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September 8, 2011   Posted by: admin

Advantages of Direct Online Hotel Bookings

The hotel industry has witnessed enormous growth in the past two decades and most of the credit for this achievement goes to effective utilization of power of internet. Millions of properties all over the world are nowadays offering the facility of online bookings/reservations to their guests. In fact, online reservations have become a norm as travellers find it much easier to book hotels/rooms of their choice from the convenience of four walls of their homes. There are two basic ways in which one can make an online booking – booking direct with hotels and booking with Online Travel Agencies (OTAs).
Online travel agencies (OTAs) have the resources and ability to provide their clients a wide range of lodging options, thus enabling them to make an informed decision after doing price and facilities comparison among various hotels. Some of the popular OTAs are Travelocity, MakeMyTrip, Expedia, Thomas Cook etc. OTAs can also provide hotel/room pictures to their clients, besides other details like best deals, prices and guest reviews. All these details make it a lot easier for travellers to select the best hotel for their needs.
Although OTAs are quite popular in the travel market, one cannot overlook the benefits associated with making direct bookings at hotel websites. Direct hotel bookings are more popular with loyal, frequent, unmanaged and leisure business travellers who focus more on the convenience and schedule adherence during their travel. While hotel websites particularly cater to this audience which demands a greater level of personalization, OTAs are appealing to other category of travellers who prefer infrequent leisure holidays at their own convenience. The latter category of travellers is more price-sensitive and takes only a few trips per year.
A survey carried out recently confirms that only 39% of overall travel sales online are closed through OTAs. The remaining 61% of hotel bookings are made directly at the hotel websites. Hence it is quite evident that the new age hotel customer is pretty smart and believes in making direct reservations without the intervention of any third party.
A large number of hotels nowadays have their own websites which have online reservation software incorporated into them, enabling people to reserve rooms in real time. With the help of such facility, hoteliers too can market their properties directly to the guests in a far better manner.
Following are some advantages associated with direct online hotel bookings:
-          Hotels can increase their profits by doing away with 20% – 30% fee normally charged by third party intermediaries. They can even pass on this margin to guests, thereby increasing guest loyalty.
-          Room rates can be controlled better and reservations can be increased directly from own website
-          Customer experience can be better managed by following their shopping and reservation patterns. Customer satisfaction can also be increased by following up on their online feedbacks and acting upon their suggestions.
-          Customers can be provided various options and incentives (including freebies at gyms, restaurants, spas and other facilities) while making online bookings.
-          Guests can be provided a virtual tour of the hotel on the hotel website, thereby giving them a better idea about the actual property.
-          Since the guests will have a first hand copy of the booking acknowledgement, there is no possibility of foul play at the intermediary level, especially at peak season times.
An important reason why a large majority of travellers are nowadays making reservations online is because many hotels have improved the quality of their websites significantly. The new age hotel websites have better design and navigation; some of them even have virtual tours of property available on them.
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September 8, 2011   Posted by: admin

Property Management System/Software

It will be an understatement to say that the hospitality industry today is highly dependent on effective hotel management tools and skills at every stage of its daily operations. In order to ensure that all of its services run smoothly, it is essential that records in a hotel are maintained in an organized and easily accessible manner. Moreover, this job of managing and organizing data gets even more intimidating as the property/hotel undergoes expansion. This is precisely where a good property management system comes into play.

Property management involves operations and procedures related to acquisition, control, maintenance, utilization and disposal of a property. Such type of job, which earlier used to be handled by manually, is nowadays done effectively with the help of property management software. Further, technology in the form of a software has made the entire process hassle free and flawless to operate. It effectively controls the data related to different functioning aspects of a property.

Such property management software or PMS (as it is popularly known in the market) is basically an integration of distinct modules that take care of specific aspects of hotel management, such as accounting, reservation, HR, administration, housekeeping etc. A good property management software not only takes care of all these aspects effectively, but also streamlines them in a manner that any deviation/problem can be located and dealt with easily at any point of time. Several hotels usually get this software customized in order to meet their own specific requirements. There are several unique benefits associated with such property management software. Some such benefits which can be derived by hoteliers are:

The data management work is reduced considerably with the help of a property management software. All data records can now be stored digitally in a hassle-free manner, thereby doing away with the otherwise mandatory paperwork.

- Important operations like reservations/bookings, check-ins, checkouts, room service, in-room dining etc. are all readily available on screen and can therefore be carried out in a matter of just few mouse clicks. This increases the overall efficiency of the management system and the hotel staff.

- Clients can make room bookings of their choice and make use of hotel services directly through the hotel website. Since it’s a direct transaction between the consumer and the service provider, the chances of any misunderstanding are reduced significantly.

