Not all hotels are able to implement and maintain a hotel management software solution; and therefore, some hotels prefer to only rely on applications that handle guest reservations. Hotel reservations software helps hospitality companies facilitate reservation processes for both customers and employees. These applications contribute to the overall customer experience by facilitating smooth processes during the reservation phase of the customer lifecycle. While employees in charge of reservation management benefit the most from this type of software, a good portion of the customer information stored by such applications assists sales and marketing teams to uncover new business opportunities.
For optimal business results, hotel reservations software needs to integrate with back office software, like accounting, or with other applications designed for the tourism industry such as tour operator and travel agency software. While most hotel management solutions include a reservation module, some of them integrate with hotel reservations software offered by other vendors.
To qualify for inclusion in the Hotel Reservations category, a product must:
- Provide web portals for online reservations
- Automatically manage room or venue availability based on capacity and demand
- Manage multichannel reservation (web, email, and phone) requests
- Track cancellations and other changes to reservations
- Deliver a large variety of options for reservations including promotions
- Include multiple payment options and integration with payment processing software
- Process rewards as part of loyalty programs
