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Question: What are the disadvatages to using multiple online booking websites?

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jenningsaj started this discussion 11 years 8 months ago

Hello,
I am opening a small boutique hostel with 2 business partners. This is a small project, there are 9 rooms and average value of each room is roughly $120/night. I have a background in marketing, although not in hospitality so am learning as much as possible. Currently the business is generating all of its reservations via Booking.com & TripAdvisor.

My initial thoughts were, why not start taking bookings from more booking sites as you are only paying a commission on bookings anyway... So the more reservations, the better? I appreciate that there may be disadvantages to registering with lots of sites though so wanted to get some advice...

What are the pros & cons of recieving bookings from multiple booking sites? For reference we were considering keeping Booking.com & TripAdvisor and adding Expedia, Hotels.com and 1 other. The hostel is based in Europe.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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Rucksack Brian

11 years

Are you opening a hostel or a hotel?

All of the sites you mentioned focus on hotels rather than hostels. If you are opening a hoStel, then I would also recommend listing on hostelworld, hostelbookers, hostelsclub, and gomio. All of them will cost you less money in commissions than the ones you are currently considering.

Regarding whether or not to list on multiple sites:
Pro - Selling your beds on multiple channels gives you greater exposure to potential guests.
Con - You risk overbookings if you offer the same beds on all sites and you don't remove that availability as soon as a bed sells. This can be avoided by a) selling different beds on each site, b) watching your booking closely and removing availability immediately, or c) using a channel manager that will automatically update your availability to all of the sites you work with.

If I were in your shoes, I would list your hostel on multiple booking sites.

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Clayworks Hostel

11 years

Brain--what's a good channel manager? Are you using one at your hostel now? Of all the research we've done the list of booking software is the longest. Thanks for your advice. -Alice

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Rucksack Brian

11 years

Hi Alice,

The channel manager that I keep hearing the most about is MyAllocator. A hotel channel manager that has also been mentioned on this site is Rate Tiger.

I'm not currently using a channel manager, but I would like to change that this summer. I read that MyAllocator is developing their booking engine applet for hostel websites that will allow prepayments to go directly to the hostel's bank account. When that feature rolls out I'll be the first in line to sign up.

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kphinds

11 years

Hi Alice,
Your problem is solved -try roomallocator.co.uk

They work closely with Myallocator and Loventis -but they do all your work for a fee.

www.roomallocator.co.uk

have a read and see if that's what you need?

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