Why you need a good online booking system

So you have your website online and think ok why pay for an online booking system when we can handle bookings via email or via a form.

Seven reasons why you should have an online booking system:

1. It makes your business look professional
2. Saves time for both you and the traveller
   
3. Means you get the booking ahead of your competitor
4. Provides you with reports on your business
5. Allows you to control your rates, discounts and specials
6. Security of your data
7. Reduces the risk of hoax, spam and false bookings

Reason 1: It makes your business look professional
A business with a good online booking system means the traveller feels more confident in making their booking. A traveller will know when they make the booking what they will be charged for and won't find when they get an email confirming price and availability that it is different to what they expected.

Payment and cancellation policies can be clearly displayed and you can ensure the traveller accepts these when placing the booking. This is extremely important if dealing with credit card charge backs where you have invoked your cancellation policy.

Reason 2: Saves time for both you and the traveller
With an online booking system you eliminate booking requests where you are full, the price range isn't right for the traveller, etc. When a person books they receive instant confirmation of their booking in real time.

More importantly you eliminate email tag. If you have email or email form only this means a traveller sends an inquiry, you respond, then you wait, wait wait for the traveller to respond then you still might be waiting. If you are lucky this happens in a day but it might take up to a week and you have track all these emails.

Reason 3: Means you get the booking ahead of your competitor
If a traveller is searching and finds two properties - one with instant confirmation and one without - the traveller will generally book the property with instant confirmation. The nearer to the time of travel the more likely that this is the case. This may mean you can actually charge more than your competitor and save time.

Reason 4: Provides you with reports on your business
An online booking system will come with some built in reports and ability to export data to other applications. This gives you information of what rates people are charging and will assist in determining if special rates are successful or not.

Reason 5: Allows you to control your rates, discounts and specials
Why have a fixed rate all year. If you have a period where you are traditionally empty in a booking system you can set one or two rooms at a discount rate if people book in advance - say a couple of months out or you can set discount rates for the next week. You can package items so include breakfast, dinner, tours and more in your online booking system.

Reason 6: Security of your data
An online booking system will back up all data so that it can be retrieved at any point in time. It means you don't have to rely on emails, pieces of paper to track all booking details. In fact a good online booking system should eliminate all manual booking systems. Phone bookings, walk in's and other bookings should all be able to be recorded in your online booking system.

Reason 7: Reduces the risk of hoax, spam and false bookings
Hoax bookings tend to not like online booking forms as it involves too much security. If you have any doubts about the validity of the booking you can check the IP number of the booking to see if it matches the country of the booker.

The removal of you email address of your website will reduce the amount of spam you receive as your address will not be able to harvested.

This is only some of the reasons to have an online booking system. If you are interested in trialling seekom - a great cost effective online booking system - then contact Tourism Distribution Systems or RainbowTourism.com