In the present digitally driven age, the hospitality industry has undergone a tremendous evolution, making online travel agents (OTAs) a crucial part of hotel distribution strategies. For hotels, especially with multiple properties and 100+ rooms, managing multiple OTA channels efficiently can be overwhelming. This is where a OTA channel manager comes into play. 

However, the market is overloaded with a huge number of channel manager software. But how do you choose the right one for your hotel? 

Let’s dive deeper and explore the factors that make a channel manager an ideal choice for hoteliers in today’s competitive market landscape. 

What is a Channel Manager?

A channel manager is a tool that allows hotels to manage their room inventory across various online distribution channels like Online Travel Agencies(OTA Channel manager), Global Distribution Systems (GDS), and direct booking engines.

A good channel manager will always enable hoteliers to manage everything from a single platform or dashboard. 

Powered by advanced technology infrastructure, a channel manager can automatically update room availability, pricing, and reservations.

This will help hotels avoid overbookings, and rate discrepancies, and minimize the labour-intensive task of manually updating each platform.

Why Choosing the Right Channel Manager Matters

Since a hotel business is dominantly dependent on managing bookings and reservations, channel manager plays an instrumental role ensuring the seamless management.

This in turn influences a hotel’s operational efficiency, revenue generation, and guest satisfaction. 

Here’s why it’s critical:

Avoiding Overbookings and Underbookings:

The right channel manager ensures that inventory is updated in real-time across all OTA channel manager, avoiding overbookings, which lead to poor customer experiences, or underbookings, ultimately, resulting in lost revenue.

Maximizing Revenue:

A good channel manager helps you sell rooms at the best possible rates by syncing your pricing strategy across all distribution channels. This ensures that you take advantage of demand fluctuations while maintaining uniformity in room rates across platforms.

Increase Visibility:

By integrating with various OTAs, a channel manager gives your hotel or property more visibility to potential guests, increasing the chances of bookings across different markets.

Save Time:

Automation is a significant advantage. Manually managing bookings, cancellations, and availability across multiple platforms is time-consuming and error-prone. A OTA channel manager automates these processes, freeing your staff to focus on guest services.

How to Choose the Right Channel Manager for Your Hotel Distribution

The present hospitality landscape is fiercely competitive with online bookings playing a pivotal role in a hotel’s success.

Managing multiple OTA channel manager efficiently while maintaining accurate pricing and availability across platforms can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task.

Choosing the right OTA channel manager not only simplifies this process but also optimizes booking strategy, helping you stay ahead in the market. 

Here’re the key factors that can influence your decision of finding the right channel manager for your hotel distribution:

Compatibility with Your Property Management System (PMS)

A good channel manager integrates seamlessly with your existing PMS. The hassle-free integration allows automatic updates of room availability, pricing, and reservations, reducing errors and double bookings. 

Number and Type of Channels Supported

Look for a OTA channel manager that supports all the OTAs you’re working with, including new or niche markets. If you plan to expand into new regions or specialized markets, make sure the channel manager can support those channels as well.

For instance, Hotel-X can integrate all OTAs and booking channels including MakemyTrip, Goibibo, Booking.com, Agoda, etc. 

Real-Time Updates

Real-time updates are crucial for avoiding discrepancies between your inventory and OTA listings. Ensure the channel manager offers instant, accurate updates to availability and pricing.

Delays can lead to overbookings, missed bookings, or price mismatch issues, which negatively affect the hotel’s reputation.

User-Friendly Interface

A suitable OTA channel manager always enables seamless navigation. The hoteliers and their staff members should be able to manage it without extensive training.

A chaotic or complicated interface can lead to errors and hence, slow down operations. 

Customer Support

Technical issues can arise anytime, and having reliable customer support can prevent a small issue from becoming a major headache.

Look for a channel manager provider like Hotel-X that offers extensive customer support. 

Advanced Reporting and Analytics

Choose a OTA channel manager that offers comprehensive reports and analytics on booking performance, channel profitability, and occupancy trends.

This data is essential for making informed decisions about which channels are working best and how to optimize your pricing strategies.

Affordability and Pricing Structure

Many channel managers that are available in the market charge high subscription fee, while others take a substantial percentage of your bookings.

It’s essential to understand how much you’re paying and whether the cost aligns with your expected return on investment. Balance affordability with features—going for the cheapest option may cost you more in lost revenue and inefficiencies in the long run.

Conclusion

Choosing the right OTA for your hotel is an important decision. It can impact everything from your daily operations to revenue generation and guest experiences.

By evaluating critical factors, you can always find a suitable solution. With a well-chosen channel manager, you can streamline your distribution process, increase your hotel’s visibility, and, most importantly, boost your profitability.

FAQs

1. How to choose a channel manager?

To choose a channel manager, consider important factors like integration capabilities, user-friendliness, real-time updates, pricing, and customer support.

2. What is the OTA rate for hotels?

The OTA rate for hotels is the price that it offers at online travel agencies (OTAs) to attract guests through booking platforms.

3. What is an OTA channel manager?

An OTA channel manager is a tool that allows hotels to manage multiple OTA platforms and update rates and availability simultaneously.

4. What are the key responsibilities of a channel manager?

Key responsibilities of an ideal channel manager include managing OTA platforms, updating inventory, preventing overbookings, optimizing pricing, and ensuring accurate availability.

5. What are the factors to consider when selecting a channel?

As a hotelier, you must consider the reach, audience demographics, integration capabilities, commission fees, and ease of use when selecting a distribution channel.