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Posts Tagged ‘Hotel Industry’

Technology has always played a significant role in the travel industry but none could have predicted the monumental rise in online bookings. The hotel industry has seen tremendous growth in the past few years as millions of hotel properties are now offering their guests online bookings.

The potential for this growth has become more apparent in South Africa as the 2010 Football World Cup approaches. BookMyRoom-SA has seized upon this opportunity and offer guests a wide of South Africa hotels, guesthouses, self-catering and safari lodges to book online. BookMyRoom-SA allows for instant booking with a secure payment facility, compared to many other South African websites that only offer the enquiry service. This service is fast becoming outdated as guests become more demanding in wanting to secure and pay for their accommodation in just a few minutes.

Online hotel reservations have therefore become a very popular method for booking hotel rooms as travelers from around the world can make room reservations from the comfort of their home. There are primarily two ways in which one can make an online booking, namely – Online Booking Services and travel agents.

A recent survey taken in 2008 says that only 39% of travel sales are made through travel agents, whereas the remaining 61% are made through online booking services. Clearly, the percentage of travelers making bookings through travel agents is less than half compared to bookings made directly at on online booking services. BookMyRoom-SA provide guests with real time availability where guests can view the hotel images, location, information about prices making it a lot easier for guest to book and pay for rooms.

One big reason why majority of the customers are using online booking services to make their reservations is because websites have significantly improved their design providing better navigation and content. BookMyRoom-SA has a range of South African hotels with an online booking engine provides real time, multi-lingual and multi-currency solution with a wide range of payment options. High security standards provide the utmost ease of booking, influencing customers’ decision making, ultimately reinforcing loyalty.

When we talk about hotel software we discuss about one of the most imperative aspects of the hospitality industry at the moment. Gone are the days when hotels actually used heavy books in order to provide rigorous visitor logs. Each day, hotels convert their old booking reservation systems with up-to-date hotel management software. Hotel software has certain advantages, such as a facile database maintenance, an effortless visitors inflow management and a practical data entering process.

Hotels don’t have to worry anymore about any type of difficulties that used to give hotel owners a lot of worries in the past, problems that appeared while using the old management and reservation systems. So why is a hotel software so profitable? Because it plays a very important role in increasing a business’ both reach and scope. Online bookings have become the main option of choosing the perfect hotel room for your holiday. There is nothing easier than enjoying the comfort of your own house while navigating the Internet in search of a suitable room to book.

Hotel software represents a must when it comes to organizations in need of supporting their presence. Real time booking is also a notable advantage because it minimizes the chances of a double-booking or a mistake to happen. Available rooms are kept in record by the hotel software. All these are possible because of a faultlessly designed, centralized database.

Such a database is a welcome addition to any hotel management software as it offers the facility of updating the data automatically while also allowing you to easily access any other type of information, such as check-ins, customer details or a full history of transactions. The risks of money transactions are therefore decreased to a minimum. You won’t have to worry again about losing money or not being able to keep the pace with your customers.

All customers should feel relaxed and safe when visiting your hotel, and, with a leading hotel software, you will definitely achieve this. A happy customer is a customer that will most likely return, therefore you should aim for winning a customer’s loyalty. This is where you should focus you attention instead of engaging in other time consuming activities that are now dealt with by the hotel software. Your staff will be able to take care of the most important hotel activity: greeting customers and taking care that they have everything they want in order to be 100% delighted.

There are a few companies that can provide high quality hotel software and hospitality solutions. You can find most of them online. When choosing among one, there are plenty factors that you need to consider: ease of use, price, ease of implementation and additional costs. Also, make sure that the piece of software that you choose is SEO compliant, meaning that it can be customized in such a way that the website of your hotel gets search engine traffic. This is a perfect situation that few companies can provide, but it’s not impossible. Just set a budget for your online campaign and go for it, you will not regret it.

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• the old booking system in the hotel industry

Social Media has increasingly become an essential part of any successful hotel Internet Marketing Strategy. After making sure that foundations like PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are taken care of, Social Media is the next natural progression for a hotel that truly understands that power and influence of the Internet. The way that people intermingle online has drastically changed which of course offers the hotel new online channels and ways to interact with consumers.

Early adopters who have a strong social media strategy in place are experiencing fantastic results and increased exposure via the Internet. In addition to this, key Search Engines such as Google are adapting the search landscape to be more universal and include a host of different types of results in listings including: Maps, Bogs, Images, Videos, and News etc.

Now it is the time for Hotel Community to grasp the opportunity and take a part or create a professional Social Media strategy. As well as it will work with each hotel to design a customized Social Media plan, setting up your hotel profiles / channels and mentoring selected hotel staff in the best way to use these new avenues to interact with guests and potential customers.

Let us see some of the key benefits of how the hotel industry can be boosted through the help of Social Engine or Social Media services:

• It heightens the online brand awareness of your hotel and increases the popularity of the hotels.
• It helps in increasing the interaction with customers and potential customers. As well as, it promotes any new links pointing to your hotel website.
• These Search engines are having extra authority, relevance and ranking abilities that will uplift your site and increases the traffic to your website.
• It represents brand in social networks positively / official proactively.
• It helps in delivering news, offers and brand positioning with the help of effective online channels, by spending some extra access to cost.
• It reinforces the hotel awareness and room reservations or booking.

These social media websites helps in order to deliver the best possible reach and Brand uptake with each of its unique ways. Social Media have a web 2.0 websites and they will select the most appropriate for each customer they work with, depending upon the hotel’s location and the demographics of their target audience..

Well it is wise to add your hotel profile to such Social Media or Search Engines that will boosten name and frame of the Hotels!