The term Channel Management is widely used in sales marketing parlance in the hotel industry. Channel Management is defined as a process where the hotel manages all the online distribution channels in-order to evenly distribute its inventory and at the same time maximize revenue generation from online agents and 3rd party sites. Channel Management Systems are supposed to help the hotel reach global market without the risk of overbooking, and effectively ensure rate parity across all sites. It also helps the hotel in revenue yield as well as pushing promotions during need periods.
A hotel Channel Manager is a system that updates the availability and rates of a hotel directly to major Online Travel Agencies and retrieves reservations accordingly, making it easy for the hotel to offer its rooms online, avoiding overbooking and rate parity issues.
Tedious Process
3rd party sites and Online Travel Agencies such as Booking.com, Expedia or other smaller online distribution channels will complain that the hotels are not being efficient, and on the other hand, the hotel will need to invest in extra time and personnel required to manage these connections effectively. It is a tedious process if the hotel has to login to every extranet to adjust the rates, availability, close in case of blackout dates or load a promotion.
Without a channel manager, you will be required to split your room availability among different agents, as this is the only way to ensure that you do not overbook your rooms on any given night. This can lead to wasted inventory and lost profits.
Studies show that travelers browse two to three different booking sites before making their final selection, your visibility and constant availability is necessary to capture this audience.
You find that hotels opts to offer only a few rooms online, in order to avoid having overbooking issues or selling a high percentage of the hotel’s rooms through third parties. This seems effective but on the other hand, the hotel looses the ability to maximize its room sales, and yield, bearing in mind that online sales is one of the easiest way to yield on high rates during demand periods, and pushing sales during the need periods.
By having a Channel Manager, the hotel can directly update availability and rates to all IDS and GDS systems, with minimal effort. The revenue team has only one extranet to work with which distributes the information loaded to all systems and sites.
How can a Hotel Channel Manager Benefit you?
- You will maximize your bookings and increase your revenue effortlessly
- You will minimize errors when loading rates, terms and conditions and availability on the extranet
- It is less time consuming since you will work on one extranet which will share information with all GDS and 3rd party sites
- You will increase your distribution network globally
- You will connect with markets that can be challenging to reach
- You have the ability to choose when to distribute your rates and inventory and to who, by a click of a button
- You can run promotions during your need period to multiple channels by a click of a button
- You can run your highest rates to all channels during your peak period and ultimately improve your ADR by yielding by a click of a button
- Channel Manager helps to ensure there is rate parity on all channels globally
Tag List booking channel manager hotel management marketing sales