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PMS & Own Hostel Website Booking System - With Once-Off Pricing Model

Front Desk Operations

jonL started this discussion 15 years 4 months ago

I was wondering if anyone knows an online booking system (which is placed on your own hostel website..not a third party channel) which can interface
directly with a PMS system? By interfacing I mean that when a guest makes an online booking, it automatically takes that booking and registers it into the PMS system and adjusts inventory accordingly. Also pricing can be automatically updated by the PMS to the online booking system (which may also possibly incorporate a revenue management system to change prices according to inventory level)

The issue is that I know such combination systems exist, but I have yet to find one with a pricing model where I can buy both the PMS and the online booking system upfront without any further obligatory commissions, transactions or support costs.

I think Micros has their Opera PMS System and MyLink online booking system which does such an interface but from what I understand they ask for annual fees and commissions, which I don't like or want.

Does anyone know of a system combination which is free of ongoing fees, commissions and support costs?

Thanks

Jon

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HostelOffice

14 years

You are interpreting my statements about what our software can do as an attack on Charts.

You have portrayed some of my comments as claims that Charts can't do some of them. I also do not write all the things our software can do.

I am not writing all I could write to deliberately avoid doing what you claim I am doing by miscontruing what I have written. Sure I will make some claims you will disagree with and that is the beauty of this blog. You have written some good info.

You are a manager that likes reports. Our software is most attractive to hostel owners or managers rewarded by profitability. Usually hostels under 300 beds in size.

I can not recall all the timings and issue with your setup. But I know for certain that you restricted us from completing setup because you were unwilling to allow us to connect to an agent because of your likeness for certain reports. That put you in No Mans Land with me not certain about what to do with your setup if you did not proceed.

Your focus is on listing with many agents and lowering prices to compete with other hostels but it does not make it the only way to achieve success. We believe we get hostels on a path to gain as many bookings as possible with as much profit margin per booking as possible.

As I wrote before. I at times promote Charts and ASSD as my focus is on assisting hostel owners have a more profitable hostel. Our software is the major tool used to achieve that objective. But not the only tool.

I think our differences have a lot to do with you having an approach as a manager and my approach is for the owner. You have your experience with a very large hostel and my experience is with hostels around 300 beds or smaller. I have worked for many years assisting people start and improve all types of businesses for the Stockholm School of Economics so I am sure my understanding of what makes a business more profitable to be pritty good. I am not in to selling as I am in to consulting.

This blog is a great opportunity to exercise some thoughts from all sides. We are both in the same industry with strong opinions on how to improve things. Friendly competition just makes us stronger

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LatestViking

14 years

This blog is a great opportunity to exercise some thoughts from all sides. We are both in the same industry with strong opinions on how to improve things. Friendly competition just makes us stronger

Hey Dean,

This sounds good ! Looking forward to meet you ! :)

Cheers !

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HostelOffice

14 years

The next hostel that would like to talk to a Charts user I will suggest they contact you.

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Bruno

14 years

Hi , I use Hostel Office , where 90 % of my bookings come from my website and 10% from the intigrated HW and Hb to name a couple. Let me know if you have any questions.

Hi all,
before than a Hostel software developer, I am a backpacker and, as a backpaker, I'm used to book my hostel stays directly from the hostel web sites, rather than from the booking engines. Although I use the major booking engines to search, always I try to look at the hostel website to obtain more informations, see more pictures and, if it is possible, I prefer booking from there. Perhaps I don't like pass trough intermediaries, but I think I am not the only one.:)

I would like to start a poll about this matter.

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HostelOffice

14 years

Good to hear from a Backpacker as this is the point I am making above.

We enable a hostel to gain as many direct bookings from their own website as possible rather than list with as many agents as possible thus causing many agents to have competitive websites drowning out the Hostel's own website.

It is a Zero Sum Game to compete by trying to be the lowest priced on many agent sites.

An Alternative is to have healthy direct sales from your own website so you can maintain fair buoyant prices on agent sites.

This way when someone searches on an agent site you may not get the first bookings for a specific date because you are not trying to be the lowest priced.

Who wants to be the first hostel to sell their beds at the lowest price? Surely having guests book in to your hostel first because they believe they will get value for money is the objective of every hostel?

You could argue - What if all hostels are the same in a city and lowering price is the only way to gain all the bookings you seek? My answer is that 99% of hostel websites are terrible and do not make much attempt to show the guest the value they can deliver.

