What kinds of software or services do people use to take bookings through your own Web sites?
Here are some that I know about:
Are there others that people have used and would recommend?
I'm especially interested in services that run on hostels' own Web sites and that can handle taking bookings at multiple locations.
15 years
We are in the process of developing a custom booking plugin that will fit into your own website. I would like some feedback from the community as to what you would expect from this? I want to develop this so that is stream lines the booking process.
15 years
We at GOMIO.COM offer very customized booking interfaces for hostels. You can even create your own one in our management system, but there are no extra costs if we built one for you. We do also have very low rates and it´s up to the hostel if the percentage should be included in the rack rate or put on top.
If you are interested then just get in touch with me or email us with your request and we are more than happy to send an example.
It´s a great way to receive credit card details from your guests so you would be able to charge a no show very easily. We also link back to your website once the booking interface is installed.
Our email is [email][email protected][/email].
15 years
Have a look at www.hosteloffice.com We synchronise with Hostelworld, Hostelbookers, GOMIO and more agents. A booking from any agent reduces allocation for all agents.
Our website booking engine is the most advanced as it enables you to sell a room under multiple descriptions. When the one room type is sold all the other tied room options are removed. have a look how it integrates www.baronshostel.com
We also provide free website optimisation advice for the hostels that use Hostel Office.
Dean
15 years
Hi,
I was just wondering how the integration with Hostelworl and Hostelbookers would work - Do I have to put my login details for my accounts into your software, and it then synchronises the rooms? I must admit I like the idea of being able to have multiple rooom types for the same room.
Thanks
15 years
What we do is legally automate the process of adjusting allocations and receiving bookings from multiple agents and from your website. We also give you the capability to enable others to be agents for you like Tourism Offices, Bus Stations, and hostels you cooperate with.
We avoid answering technical specifics. The more success we have the more we will be able to afford to add features functions and additional agent integration. Already our software is far more capable than any other offering.
Cheers from Dean
15 years
hehehe - not sure why i find it funny - but i decided not long ago to give charts the ass before we even actually introduced it. ive used it as a front desky and hated it... with a passion. from the back office POV, it certainly has its benefits but its just too damn unuser-friendly for my liking. no way can i be bothered training someone for that long on a program i hated using myself.
wht are we using? hostelpower right now, but switching to Backpack Online very soon.
Wow. It seems like you're moving in the opposite direction of everyone else. Do you want to switch to Backpack Online because you have a really small hostel? I'm not sure why you had trouble learning or training people on Charts. My new hires are ready to go on their own in 6 hours. You really just need to get past it's looks and realize that a keyboard based system is much faster than having to use a mouse. If you have a really small hostel I can see why you wouldn't mind paying Hostelworld 2.5% for bookings that come off your own website though. My hostel is only 70 beds and Backpack Online would have cost me more than twice as much than Charts did for all of last year, and I would have been having to enter all of Hostelbookers reservations manually, and would have had to have a lead time on bookings and constantly updating my allocation. I also would hate to rely on a system that's web based. Although it rarely happens, I'd hate to have guests waiting for the internet to come back up before I can tell them what room they're in or print them up a receipt. I can always walk over to an internet cafe to update the allocation on HW and HB if necessary. Don't think the guests would like to make the same walk to get checked in though.
15 years
If you have a really small hostel I can see why you wouldn't mind paying Hostelworld 2.5% for bookings that come off your own website though. My hostel is only 70 beds and Backpack Online would have cost me more than twice as much than Charts did for all of last year.
Where is the 2.5%? don't HW payback the deposit on bookings from the hostel's own website? Plus a percentage of the booking fee?
Also, I've never been able to find out totally, how does charts interface with HW allocations - do you have to put in your HW login details? Or does it somehow access the web dynamically to pull off your HW and HB availability?
Thanks for any info
15 years
No, I'm pretty sure that Backpack isn't free. They definitely don't advertise it as being free. They used to charge 5% but weren't finding too many takers and then brought it down to 2.5% and are still at that percentage as far as I know.
The Charts Portal interface goes into your Hostelworld backend (I believe it's by magic) every 30 seconds and imports any and all new reservations directly into your Charts PMS. At the same time, it updates your availability so that if you've taken any reservations either by phone, Hostelbookers, your website, reservation extensions etc., it will remove those from your availability on Hostelworld as well. The Charts people set all this up for you. All of your inventory is always available live on Hostelworld. The only thing it doesn't do is fetch Hostelworld cancelations. If someone has booked through HW and cancels their reservation through HW, you will still get the email notifications from HW, which gives you the guest's name, so you just go into Charts and cancel the reservation yourself. Oh, it also updates your rates when you change your rates in Charts. Basically, the only thing you have to do in Hostelworld is change your text if you need to.
Unfortunately though, because Hostelworld is making some big changes to make themselves PCI compliant, the Portal Interface will be down starting some time next week. I'm not sure how long it will take for it to be running again. I'm told that it could take 4 months.
15 years
My new hires are ready to go on their own in 6 hours.
That's fast... I think with roomMaster 2000 we had to double up new employees with a trainer for about 4 days, and even then there would still be mistakes for a while after that.
15 years
Right. I'm not exaggerating either. However, I'm talking about a new hire. If you were to switch over to Charts from another program, the employees who are used to your old program will have a hard time adapting to Charts because it is very different from what they're used to. Any new hires pick it up incredibly fast though.
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