Online Bookings made easy!

Would you like to take online bookings without paying commission?



As a bed & breakfast or guest house owner, investing time (and if necessary, money) in your website is absolutely crucial. For many visitors, your website will form their first impression of your establishment and they will make a judgement on your standards and facilities from the way your website looks and functions. It doesn’t have to be a work of art, but your website should be clean, attractive and informative, and it should contain all of the following ingredients: -



• A home page describing your location and the type of accommodation and facilities you offer. This is usually the first page people will see, and you may only have a few seconds to make an impression. High quality photos and clear, concise text score highly here.

• Photos of your rooms. Many people will simply not book a room without seeing pictures, regardless of your tourist board rating or other recommendations.

• Clear indication of prices. It is vital that guests know how much they will be paying, so you need to be specific about room prices (per night or per person per night) and any additional charges for children, evening meals, etc. Bed & Breafasts offer great value compared with hotels, and you can make a virtue of this.

• Live availability information. This is a feature of most, if not all, hotel websites, and visitors will start to expect it of the smaller establishments as well. Online availability is a big time saver for people trying to find somewhere to stay, especially in peak season, and it can really make your website stand out from the competition. It also reduces the number of enquiries you have to deal with when you are already fully booked.

• Contact Information. It sounds obvious, but your contact details should be prominent on your website. Ideally, at least a phone number should be visible on every page, and you should also have a dedicated page for contact details, location map and directions and, optionally, an enquiry form.



The Case for (or against) Online Booking?
There are a number of reasons for and against offering online booking, although the inevitable march of technology and changes in the way people communicate suggests that most accommodation providers will need to offer this facility in the long term.

First the upside. You can get bookings even when you’re not at the end of the telephone. So you have a business that operates around the clock, 24 hours a day. Bookings are taken and payments are processed silently and effectively, without manual intervention. You may even attract guests who might have gone elsewhere because you offer this facility and it saves them even making a telephone call to book their accommodation. Brilliant!

On the other hand, you have a responsibility to administer the online booking system and to ensure that your availability information is up to date at all times. You simply can’t afford rooms to be double-booked. It would be embarrassing, at best, if a guest turned up waving an online booking confirmation five minutes after you have just accepted a casual booking for the same room. So you must have confidence in your admin. You must also be willing to let go of the booking process, which isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s nice to speak with people on the phone before they arrive, so that you get an idea of what their exact requirements are.

In short, if you are confident in your systems and prepared to accept guests without prior telephone contact, definitely consider online booking - you could increase your bookings dramatically! However, if you prefer the traditional approach and you like to speak to people first, you are better sticking with live availability information and contact details, but be prepared to lose out on those that like to book NOW!



How to get Online Availability and Online Bookings
Forget what the tourist boards tell you about signing up with them to get more online bookings, their websites are not optimised for your specific needs.

There are 2 investments that you MUST make.

The best investment you can make is in your own website. The reason for this is simple. When visitors are looking online for a bed & breakfast in your town, most of them don't visit the tourist board website. They go to Google (which, for a lot of people is the Internet and search for "Bed & Breakfasts in Brighton or wherever)". Provided that your website is well-designed you should be able to work your way into the top few results for this search. Visitors will then click on the link to your website and will expect to be able to view your availability and/or book online.

Secondly - make sure your website is featured on one of the best online Guides (such as Bed and Breakfasts Guide). They are used by more people on a daily basis than your website can ever be, and they will give you increased exposure for your website for a low yearly cost. Just remember all this drives traffic to your website, so you may find all your bookings come via your own website - but they may still have found you somewhere else! You don't need to pay £100's for advertising.



Signing up with an online booking agency, whilst quick and easy in the short term, will cost you lots of money in commission in the long term. Consider the figures. Most agencies will take a commission of 10 - 15% of the total booking value. So if over a year you receive £10,000 worth of online bookings, you will pay £1,000 - £1,500 in commission. For this amount of money, you could develop a state of the art website with your own custom online booking at much lower commission rates (typically 2 - 3% of each transaction). The size of your initial outlay for the website would be offset by the amount of money you save, year on year, by using your own online booking service.

Alternatively, why not try out the Angelfish online availability and booking solution? This costs from £125.00, and there is no commission to pay! The availability and booking screen plugs seamlessly into your existing website. It’s a great introduction to online availability and a low-cost way for you to assess whether online availability and booking could work for your business.



About Us
Angelfish Software develops accounting and online availability and booking software for bed & breakfasts, guest houses and small hotels. We can offer guidance on the development of your website and the integration of availability and booking systems.

Please contact us through Bed and Breakfasts Guide with any questions you have related to this article on 08700 434 810