Every hostel in a city ought to take on the responsibility to attract guests to the city and their hostel via unique methods. If everyone relies just on agent sites then this is a zero sum game.

A hostel in a city has local and up to date knowledge that can be used to attract guests.

Only in a hostel's own website can you capture guest's to stay at your hostel with key words like. near Hilton hotel Vienna, near Vienna Central Train Station, Buying bus tickets in Vienna, Vienna Distance Education University is 1 km away, dentist Vienna, Rock Concert Vienna, etc etc

We do not just supply one software solution for bookings. We also provide advice on how to improve your direct bookings so you can maintain a buoyant fair price. www.hosteloffice.com

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Peter K.

14 years

Good to hear from a Backpacker as this is the point I am making above.
...
You could argue - What if all hostels are the same in a city and lowering price is the only way to gain all the bookings you seek? My answer is that 99% of hostel websites are terrible and do not make much attempt to show the guest the value they can deliver.

You are a bit contradictive if you say that hostels should make more bookings via their website but on the other hand state that these sites are all terrible.

Let me guess: if they ordered their website from you it would have been the *best selling, smartest, good looking, award winning* and so on.

But anyway i would be interested in the poll that Bruno was mentioning:
Do hostels want to raise their bookings via their own website?

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HostelOffice

14 years

If hostels had better websites then they would get more direct bookings. I do not see the contradiction. Our business is not to sell websites so my comments are here to spark thought.

When one site can provide a booking solution for all hostels like the agents do then they become the preferred option. So having 80% of hostels with a findable website is not good enough. Having 99% of those 80% with non specific information in them undermines the competitive advantage they should have over aggregation websites.

These days websites can have Geo related info in them. A hostel can become a good authority that people will respect and as a result attract bookings to their hostel.

How many hostels have gone out there and taken photos of things around their city and posted them on Flickr with Geo tags to become the authority in their city? I would bet that in all of europe that maybe 10 hostels at most have done this. Yet 100's of hostels would love to have more bookings.

A hotel is very unlikely to Geo tag on Flickr Museums and the cool places to go to. So the opportunity is there for Hostels but I think the agents will yet again prove to be more serious about their business and do this before the majority of hostels.

Then the Time related Geo Tag will be upon us to present another opportunity to hostel owners and managers. There will be individuals with the job to create this info for their employers. Will their employers be hostels or aggregation sites?

Will the biggest aggregation sites be the current agents or Google?

Sorry I got carried away :-)

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shcherbak

13 years

I am slowly reaching alfa stage of own software solution, planning to release it under GPL, so it would be free. System is based on any web server (with some preferences to Apache) and is written mostly in PHP. Testing version should be ready before May, and anyone interested is welcome.

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jonL

13 years

The initiator of this thread chose our software before I wrote details about our software that you complained about.

Just to clarify, as the initiator of this original thread, I did not choose HostelOffice. So not sure why HostelOffice said the above. I know the post is quite old, but I don't want to be seen as promoting something or have chosen something that I have not.

I had a look at HostelOffice, and the cost of 1200 Euros per year I felt was quite high. This goes backto my original post I wanted something without recurring costs.

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HostelOffice

13 years

Gee this is one big mess of posts where people are accusing others of representing something they are not. 1200 euros for our software? Absolutely true for a years usage. But high cost absolutely not when a hostel is not having to pay the fee for a whole year up front and within a day or at most - days - the software will generate extra income more than enough to cover the monthly fee. The software typically causes hostels to bring in a substantial amount of extra in come that could be 50,000+ euros. Yeah sure people are going to say their hostel is small but the monetary benefits still are far higher than the fee. A hostel that takes a free trial can often gain so much extra income in the free trial period to cover the whole yearly fee. Have a look at what our users say by joining our Facebook User Group and ask them directly. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_119198838163057 or contact the hostels you see listed here http://www.hosteloffice.com/#users

As for the recurring cost - If you can get Microsoft, Linux and Apple Mac to stop upgrading their software along with the EU and others adding Credit Card Rules etc then there would be less need for our programmers to keep upgrading the software that causes a monthly fee.

So our software increases income. But here is a film showing how our software reduces expenditure for larger hostels. [video=vimeo;28433997]http://vimeo.com/28433997[/video]

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