Any hotel or rental property website will need to make use of a booking software if they really want to be able to offer their visitors the very best in convenience. Customers want to be able to check the availability of rooms and place their reservations online without the need to make phonecalls or send any emails to the hotel. A good booking engine such as those integrated into the Lodgify vacation rental software makes the whole process of making reservations much easier as customers can simply book and pay online.
Why Your Rental Business Needs Booking Engine Software
A booking engine on your website will make it simple for potential visitors to your rental property or hotel to view a calendar and place bookings for available rooms via its centralized system. This calendar is integrated into your website and will enable those who use it to save time when making arrangements for their impending vacations. Customers can simply place their bookings and then spend their time on the other aspects of their travel plans. Furthermore, payments can be made with ease via credit cards in any currency that they are using.
Booking Software Should Have Website Integration
Any booking software that you are considering for use for your rental business really should include website integration as part of its features. What this means is that when the booking software is integrated into your website, it will be able to update automatically and is completely centralized which means the booking calendar your customers view is the very same one that you will use in the office or onsite at your hotels or properties.
As soon as a customer books a room, the software updates so that all staff members anywhere else will automatically be able to see that this booking has been made. This ensures that there is no chance of double bookings ever occurring. It works the other way around too, so if a hotel gives a room to a walk-in visitor, the website will automatically show that room as being taken to any customers online.
This software will also automatically update for any cancellations that might occur – allowing that room to be taken by somebody else straight away in most cases.
Online Booking Engines Save the Time of Staff
The older and now outdated booking systems would usually require two separate calendars rather than a single one being centralized. They would have one onsite at the hotel and another for any online bookings that were placed. This would mean that staff would have to manually update both in order for them to be synchronised. As well as being time-consuming for staff, this would obviously lead to the chance of humanerrors such as double bookings to occur.
Hotel management will just have one centralized calendar to keep an eye on and will be able to instantly know when new rooms are reserved or become available. Frustrated customers who have lost out due to double bookings will also be something of the past or at the very least, hugely minimized.
Payments Done Easily with Booking Engine Software
Another big benefit of using booking engine software such as that offered by Lodgify is the ability it gives customers to enjoyworry-free payment. Many of the best booking engines will be able to accept payments via credit card for any reservations that have been placed on your website. Payments can be made, processed and authorized quickly and securely which will not add convenience for your customers but will also save your staff some time as well.
No matter what country your guests might be from, their credit cards can be used no matter the currency. Credit cards will handle the conversions of these currencies to ensure that you are getting the exact amount advertised for a stay in your room.
A guest who has already paid online will be able to turn up at your hotel and simply check-in without having to mess around paying. This makes it easier for both the guest and the hotel and allows the whole check-in process to become more streamlined. Get the key and be shown to your room – job done!
