Why Must Every Travel Business Invest in Online Booking Engine?
Why is an Online Booking Engine a Must for Travel Agents?
Are your customers abandoning your website before making a booking? Do your customers complain of complicated website experience or checkout process? Then it’s time you invest in a robust booking engine. A booking engine is the backbone of every travel business. It is a SaaS application that enables travelers to easily make online hotel reservations and manage travel companies’ business operations. A booking engine for travel agents acts as an intermediary between travelers and travel providers. The front end, which is customer-facing, lets travelers search and book rooms, whereas the back end allows travel providers to manage, search, view reservations, manage suppliers, apply business rules, track bookings etc.
A booking engine removes friction points throughout the booking process and minimizes the chances of cart abandonment. Also, it maximizes a company’s gross revenue by increasing customer reach. Let’s understand the essential features and advantages of a booking engine for travel companies which will help you evaluate your software provider.
Features of Booking Engine
As various software companies are selling booking engines, finding the perfect booking engine that would meet your company’s needs, preferences, and budgets can be challenging. Here are some of the must-have features of a booking engine for travel agents.
- Easy navigation
Just like eCommerce, travelers expect the booking process to be fast, easy and convenient. Make your user interface straightforward and clear with easy access to search for dates, check room availability, view room images, and complete payment. Simplicity and easy navigation will result in less complexity and confusion for your website visitors.
- Faster load times
We are all aware of how smartphones have changed consumer shopping behavior. So, your next focus must be on a booking engine that’s optimized for smartphones. A mobile-friendly booking engine that’s fast loading is sure to increase your sales and conversion rates.
- Multiple languages and currency options
If you want to enter the international market, then allow your customers to book their reservations in their preferred language. Along with multi-language options, it would be an advantage if the booking engine supports payment in multi-currency.
- Flexible and secure payment options
Ensure your desired booking engine provider is integrated with various payment methods such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc. Since online payment is convenient for both travel providers and travelers, it is necessary that a booking engine maintains Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Compliance for secure payment transactions.
- Integrations
When it comes to room rates, room availability, pricing, hotel data duplication, booking engine software must be reliable, and that’s why real-time integrations with channel managers and hotel mapping tools are necessary. This way, you can save your business from pricing errors, overbookings, inconsistent hotel listings, manual data transfer, and much more.
Advantages of Online Booking Engine for Travel Agents
Some of the advantages of the booking engine are:
- Customer loyalty: Customers love a seamless booking experience, and a booking engine will increase customer satisfaction, leading to customer loyalty for your brand.
- Gain valuable business insights: An online booking engine for travel agents gathers data on customers’ shopping patterns that helps you understand your customer and focus on areas on how to improve conversion rates and ROI. Also, if you are in the B2B space, booking engine software will help you gather insights into your suppliers, their performance, etc.
- Increase total booking revenue: With the booking engine, you can offer diverse travel products to your customers, such as flight tickets, hotels, transfers, car rentals, and much more. This automatically increases your total booking revenue, taking your business profits to the next level.
- Build brand reputation: An intuitive travel website brings a better opportunity of converting leads to sales while improving brand image effortlessly.
- Access to large hotel inventory: You can integrate your booking engine with multiple suppliers, wholesalers, and GDS to gain access to maximum hotel inventory, which will help you offer various options to your customers and maximize revenue.
Conclusion
Let’s face it, even with maximum hotel inventory, your customer reach strategy can fall flat without the right tech stack to optimize its execution. That’s why we strongly recommend an online booking engine that suits your travel business needs and will help you streamline your business efficiently and increase customer reach.
