How To Create Hotel Booking System — Build Simple Reservation Software!

AgileTech Vietnam
7 min readFeb 6, 2020

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Have you been thinking about getting an efficient and user-friendly hotel booking system? But unsure of how to create simple reservation software?

Of course, it’s a good thinking! As better experience with customers, you will require an easy booking process, multi language and fully customizable. One of the tools that you will ultimately need is an all-in-one online booking system.

Related: How to build an app like AirBnb?

But if your website won’t let your guests book their stay directly, you’ll be losing a lot of potential customers.

With most travelers today, hotels have had to become reliant on online travel agents to deliver them reservations. In addition, hotel owner wants to increase bookings and traffic from OTAs to hotel booking website.

According to Statista, the worldwide market volume for online hotel bookings is estimated to exceed $174 million in 2022.

As the result, the hotel booking system not only has a direct impact on revenue, but also provides smooth reservation experience.

In article below, you will discover all the answers and step by step how to create hotel booking system!

What Is Hotel Booking System?

Not only for hotel booking

Hotel booking system is a convenient way for travelers to research and book their holidays or work trips. As well as bookings, you can browse travel websites and look for hotels, flights, car rental, guided tours, attractions, and more…

Using an online booking engine, travelers can easily make a reservation and organize an entire trip in one sitting. Therefore, this simple booking system stream the process for you and your guests. It’s also vital for increasing exposure and gets you on the road to more bookings!

For example, hotel booking system will display your rates and availability in real-time. In that case, guests can select their dates and finalise the reservation. Other features will come with real-time data travel spend, track travelers online and enforce business policy.

More than a travel app

Travelers use a wide variety of hotel booking throughout a journey. But a booking app is where you begin your user journey. Since your pre-trip activity revolves around searching / booking flights and accommodation for a stay.

No doubt, this simple booking system will give you plenty of choice in any direction you’re looking.

Why Do You Need An Hotel Reservation System?

With an online booking software, hotel owner can control all services and available slots that are booked by guests. An increasing number of travelers are relying solely on online reservations in order to book their accommodations. And without this capability, you will lose a significant amount of business.

About 69% of tourists reviewing through tourism sites/ apps before deciding their holiday.

Not only that, other reasons to consider investing in hotel reservation systems include:

An advantage over your competitors

Many small hotels don’t have online hotel booking system capabilities. So that, less competitors join in, you can get the competitive edge with an hotel booking system.

Improve your efficiency as a business

Don’t worry about the risk of overbooking rooms! Using this hotel booking engine, you immediately receive a reservation — not only in your system, but across all of your channels.

Advanced way to attract visitors

Offering maps, and timetables provide more visibility to users. Hotel booking system also present a dynamic and modern region that meets the consumers’ need.

Boost Revenue

Through travel application, you can create a new sales channel, where you can create promotional offers, and thus, increase profits.

For the reasons stated above, getting a Online Booking Engine is a MUST! But how to find and set up an online booking system that will help your business scale?

So, How To Create Hotel Booking System?

The essential features will follow the user journey which take 3 steps:

  • Search and evaluation
  • Selection
  • Booking / paying / opting out

Arrange the features to help them achieve the goal.

Features you can’t do without

features hotel booking system

1. Login and registration

Generally, your users would require registering. Registration may be accomplished via social media profiles Facebook account or email.

2. Search box

First things first. With a large inventory, there are 3 parameters that users can usually choose at the first:

  • Destination (city which they are going to visit)
  • Date (time between check in/ check out)
  • Number of people (adults, children,…)
  • Number of rooms (or type of accommodation)

If a user searches in the locality, let them hit ‘Find hotels near me’ and use GPS navigation. Make the whole reservation process as fast and easy as possible. So, users should be able to set a number of options for searching.

Tips: The more mobile-friendly online booking engine, the more easily experienced for your guests.

3. Results

What happens next? The screen with results will appear. Let’s take a look at the features that become important at this moment.

