Softinn Blog

What is a Channel Manager?

Written by Felicia | Jan 6, 2020 7:34:40 AM

Our previous blog articles have been discussing on hotel Property Management System (PMS). In order for a hotel PMS to operate smoothly and effectively, it needs a specialized integration. According to Revfine.com, an online magazine for the hotel, hospitality, and travel industry, a hotel PMS Software should have the following integration:

  • Channel Managers
  • Check-in Apps
  • Revenue Management Software
  • Reputation Management Systems
  • Marketing Software
  • Key Card Systems
  • Energy Management Systems
  • Point of Sale Software
  • Entertainment Systems
  • Payment Systems
  • Business Analytics Software

The way you manage your distribution determines how profitable your hotel business is. It’s an important thing to ensure that your rooms are reachable for your prospective guests. Make your rooms visible! This is why a hotel must have Channel Manager software for a strong distribution strategy. In this article, we will discuss what a Channel Manager is and the importance of its integration with PMS.

 

Channel Manager? What it is All About?

What is Channel Manager? This question may be on your mind if you’re not familiar with channel management. Simply put, channel management is referring to tools used by hotels to manage their Channel as part of their employed distribution policy.

Channel describes the different platforms in which hotel bookings are made: hotel website, hotel’s social media page, direct call booking, or any third-party bookings made through Online Travel Agents (OTAs).

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A hotel Channel Manager is, therefore, a system that updates a hotel’s real-time availability and rates directly to major OTAs and manages reservations accordingly, making it easy for the hotel to offer its rooms online, avoiding overbooking and rate parity issues.

 

Why Hotels Need Channel Manager?

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Instead of direct bookings, hotels rely much on OTAs to get their rooms bookable. The internet plays a major role in such hotels’ decisions. Nowadays travelers choose to do online bookings for their stay as they can decide which hotel suits their needs. With Channel Manager software, hotels can update their real-time availability and prices across all channels, without worrying about the occurrence of overbooking. In other words, your available rooms at a particular time are updated automatically across all of your channels.

 

Managing your rooms across different channels could somehow be troublesome. However, with effective channel management through the integration of Channel Manager with PMS, hotels are better at improving their efficiency. Effective channel management provides a centralized way to control multiple channels, saving time and avoiding errors. There is no need for your hotel staff to update available rooms manually, as it can be done from your Channel Manager.

 

By allowing hotels to work effectively, managing channels automatically, and avoiding overbooking, hotels can maximize their potential sales. It will no longer be a problem for hotels to have multiple channels to sell their rooms. Thus, hotels can reach a large number of potential guests by diversifying their channels. This is beneficial especially during the low seasons.

 

Softinn PMS + Channel Manager Integration

Basically, a Channel Manager works together with PMS. Softinn PMS is integrated with the world’s most powerful Channel Manager. Learn how Softinn PMS and Softinn Extranet work with the world-leading Channel Manager, SiteMinder by watching the video below:

Video courtesy from Youtube.

 

If you are currently on the hunt for the perfect Channel Manager for your hotel, then our Softinn PMS + Channel Manager integration is your best solution! Remember, the key to maximizing your hotel revenues is to have the right channels to distribute your rooms and most importantly to manage them correctly!