Managing Your Online Availability

A question which we are often asked is “how many of my rooms should I put online” and whilst the temptation exists for us to say “put all of them on” the reality is that this will really depend on your overall approach to online selling and distribution.

The key factors to consider are,

• Do you work with Online Travel Agents (OTA’s), if so, what percentage of rooms do you allocate?
• Do you have a Booking Engine on your website? if so, what percentage of rooms do you allocate? If not, how much time do you spend answering email enquiries?
• What percentage of your business comes from the OTA’s and your Website?
• How much time have you allocated to update your website and OTA websites?
• What commission do you typically pay OTA’s and your Booking Engine provider?

Once you have the answers to the questions above, you are ready to set some strategic goals for your online business, such as...

1. Reduce time spent answering Email Enquiries and Increase Direct Online Sales via your own website by investing in an easy to manage Booking Engine
2. Reduce time spent on updating OTA websites that are not performing
3. Reduce the allocation (or cancel the contract) of non performing OTA websites
4. Reduce the commission bills from OTA websites by increasing production through your own Booking Engine

Bookassist Makes Managing Availability Simple and Quick
The Bookassist Booking Engine enables you to easily manage one simple Room Allocation which can be sold on the website in a number of different packages, for example.



This reduces the amount of time you need to spend in updating 4 discreet room allocations, you simply update once and the availability cascades to all the relevant Room Offers that are linked to that Allocation.

This reduction in time makes your reservations operation more efficient, cutting down wasted time spent in updating OTA websites and giving you more control over your direct business via your own website.

The Bookassist Booking Engine has also been integrated with 3rd party Property Management Systems (PMS) such as Softbrands & Micros Fidelio which can increase your staff productivity even further by connecting your room inventory directly with your own website.

For More Information
Contact the Bookassist Scotland office on +44 (0)1292-521-404 or email Scotland@bookassist.com