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The Big B&B Club Internet Booking Engine Survey - PART 1
KEY:
IBE – INTERNET BOOKING ENGINE
OTA – ONLINE TRAVEL AGENT
SEO - SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
READING TIME - 30 MINUTES
Lots of the companies in the study will also offer to sell rooms through Online Travel Agents (OTAs) such as Late Rooms, Expedia or Booking.com, or the Tourist organisations’ sites. They may also offer to work on websites, search engine optimization (SEO) or social media (they’ll even paint your window frames if you ask nicely!) however for the purposes of this study, a company’s cost, set-up and customer service just to take online bookings was concentrated on.
This study is a price comparison as well as general personal observations about companies, and the essence of the systems' offerings/USPs they offer.
Firstly a few general observations about booking systems. They are all very differently managed pricewise, so it’s important to work out which one would suit your business.
Most claim their systems are ‘turn-key’ solutions, meaning one size fits all.
Each will let you have a demo and some will let you have a free trial.
Try to get things clear in your head before they baffle you with SEO, OTAs and the like. If you want a simple way to take payments online then get that and only that.
Once you feel confident doing online booking, then it might be time to move on to the next step using OTAs or being assisted in other ways by the external companies. You might experience a surge using online booking and then not need to give commission to OTAs or pay for any other services, so I would suggest taking the companies very basic engine and no bells and whistles to begin with.
Pick a system based on price and usability for you and for your booking guests.
It has to be instinctively easy-to-use, because it will soon be pretty much running the booking side of your business.
Once you have signed up to an IBE you may have to use their online payment merchant such as Paypal, which charges around 3% per transaction. This may or may not be covered in the prices quoted below and is something you would need to check.
You may also need to pay £20 a month for a paypal account. Understanding how Paypal works is important.
If you are currently using a card reader machine that charges a percentage per transaction, then it might be worth looking at Paypal’s Virtual Terminal instead of a card reader, which can work out cheaper.
Have a good look at the percentages that some of the companies here charge per booking. I worked out that the payments for an online booking engine with some of the companies could be as much as £400 per year on just one room.
Things can get expensive so be cautious. If you are paying 6% to an IBE per transaction, then 3% per payment to Paypal, then an 11% fee to an OTA like Late Rooms, you have lost 20% of your room rate before you’ve even got the guest through the door.
With some systems you need to install software on your PC. With some one can access online, and have no need to install anything. Just like online banking (SaaS – Software as a Service, or ‘Cloud’ systems).
Keep a look out for Part Two of this survey when I will be testing out each system and reporting the results.
Name of Company/Reservation System: Eviivo/frontdesk
Type of software: Thick client installed software with remote web access – Business management and online booking system linking multiple third parties.
Set up Fee: £295 +VAT for installation, set up and training.
Percentage taken from every booking: 6% service fee (+ VAT) for online bookings to cover software licence, support, and online bookings. Third party commissions apply for bookings via integrated third parties of up to 11% +VAT.
Awards: Travolution award for best use of technology. Runner up best accommodation website (BookDirectRooms.com) Travolution 2009
USP: "Only solution tailored for SME independent leisure sector genuinely offering full business management and integrated online booking for multiple third party channels."
First Impressions: Market leader. Service based around selling rooms through OTA's. Feels very corporate.
Name of Company/Reservation System: KeepMeBooked
Type of software: Cloud-based
Fee: £20 for up to 5 rooms, £26 for up to 10 rooms, £33 for up to 15 rooms (+VAT for UK customers, no VAT for non-UK customers.)
Support: Available on site through chat and on local rate telephone number.
Set-Up: After registration paste a short block of code into existing website and that displays a booking calendar.
Anything Free: One month free trial.
Awards: Finalist in this year's Travolution 'Best Online/Desktop Application' Award (winner of the 4 finalists to be announced in September.)
USP: Ease of use. KeepMeBooked prides itself on being the easiest reservation software to set up and use. “We make our software easy to use not because our users are dumb, but because they just have better things to do than read a boring software manual or attend some dull training webinar.”
First Impressions: Site nice, though slightly amateurish. Very helpful on chat. Price is reasonable.
Name of Company/Reservation System: Guestlink Online Tourism Business Solutions
Type of software: Online
Fees: Annual fee of £195 + VAT or 2.5% commission
Support: Email and 0845 number (between 1 and 5ppm)
Set-up: Paste a code into website after registration
Extras: Information can be updated across distribution channels, local, regional and national tourism websites such as www.visitbritain.com
USP: “The UK’s fastest growing accommodation web booking and management system, processing £20 million worth of bookings last year alone. “
Name of Company/Reservation System: GuestCentric Systems
Type of software: Cloud based
Fees: 12 month period £3,900 includes all features of the platform.
Free Stuff: 14 day booking engine free trial
USP: “GuestCentric offers the only easy to use integrated platform in the market that is designed specifically for independent properties. The platform allows our customers to be independent and have full control of their e-commerce without having to deal with different providers.”