Filters can be applied to set an affordable prices, kind of room or minimum user rating and so on.

Further, you can use sorting to view the cheapest options first. Or start choosing from the hotels that have the highest user rating.

4. View accommodation

Come and have a closer look. The results offers a nice looking hotel with affordable price. Guests can’t wait to get more information about it, and then book a room.

What does your user expect to see there?

  • Overview — all the basic info about a hotel (address, check-in and check-out time…).
  • Photo gallery — high quality pictures.
  • Accommodation offers — a list of photos, descriptions and prices.
  • Additional amenities — other stuff that guests can use (Wi-Fi, A/C).
  • Review — ratings from other users.
  • Map — hotel location and its surroundings.
  • Suggestions — some similar options if the current one does not suit for reason.
  • Social media share — easy way to share offer with your friends.

5. Booking

Lastly, all you need to do is service your customers a fast and secure payment. Provide an automatic printable booking confirmation that includes payment details (a total sum, and payment by days).

This is the last step that separates the user from the reserved room. All you can do here is to provide your customers with fast and secure payment service. Consequently, this screen should include total amount with the possibility to see the payment by days.

Tip: In case a user is willing to advance some sum, offer several payment options (credit card, PayPal). Hit the button!

Important trends

Keep these trends in mind that are shaping the industry at the moment:

share of mobile internet traffic by region

Mobile bookings continue to rise

The global online travel is growing dramatically. Internet industry has been growing largely due to the shift of traditional agencies from offline to online. In 2019, you simply can’t neglect offering a solid mobile experience. Mobile-optimized website or a partner platform invests in mobile heavily.

As you can see in the graph, desktop and tablet hotel booking system gradually decrease. But the increase in mobile bookings shows trend that people prefer booking tours and activities on their smartphones.

Tip: Some of the quick and easy ways to establish a mobile development are cost-effective mobile app builders. In addition, you can check if your website is optimized for mobile phones in Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Personalization in Travel

As a travelers, you can’t simply plan and book holidays. You want to experience the destination at your own pace too.

Approximately 43% of respondents agreed with “personalised holiday adverts or notifications make my travel planning easier”.

So that, the holidays purchased need to be flexible and tailored to your desires. There is still a reliance on travel agents and accommodation providers. But tourists want messaging that’s personalised to their wants and needs.

Convenience Booking

Today, giving customers the most convenient hotel booking software is important. And technology has been a great facilitator in this area.

“69% of respondents cited convenience as the most important aspect when booking their holiday” — In our 2018 Consumer Travel Insight Survey

Moreover, whether booking hotel through an accommodation system directly or an online travel agency (OTA). A simple reservation system is at the forefront of the consumer’s mind. With the help of hotel booking engine, you can view all available options and booking the best price for trip.

Case study — Luxstay

Let’s take a look at successful hotel booking system and find out how they have implemented above features.

Luxstay is an exclusive short-term rental online booking system, connecting customers looking to rent a property with the property owners. A wide range is available for those looking to stay in unique spaces and luxury personalized service with the best value price.

It still has a long way to go, but Luxstay created a lot of buzz in Vietnam. At list, for now, the two-year-old startup Luxstay seems to challenge Airbnb — the global vacation rentals. Currently, Luxstay claims it has about 15,000 listings, with about 20,000 bookings monthly and a monthly growth rate of 20%.

As a technical partner of Luxstay, AgileTech has upgraded the website, built & maintained Luxstay apps and recommendation systems.

Conclusion

At AgileTech, we understand how important direct online hotel booking system is to you and your business. In other words, we use best in industry technology to provide you with an ingenious and powerful online booking system. So that, you will get infinite bookings for zero commission right from your hotel website

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AgileTech Vietnam
AgileTech Vietnam

Written by AgileTech Vietnam

A quality outsourcing/offshoring company in Website/Mobile Apps, Blockchain services, AI - big data services. Visit our website: https://agiletech.vn

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