Because of stiff competition, these days hotels are constantly striving to maximise their online presence and attract a wider audience. A channel manager platform has emerged as an essential tool for hoteliers, streamlining operations, and optimising revenue. Here, we will highlight the significance of channel manager platforms for hotels seeking travel and hospitality software development services, explaining how they empower hotels to thrive in the highly competitive hospitality industry.

What is Channel Management?

Before delving into the reasons why hotels need a channel manager platform, it is crucial to understand what channel management entails. Channel management refers to the process of distributing hotel inventory across various online distribution channels, such as OTAs (Online Travel Agencies), global distribution systems (GDS), direct hotel websites, and more. Traditionally, managing these channels individually was time-consuming and prone to errors. However, a channel manager platform automates this process, enabling hotels to efficiently manage and update their inventory across multiple channels simultaneously.

The Role Of Hotel Channel Manager Software

Streamlining Inventory Distribution

One of the primary benefits of a channel manager platform is the ability to streamline inventory distribution. Hotels often partner with multiple OTAs and other distribution channels to expand their reach. However, manually updating inventory across all these platforms can be arduous and prone to mistakes. A channel manager platform eliminates these challenges by providing a centralised dashboard where hoteliers can update rates, availability, and restrictions in real-time. This automation ensures that all channels are synchronised, preventing overbooking or underselling situations and maximising revenue potential.

Enhanced Rate and Yield Management

Another crucial aspect of channel manager platforms is their ability to facilitate effective rate and yield management. With a robust channel manager, hotels can dynamically adjust rates based on market demand, competitor pricing, and seasonal fluctuations. By having real-time visibility into rates across various channels, hoteliers can implement strategic pricing strategies, optimise revenue, and maintain rate parity. Also, companies with expertise in travel and hospitality software development build channel manager platforms that are designed to provide intelligent analytics and reporting features, allowing hotels to analyse booking patterns, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to improve their revenue management strategies.

Time and Resource Efficiency

The hotel industry demands efficiency and agility in managing operations. Channel manager platforms save hoteliers considerable time and resources by eliminating the need for manual updates and reducing the chances of errors. With automated inventory management, hotel staff can focus on providing exceptional guest experiences, rather than spending hours managing various channels individually. Moreover, channel manager platforms often integrate with property management systems (PMS) and other hotel software, further streamlining operations and providing a seamless workflow.

Increased Online Visibility

Currently, a strong online presence is crucial for hotels to capture the attention of potential guests. Channel manager platforms play a vital role in enhancing a hotel’s online visibility. By connecting with numerous distribution channels, hotels can reach a broader audience and tap into new markets. A channel manager also enables hotels to effortlessly update their information, images, and promotions across all channels, ensuring consistent branding and accurate representation. This increased visibility not only boosts bookings but also helps hotels establish their reputation and build customer loyalty.

Important Systems To Integrate With A Channel Manager

Integrating a channel manager with other systems can revolutionise hotel operations, streamline processes, and boost revenue. Some key systems that can be seamlessly integrated with a channel manager at your hotel include:

Property Management System (PMS)

A PMS serves as the backbone of hotel operations, managing front desk tasks, reservations, guest profiles, and more. Integrating a channel manager with a PMS allows for real-time synchronisation of room availability, rates, and reservations across all channels. This integration eliminates manual data entry, reduces the risk of errors, and ensures seamless communication between the PMS and distribution channels.

Online Booking Engine

An online booking engine empowers hotels to accept direct bookings through their website. When integrated with a channel manager, the booking engine can access live inventory and rates, offering a consistent and accurate booking experience for guests. This integration ensures that the booking engine displays real-time availability and rates, minimising the risk of overbooking and enhancing the guest’s online booking journey.

Pricing Intelligence Tool

A pricing intelligence tool provides valuable market insights and competitive data to help hotels optimise their pricing strategies. When integrated with a channel manager, this tool can analyse market trends, monitor competitor rates, and suggest optimal pricing adjustments. The channel manager supplies the pricing intelligence tool with real-time data, enabling hotels to make informed pricing decisions and stay competitive in the market.

Review Management Platforms

Reviews play a vital role in shaping a hotel’s reputation and influencing guest decisions. Integrating a channel manager with a review management platform allows hoteliers to monitor and respond to guest reviews across multiple platforms. This integration ensures that hotel staff can promptly address guest feedback, maintain a positive online presence, and leverage reviews to improve service quality and guest satisfaction.