First Impressions:
Lots of social media talk, techy language and a beautifully designed website.
Name of Company/Reservation System: BookingBug
Type of software: Cloud Based - Online -SaaS
Fee: $9.95 a month
Set up: Free to set up, but optional set up and business config for those companies that want it. Code paste on website.
Support: Live chat available 8-6 – operator will call if can’t be solved over chat. 24-hour email support. Most issues resolved in under eight hours.
Extras: BookingBug is embeddable so you have the ability to take online bookings from social networks and blogs.
USP: “Our ability to distribute businesses time and availability to where the customers are looking for it as well as our very affordable cost.”
First Impressions: Website average to good, very helpful online chat.
http://www.bladebooking.com/engine
Name of Company/Reservation System: Very nice site. ‘Increase your online bookings by 300%” is a very bold claim.
Type of software: Online
Cost: 0-5 rooms: 10% per booking, 5-10 rooms: 8% per booking, 10-15 rooms: 5% per booking
Support: Local rate number and 24 hour email support
Extras: Advanced Email Marketing Suite - allows hoteliers to send out newsletters / promotions to guests that have previously stayed with them.
USP: “Superior User Experience that results in more Bookings. Increased Revenue through intelligent up-selling of packages and extras at time of booking and in confirmation / pre-stay emails.
“Advanced Email Marketing software that is provided to all of our clients free of charge”
Name of Company/Reservation System: Hotels Online (HOL)
Type of software: Online
Fee: £5 per booking
Support: Free 0800 number
Free services: Offer free advertising to all clients on own accommodation marketing sites.
USP: Simple low cost fee structure, easy to implement and use.
http://www.hotelsystems.co.uk/
Name of Company/Reservation System: Hotelsystems Hotel Booking System
First Impressions: Very plain site with naff ad banners.
Type of software: Online and Offline
Fees: £15 per month
Set up Fee: The offline software license costs £255, additional licenses are £110 each (per machine). The online system works as an add-on to the offline system.
USP: “All I can say is that our software is generally liked by our customers. They like our customer service, they like that we charge per computer no matter how many rooms that the hotel will manage and they like that we listen to them and implement changes as required by the business.”
Name of Company/Reservation System: Globekey Systems Pty Ltd
Type of software: Online - nothing to download or install
Fee: 2-5 rooms £30 per month
6-9 rooms £36 per month
10-14 rooms £40 per month
Support: Email replies to any query within 24 hours. For emergencies have a 24-hour phone number.
Free Stuff: One-month free plus complimentary listing on www.HotelsEasy.com.
USP: Fixed monthly fee for unlimited reservations. Seamless integration with property website design, including links from reservations screens to home page.
First Impressions: Nice blue colour and attractive logo feels like a knowledgeable company.
Name of Company/Reservation System: Sirvoy
Type of software: Online
Fees: £9.99/month. Connection to payment solutions (PayPal or RBS
WorldPay) is charged at £3/month (excluding the payment provider's
standard fees). If less than 10 bookings are recorded in a month there
is a 50% discount on the monthly fee.
Anything Free: One month free trial.
Support: Free support per email and phone.
USP:
Easy of use and competitive price. Since it's an online system it's
easy to get started, is available from anywhere and requires no
installations or updates.
Name of Company/Reservation System: Protel Hotel Software / Bookatonce
Set-Up: After registration paste a short block of code into existing website.
Anything Free: Bookatonce are looking for people in the UK to give free trials. Contact bjoern.grunert@bookatonce.com
Fees: 0.95 euros per booking - however a vast amount of payment options/extras.
USP: Modular structure – personalized solution, Basic version free of charge, Simple and user-friendly App for iPhone and iPod Touch is available from the App Store
First Impressions: Nice retro colours, feels very European.
http://onlinerealtimebooking.com/
Name of Company/Reservation System: Online Real Time Bookings - ORBit
Type of software: Online, live system, which works on a real time basis.
Fees: A set up fee of £200 + a yearly fee based on the hotel size:
The first 1-3 units are charged at a flat rate of £250
-Units 4-8 thereafter will cost an additional £18.00 per unit thereafter
-Units 9-15 will then cost an additional £15.00 per unit thereafter
-Units 16-100 will then cost an additional £12.00 per unit thereafter.
USP: Affordable realtime online booking system with no hidden costs, easy to install, easy to use and allows you to manage your business from anywhere in the world
First Impressions: Helpful customer support, ok site, confusing price structure.
Name of Company/Reservation System: Bookassist
Type of software: Cloud-based/Online/Offline/Other: Online
Fees: Between 4.8% and 8%
USP: An understanding of hospitality marketing rather than technology. Bookassist is about return on investment not boasting about technology. It’s about how we can become partners with the business to improve the online marketing strategy, increase traffic and deliver lover costs of sales and higher occupancy. That must be the objective at all times.
First Impressions: Quite a plain site that's not particularly inspiring.
