Software for taking online bookings

If you do not have a website or a website people can find then you are wasting a business opportunity. The three most important aspects of a business are Location Location Location. When your customers book via the web then your web location is vitally important. You only get a good web presence by working on it. That is why a good website is valuable with many benefits that outsourcing to an agent can not provide. One big advantage is that you can change the physical location of your hostel and not miss bookings when you have your own website.
2. You can gain higher prices per bed from your own website when you are not being listed with 30 or more other hostels.
3. You can include more information about your hostel and inbed You Tube etc.
4. You can list your rooms as you have them with the most accurate descriptions, with balcony, just shower, Is a prison cell, family room, non smoking, smoking etc
5. You can sell and promote other services via your website like car parking, tours, breakfasts.
6. You can sell your website for a lot of money if you decide you need the money.
7. Having your own website is enjoyable and costs less than losing money on commissions.
8. The reality is that it is easy to get a good presence with search engines no matter how many hostels there are in your cities. It just takes time.

It pains me to have to point these things out so I will leave it for others to point out that you are not in control of your business and you have less of a business if you do not work on your website.

You keep your agent contracts so it is not a choice of one of the other.

The Hostels Sydney is an excellent example. The fact that the hostel owners in a city do not buy the key domain names like sydneyhostels.com proves that the hostel owners do not do enough to maintain ownership of their own business. So the problem is not the competition but the lack of effort.

In Krakow the hostel owners cry about the competition but I only found one website that was SEO optimised. Yet many of them got on the first page of Google.

Good idea... I once did this for a struggling hostel in the USA, offering some $11.50 dorm beds (instead of $18+), though I also ran Adwords with "$11.50" in the title. The hostel went from 40% occupancy to over 130% in 6 weeks and people stopped saying "I've never heard of this place before, but just accidentally walked by it."

Question, do you recommend this for a new hostel just opening to get people in the door? Or should one wait and see how business is first? I'd hate to run a special like that if I could get a high occupancy from day one at full price. Also was that on all beds or just a select few? Thanks.

if i type 'sydeny hostel' into google, 2 hostels come up. the rest are booking engines; australia is a massive market, just massive. it gave birth to the modern backpacker hostel; the bigger hostels know what theyre doing. base and nomads know how to market themselves but theres simply no way an independent hostel can compete with the booking engines in regards to SEO. they/we simply dont have the resources. north america, it would appear, is a different kettle of fish, presumably because 'hostels' simply arent the norm over there. to be honest, i would not have expected such a differentiation, so if anyone has any stats id be very interested.

We have been involved in the development of http://resengine.com and find it ideal.

It looks pretty good, and a fair price for the version which it says is ideal for hostels.

Is it indeed ideal for hostels? Does it deal with beds as separate entities? That is, can John book one bed in a dorm and then (in a separate reservation) Jane book 2 beds in that dorm, etc?