification is the hallmark of the digital age. Once a booking is made, guests expect prompt confirmation via email and other messaging platforms (ie. SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger).
• Mobile functionality. An Expedia study found that 32% of travelers booked their most recent trip on mobile. A mobile-responsive booking engine ensures a user-friendly experience for travelers to effortlessly make reservations on the go.
• Metasearch integrations. Travelers use booking sites like Trivago and Tripadvisor to compare hotels and book. Integrating with these engines and offering real-time pricing and availability ensures that guests book directly instead of with an OTA.
• Rate comparison widget. Price comparison is second nature today, so a rate comparison widget is vital to any booking engine. This widget displays how your rate compares to OTAs, nudging guests to book directly (assuming you’re offering the lowest price).
• Deals and promotions. To urge travelers to book direct, allow them to book special offer rates or use promotion codes only available via your booking engine. Consider offering weeknight rates, promo codes for special events, or loyalty discounts for repeat customers.

Himmapana Villas experiences massive growth in direct bookings

Located in the Kamala Beach area in Phuket, Thailand, are four dreamy luxury resorts that make up the Himmapana brand. Thomas K. Petersen, Managing Partner, went from managing three villas to building Himmapana, which consists of 41 high-end villas complete with luxury pools, massage services, private chef bookings, and much more.

The Himmapana Villas manage around 2,000 bookings annually and needed a reliable hospitality platform, especially a booking engine that could take bookings 24/7.

Since adopting the Cloudbeds Platform, Thomas and his team have seen massive growth in the volume of direct bookings over the past year. He attributes this success to a strong presence on social media channels in conjunction with the Cloudbeds Booking Engine and payment processor on their website.

Increase revenue and profitability

An integrated booking engine is a game-changer for increasing revenue and overall profitability. It can help you pocket more from guests with little to no output.

Here are a few ways a booking engine can help increase your revenue and profitability.

• Diverse distribution mix. Creating a more diverse distribution mix made up of both OTAs and direct sources is crucial for optimal profitability. If you rely too heavily on OTAs, you risk giving away your profit in commissions.
• Intelligent pricing. Booking engines integrated with a pricing intelligence engine or revenue management system can help you price more strategically using automation, adjusting rate plans and room types based on demand, seasonality, and other factors in the hospitality industry.
• Multi-property functionality. If you have multiple properties, your booking engine can serve as a unified portal for guests to search across your portfolio. This provides a better user experience and can strategically guide visitors towards higher-margin properties or dates with greater availability.

Insights into guest behavior

Your website collects immense amounts of data, and your booking engine can help you understand it.

Here’s how your booking engine can help provide insight into your guests.

• Robust reporting. Integrated booking engines come equipped with in-depth reporting capabilities since data is centralized from your PMS and channel manager. These reports can shed light on booking trends, average length of stay, and guest preferences to help guide decision-making.
• Integration with Google Analytics. Use Google Analytics to track and generate reports on every shopper that passes through your booking engine to gain a granular understanding of guests’ online behaviors.
• Facebook Pixel tracking. If you’re running Facebook ads, you can keep track of conversions and optimize your audience and messaging to boost ad performance and drive more bookings.

What to consider when choosing a booking engine provider

Now that you know what to look for in a reservation system, it’s time to choose the right provider. Some must-haves include:

Pricing model. Does the provider work on a per-booking commission basis? Does a flat fee/subscription model apply? Are there mandatory setup fees?

Onboarding and ongoing support. Before deciding on a provider, you’ll want to know what it takes to get started. How long is the onboarding process? Is there guidance for setting up your account? What kind of support do they offer? How robust is the knowledge base for self-service learning and troubleshooting?

Safety and security compliance. When it comes to software that handles sensitive data, like your room rates and guest payment information, you’ll want to ensure your data is secure. Inquire about compliance: PCI DSS, SCA, Guest data compliance, and GDPR.

Customer reviews. Check online reviews on reputable software review sites like Capterra, Software Advice, and Hotel Tech Report.

9 best booking engine software for hotels

We’ve included six of the top booking engine systems on the market to help increase direct bookings and revenue.

1. Cloudbeds

Cloudbeds’ award-winning, commission-free booking engine seamlessly integrates with a hotel’s website to capture reservations across distribution channels. It offers a range of rate plans, add-ons, and promotional codes to maximize revenue and offers real-time payment processing integrations for a smooth and hassle-free booking process.

2. Amadeus

The Amadeus Integrated Booking Suite offers an end-to-end eCommerce platform leveraging best-in-class web, reservations, and guest management solutions. 

3. Cendyn

Cendyn Booking Engine is a robust booking engine that offers real-time inventory management and dynamic pricing capabilities. 

4. Mirai

Mirai provides hotels with a leading booking engine to help gain independence and reduce overall distribution costs.

5. Net Affinity

Net Affinity’s booking engine is feature-rich, lightning-fast, and made for mobile, helping hotels optimize the booking experience.

6. Simplotel

Simplotel gives hotels OTA-like tech to drive more direct bookings via an e-commerce-optimized website and booking engine.

7. SiteMinder

The SiteMinder Booking Engine is a sophisticated online reservation platform designed to drive direct bookings for hotels, boosting revenue while minimizing dependency on third-party booking sites. 

8. SynXis

SynXis Booking Engine (Sabre) is an online booking platform designed to help hotels expand their market reach while improving direct channel conversion rates.

9. SHR

The SHR Booking Engine is an advanced booking engine platform designed to enhance direct bookings and revenue management for hotels. 

Earn more with an integrated online booking engine

The right booking engine can completely transform your booking experience. It customizes the traveler’s journey to instill trust with potential guests, facilitates secure direct bookings, helps increase revenue via dynamic pricing and relevant upsells, and provides crucial insights into guest behavior.