A hotel website and booking engine are two different things.
A Hotel Website serves the purpose of providing information about the property to travellers. Commonly included are an overview of selling points, list of facilities and amenities, location details and directions, photo gallery, room descriptions and list prices for hotel rooms. It might also include a call to action to contact the hotel via email or phone to make a booking.
A hotel Booking Engine is an application to capture and process online reservations, it:
- Displays real-time room availability and prices
- Allows travellers to select their preferred room type and rate plan on specific travel dates
- Confirms reservations and integrates with other systems, like HMS
- (Sometimes) accepts payments [Note: Only booking engines that are integrated with payment gateways will allow for payment online. Otherwise hotels can contact guests separately to arrange for payment or guests can pay upon arrival]
In a world where digital adoption is high and continues to increase, consumers expect instant access to information and immediate reservation confirmations. This is the value of a booking engine, and hotels that are not able to provide this may lose the business to the next closest hotel that does.
To learn how to find hotel's booking engine and website URL, read this article.
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Tags: Booking engine, hotel website, property information, online reservations, room availability, real-time pricing, travel dates, reservation confirmation, payment gateways