The Hotelier’s Ultimate Guide to Channel Manager
Managing multiple online distribution channels can be challenging for hoteliers, especially in today’s fast-paced, highly competitive market. With the right channel manager, however, hotels can streamline their operations, maximise occupancy, and increase revenue effortlessly. This explains how a channel manager can transform your hotel's distribution strategy over various OTA Platforms.
What is a Channel Manager?
A channel manager is a tool that helps you manage your hotel room availability and prices across multiple booking platforms simultaneously, reducing the risk of double bookings. When a reservation is made, the system automatically updates availability in real-time on all connected platforms, including your direct booking website. This also applies when you close a room for sale or make bulk updates to your inventory.
With more travellers booking online through platforms like Booking.com, MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Expedia and Agoda, a channel manager simplifies managing multiple channels and helps increase occupancy and revenue.
The key purpose of a channel manager is to eliminate manual updates and prevent over bookings or double bookings, ensuring your property is visible and bookable across all OTA platforms, without errors.
How Does a Channel Manager Work at a Hotel?
A channel manager integrated with your PMS (Providers like-RunHotel) can assist you with automating the distribution process. Here’s how it works:
- Inventory Management: A channel manager helps hotels efficiently manage room availability across multiple online travel agencies (OTAs) and booking platforms. When a room is booked, the channel manager updates the inventory in real-time, ensuring that the same room isn't double-booked on another platform. This keeps room availability accurate and helps maximise occupancy rates.
- Rate Management: Hotels often adjust room rates based on demand, season, or special promotions. A channel manager allows hoteliers to set and update rates across all booking channels simultaneously. This real-time rate management ensures consistency and avoids price discrepancies between platforms, helping the hotel stay competitive while maintaining revenue goals.
- Booking Management: A channel manager centralises all bookings from various platforms into one system. This simplifies reservation handling, reducing the risk of errors and overbookings. The hotel staff can manage all bookings from a single dashboard, improving workflow efficiency and enhancing the guest experience with timely responses and accurate room assignments.By reducing errors and enhancing efficiency, channel managers allow hotels to reach more potential guests and optimise revenue management strategies.
Channel Management Examples and Solutions
Hoteliers face several challenges when manually managing distribution channels. Without a channel manager, properties often deal with:
- Overbookings, leading to dissatisfied guests.
- Rate disparity, which can damage relationships with OTAs.
- Time-consuming updates on multiple platforms.
With a reliable channel manager, you can solve these issues by automating tasks like:
- Syncing room availability across platforms in real-time.
- Automatically adjusting pricing based on demand and market trends.
- Providing insights into channel performance to help maximise revenue.
Many leading channel managers, such as RunHotel Channel Manager, offer tailored solutions for small, medium, and large properties, helping them streamline operations and increase efficiency.
How to Choose Your Hotel’s Online Channel Manager
Choosing the right channel manager for your hotel is crucial. Here are some factors to consider:
- Integration with your PMS: Choose a channel manager that easily integrates with your Property Management System (PMS). Seamless integration saves time and ensures efficient data flow between systems.
- User-Friendly Interface: A simple, intuitive interface reduces learning time and helps your team manage bookings without hassle, making day-to-day operations smoother.
- Real-Time Updates: Ensure the channel manager provides real-time updates across all platforms. This prevents overbooking and keeps your availability accurate.
- Customer Support: Look for a reliable provider to handle any issues that arise and provide prompt assistance.
- Scalability: Select a channel manager that can grow with your hotel. Whether expanding or adding new channels, scalability is key for future-proofing your business.
Request Your Live Demo with RunHotel
Choosing the right channel manager can revolutionise your hotel’s distribution strategy, improving efficiency and increasing revenue. With RunHotel, you’ll get an all-in-one solution tailored to your hotel’s unique needs. To see how it works firsthand, request a live demo (https://runhotel.io/runhotel-team/) today and discover how RunHotel can enhance your property’s channel management.