- Many other property related tasks like maintenance of back-office database, scheduling of events in the hotel, staff management, inventory control etc. can be both controlled and monitored on a regular basis with the help of a property management system.

Keeping in mind all the advantages of efficient property management software, it is obvious that a hotel which integrates such a system into their day to day operations, can work wonders for both its managers as well as visitors. So, the next time you see that front desk executive smiling and carrying out his/her duties without worry, you’d know that it’s an efficient property management software at work.

To conclude, property management software is a must for any hotel manager who is looking for ways to make life easy for his/her employees.

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September 8, 2011   Posted by: admin

Hotel Management Software Important Points to Remember

The advent of internet has revolutionized the way the world conducts its day to day business. Hospitality industry too hasn’t remained unaffected. Online hotel reservations have slowly become a regular norm and anyone waiting to reach the reception desk to make a reservation is looked down upon as ‘behind the times’ today. Simply put, technology has made hotel reservations simpler, less cumbersome and hence, more popular.
Increased dependence on technology to manage properties has also put new evolving expectations on the different types of hotel management software. The ideal hotel management software needs to be all inclusive in nature; capable of managing properties of all sizes and types. Furthermore, the booking mechanism should be easy to use and visitor maintenance procedures free of confusing technical jargon. The front desk operations must be integrated well, in order to facilitate efficient administration of the property. In addition, the software must support multiple properties and multiple currencies which can be managed effectively from different geographical locations.
One of the important purposes of implementing hotel management software is to minimize the usage of paper stacks and replace them with an intelligent system that can retain client data and provide timely details and reservation trends to allow for a personalized touch in dealings with visitors.  Some of the important features of an efficient hotel management software are: 

  • Easy Check in and Check out
  • A comprehensive front desk interface
  • Web booking system which enables group bookings at multiple rates
  • Easy to use payment gateway that can process safe credit/debit card transactions
  • Unlimited POS (point of sale) terminals which can be utilized at Room service, Restaurants, Spas etc.
  • Streamlined account maintenance
  • Efficient reporting and management of housekeeping operations
  • 24/7 Live Support that can be accessed with ease
Although there are several types of free-to-download hotel management software available in the market, you must exercise great caution while deciding to download and install them on your hotel’s computers. It is not unheard of, that software developers, who create these free-to-download programs, infect them with different types of malicious codes and viruses, capable of compromising the security of hotel’s systems. On the other hand, there are hotel management software being sold in the market which are outrageously expensive and can be afforded only by big business entities.

Selecting the right type of hotel management software for your property is a decision that should be taken keeping in mind all the specific requirements of your business and its day-to-day operations. You need to study the software and determine whether it’ll really be able to ease off the pressure on your staff or it would instead, end up being a liability which can cause great damage to your hotel’s reputation. It is advisable that you carry out a test run of the software for a certain period of time. This’ll help you to assess the capability of the software and will further enable you to have any customizations in the software, if necessary.

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Reward your best guests with Facebook Credits
September 6, 2011   Posted by: admin

Reward your best guests with Facebook Credits

A lot of people are still wondering how Facebook makes any money apart for the advertising bit.Facebook Credits is a new revenue stream that was officially launched earlier this year for people who want to purchase stuff on the social networking site like a truck on the game Farmville. Facebook Credits are part of what we call virtual currency in the same way we had Linden dollars in Second Life.

You would need to buy Facebook Credits with real money via PayPal or credit card. For instance you could buy 50 Facebook Credits for $5.  With this money, you could vote for your favourite candidate on the X Factor, or watch movie on PayPerView.

At the moment, the online gaming industry is taking advantage of the virtual industry (MafiaWars, Farmville, PyramidZ are game where people trade in millions of dollars). Facebook Credits can also be used to purchase Deals if you have run a promotion on the site.So what’s in it for us in the hospitality industry? 

I can see 5 ideas that could be explored in your business.

#1 If you have created deals on Facebook Places with your restaurant, bar and hotels, you can allow your prospects to purchase in advance what you offer.

#2 You can run a campaign on your website and reward your best customers with Facebook Credits. For instance, you can track repeat guests and give them Facebook Credits based on what they spend at your property.

#3 On your email marketing, you could reward your guests with Facebook Credits if they fill an online guest satisfaction survey

#4 You could reward people with Facebook Credits if they talk about your company  on Twitter. A tweet about @yourhotel will give you 20 Facebook Credits

#5 You could reward your guests if they reffer your hotel to their friends with a secured booking (which won’t be cancelled eventually)

This virtual currency on the largest networking site (750M users around the world) is very exciting for retailers and brands. Let’s see how the hospitality industry will take advantage of this.

Feel free to comment your feedback on Facebook Credits and share the pros and cons.

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