Booking engine: how your hotel's own website takes bookings

Simplotel, which makes one, describes the booking engine as the system behind direct bookings on a hotel's website: it pulls availability from the property management system as it changes, sends it the reservations, works with the channel manager so availability and prices stay the same on the booking sites, and connects to a payment system to take the money.

• Shows each room type with its photos, what is included and the price for the guest's dates.
• Offers your rate plans: flexible, non-refundable, with breakfast, for longer stays.
• Takes the guest's details and the payment, or a card to hold the booking.
• Sends the confirmation to the guest and the booking to your PMS or channel manager.
• Takes the room off the booking sites, through the channel manager, once it is sold.

1. 1Clicks “Book now” on your website, or your website's booking link on Google.
2. 2Chooses the dates and the number of guests.
3. 3Sees the rooms free for those dates, each with its price and terms.
4. 4Picks a room and a rate, and adds extras such as breakfast or an airport pick-up.
5. 5Gives a name, phone number and email, and pays or leaves a card.
6. 6Gets a confirmation, while the booking reaches your own system.

Every step you can take out helps. Open your own booking engine on a phone and book a room the way a guest would, counting the taps and noting anything that would make you hesitate: a price that changes at the end, a form that asks too much, a page that is slow to load.

Booking.com, writing about the companies that connect hotels' systems to it, says there are usually two ways to pay such a provider: by the month, or by the number of transactions, and that some offer a trial. Booking engines are sold the same ways. Ask for both prices, and for what is included: the channel manager, the connection to Google, the payment gateway.

Google says direct integration with it is currently unavailable because of high demand, so a hotel shares its prices through a connectivity partner: a central reservation system, an internet booking engine, a channel manager or a property management system. Its help adds that a hotel using a reservation system may already be connected to Google through its provider, which can set up its booking links.

Free booking links cost nothing: Google says there is no cost for clicks on them and nobody can pay for a higher place among them. Google also shows an “Official site” badge beside one partner's link for each hotel, for hotel owners, direct suppliers, central reservation systems and integration partners, never for booking sites, at no cost.

1. 1Ask your booking engine company whether it is a Google connectivity partner.
2. 2If it is, ask it to send your prices to Google for free booking links.
3. 3Check your Google Business Profile is complete: Google asks for that first.
4. 4Search your hotel's name on Google, open its prices and check your website is listed, with the price your booking engine shows.

• It works well on a phone. Booking.com says most reservations on its platform are made on mobile devices, and your guests are the same people.
• It connects to your PMS and channel manager, so rooms and prices are set in one place.
• It is a Google connectivity partner, for free booking links.
• It takes UPI and Indian cards, and international cards for foreign guests.
• It shows prices with taxes the way your guests expect, and the same terms as your booking-site listings.
• It offers your rate plans, packages and extras, and codes for returning guests or companies.
• Its price is clear and written down: by the month, by the booking, or both.

• Book a room yourself on a phone, for a weekend next month, and pay.
• Check a sold-out night shows as full, not bookable.
• Compare the price with the same room and terms on Booking.com, MakeMyTrip and Agoda for the same night.
• Check the confirmation the guest gets, and that the booking reached your PMS.
• Check every room type and rate plan is there, with the right photos.
• Check the “Book now” button is easy to find on every page of your website.

OneHorizyn's free check reads your website and gives it a score out of 100 with the three things to fix first. Once you sign up, OneHorizyn's weekly readings set your website's price beside each booking site's for the nights ahead.