Hotels today cannot afford to overlook the benefits of a channel manager platform. By embracing technology and leveraging a channel manager platform, hotels can stay ahead of the curve, improve operational efficiency, and maximise revenue potential. With a robust channel manager from a travel and hospitality software development provider like Ivan Infotech, hotels can focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences while expanding their reach and establishing a strong presence in the digital landscape.

So, to establish a long-term relationship with your guest, every hospitality sector has to provide customer-oriented service. This can be achieved with help of technology by using Software of travel and hospitality niche. However, before you get into details with travel and hospitality software, let first start to know what these applications truly are.

Global Market Statistics on Travel and Hospitality Industry

From the picture it is shown that a research conducted in 2018 where the total number of software users ( in millions) in China was 160.99 followed by the total number of users in the U.S ( 103.98) and Germany ranked third with the user estimate of 28 millions. Hence, it is clear that the use of travel and hospitality software has increased as more and more people are relying on software for hotel reservations, booking updates, searching for hotels, available rooms and lots more. Travel and hospitality software development companies are more focused to deliver bespoke and customer-oriented applications depending upon the clients’ business goals and target audience. 

In this picture, you can see that the market size for Travel and Hospitality Software has increased from 2017 with a good scale and the growth and the fluctuation is always positive due to the ever increasing demand of these applications for better functionality and operations.

The global hotel and hospitality management application market is expected to see a growth by USD 1.5 billion at the CAGR about 5% from now till the year 2024. When you are talking about the online travel booking platforms, the market size globally amounted to roughly 518 billion U.S dollars in the year 2020 and expected to reach 986 billion in the year 2027. 

The Different Sectors Where Travel and Hospitality Applications Are Used

• F&B Restaurant and Bar Management
• TravelPort
• Casino Management
• Campgrounds, recreation and parks
• Property Management Systems
• Amusement Parks and Attractions
• Vacation rentals and timeshares
• Sabre solutions
• Travel portals and booking engines

Features To Look For When Developing Travel And Hospitality Management Software

While you are looking for IT Solutions for Travel and Hospitality sector, there are some of the features that you need to check-

• Hot deals
• Travel guides
• Geofencing
• Push notifications
• Social media integration
• Communication platforms
• Digital companion at the time of emergencies
• API integration
• Reviews and recommendations
• Interactive scheduling

Benefits Of Using Custom Software Solutions In Hotel And Hospitality Sectors

Have you ever thought how these applications will help the hotel and hospitality sector? How these software solutions will bring a change or how they are different from the traditional approach of marketing? Are these travel and hospitality software solutions really good? Do they really play an important role in converting users to potential leads? If you are not aware of these answers, here are some of the points you need to look into-

• Software of travel and hospitality supports unique processes by helping the travel companies to adopt industry standard practices.
• Custom applications help you in building custom branded solutions for maintaining a brand identity while meeting the requirements of clients
• Existing solutions can work in collaboration with these custom solutions to help in reducing cost
• These applications can be integrated with legal systems
• They help in improving existing business processes and grow new business opportunities
• They allow the travel agencies to stay updated with industry standard protocols
• These solutions come with advanced capabilities that can help in expanding a business to more international customers.

Why There Is A Need For Travel And Hospitality Software

The primary goal behind implementing travel and hospitality software in the market is to provide an unmatched service to the guests for achieving 4s- Safety, Security, Service and Sustainability. 

1. Safety- security and travelling goes hand in hand. So, while a traveller has started a journey, security comes as the first priority. Issues like insecure customer details and improper management will result in poor branding. So, hospitality software development is a must to ensure that every process is going on smoothly and in utmost safety. 
2. Security- Any business can face issues if they do not have any security factors. Hence, when using the travel and hospitality software ensures that the traveller is getting utmost security. 
3. Service– as a hotel and hospitality business owner, you need to provide extraordinary service to the clients so that they become your loyal customers for lifetime. You need to understand the behaviour of clients, how they are using the apps and what they are searching for. 
4. Sustainability– it has become one of the important factors for travellers for choosing the right service at the right time. The hotel or hospitality business should display the features on online portals to attract more users.

Ivan Infotech’s Hotel and Hospitality Software for a Better Management

In the competitive era of online travel and hospitality software, you cannot be on top of the race with just use of a traditional approach. Additionally, you need to digitalise the business with the help of custom software solutions.

 Ivan Infotech is a full service app development company with 6 years of experience working with hundreds of clients delivering the best solutions they are looking for. Whether you want to look for applications to help streamline the operations or want to handle reservations, accounting and inventory management, you can go for the team from Ivan for highly effective software solutions.