Channel Manager: what is it and how to choose the best one?
Channel Manager.
What is a channel manager?
A channel manager is a tool that will allow you to sell all your rooms on all OTAs (online travel agencies) and even on your own direct booking engine, at the same time. It will update room availability in real time on all OTAs when a reservation is received, when a reservation is made by phone, or when you want to make mass changes to the available inventory.
With the exponential increase in recent years of travelers who prefer to book their stays online, and the rise of Online Travel Agencies such as Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, etc. Channel managers were developed to make life easier for hoteliers to adapt to new times, allowing them to increase the number of stays sold and turnover.
Expanding your accommodation offering to more OTAs is a good strategy to increase revenue, but it is highly recommended to know which OTAs are the most profitable, for example: some may generate many cancellations, or short and unprofitable stays, etc. The Channel Manager will collect interesting statistics so that you can make better decisions about the OTAs.
Why do you need it?
What are the advantages of a Channel Manager?
Four interesting benefits of the Channel Manager are:
① Rate parity: allows your hotel to maintain parity on each booking channel, by simply changing the room price for it to be replicated on the other channels. This price update improves your hotel's positioning on booking sites, increasing sales.
② Productivity: A channel manager manages the availability of your hotel rooms in a centralized manner, which will increase productivity and allow you to dedicate more time to other important tasks in your accommodation.
③ More income: Rate parity by offering all available inventory on each OTA in real time, as well as being able to add it to more sales channels easily, are positive factors that will increase your hotel's bookings.
④ Avoid overbooking: OTA connections are bi-directional: when a reservation comes through one channel, the room is automatically subtracted from their inventory and is also subtracted on the other channels.
Criteria for choosing the best channel manager.
If you are looking for a channel, the key criteria to consider when choosing the best one for your accommodation are:
- FunctionalityA small hotel needs a basic but reliable tool, while a multinational accommodation company will need much more advanced features: such as compatibility with Google Analytics, competitor analysis, online reputation analysis, etc.
- System integrationDepending on the needs of your accommodation, you will need to check that it is compatible with a PMS (Property Management System), RMS (Hotel Management System) and CRS (Central Reservation System).
- Statistics. To obtain clear data on the performance of connected channels over a period and to be able to compare it with periods from other years, etc.
- Pay. Compatibility with major credit or debit card payment gateways.
- Medium. Evaluate the quality of technical support and whether they are available 24 hours a day and on weekends.
- Languages. Please note if it is in Spanish or other languages that your staff speaks.
- PriceThere are usually several options depending on the needs and size of the accommodation, the length of stay, monthly or annual payments. Small accommodations usually offer flat monthly rates.
Channel Manager Connections.
Types of connections.
There are 3 types of Channel Manager connections: iCal, XML and via the channel manager API. For implementation via API, custom programming is usually required and is aimed at multinational hotel companies or large hotels, so I will focus on the connections that are of most interest to small and medium-sized accommodations, that is, connections via iCal and XML.
Comparison between iCal and XML connections.
Advantages of iCal:
- It's free, ideal for small and medium-sized hotels.
- Allows you to make offers on direct reservations (prices different from OTAs).
- Easy integration.
- The world's major OTAs are supported, and more are added every day.
- Synchronization with Google Calendar.
Disadvantages of iCal:
- Synchronization is not in real time (every hour or more depending on the OTA or the booking engine configuration), although synchronization is slower, it still significantly reduces the risk of overbooking, depending on the size of the accommodation and its needs it may be sufficient.
- One-way synchronization.
- It only allows you to synchronize availability, it does not synchronize: prices, stays, room descriptions, etc.
Advantages of XML:
- XML connections usually come with monthly fees and sometimes added commissions, and even cancellation fees.
- bidirectional synchronization
- It synchronizes in real time.
- Allows you to synchronize prices and more reservation data.
Disadvantages of XML:
- When synchronizing all prices, it does not allow making offers on direct reservations.
- Higher cost: Channel managers with XML connections charge monthly fees and sometimes commissions.
The best channel managers.
There are a wide variety of channel managers in the world and many of them have similar functionalities. To select what I consider to be the best channel managers for small and medium-sized hotels, I have evaluated the following 5 factors: cost, compatibility, interface, technical support and user reviews.
English interface. Connection via iCal and XML. Adaptable to any hotel size. The prices are very affordable because they are focused on “self-service” with very complete online manuals to configure it. Free trial: Yes.
➫ Example of fee for 10 rooms, 3 types of room (single, double and triple), 5 channels: €27.90/month.
In Spanish and 7 other languages, all-inclusive solution, PMS, Channel manager, tool to create websites, communication, payments, etc. Integration of all messages in one place. Application to improve the guest experience and get more positive reviews. Free trial: Yes.
➫Example of fee for 10 rooms and all channels: €64/month (20% discount on annual payment).
Spanish and English: Synchronization system that uses artificial intelligence, very reliable. Free trial: Yes.
➫Example of fee for 10 rooms and up to 10 channels: 19$/month (21% discount on annual payment).
Just iEnglish: HotelFriend is a cloud-based hotel management software. It covers work organization, direct sales of rooms and services, simplifies guest service processes and makes their hotel stay even more comfortable. It provides the ability to manage online sales from any device anywhere in the world, analyze guest behavior and increase revenue. Free trial: Yes.
Spanish and more languages: Centralized solution to help manage your property simply and effectively, includes PMS, booking engine, channel manager with more than 300 channels, revenue and payment management tool, is in more than 148 countries. Free trial: Yes.
➫Example of fee for 10 rooms: from €100/month.
Spanish and more languages: used by over 35,000 hoteliers. +2 million annual reservations, more than 700 channels. Free trial: Yes.
➫Example of fee for 10 rooms: €59/month.
The internal software of the website acts as a channel manager, synchronizing availability asynchronously. For a small/medium-sized accommodation that does not receive hundreds of visits per hour, this is more than enough.
