Hotel Booking System Results - Now In!

On Monday April 13th, I posted an article titled, “A New Dawn?” which mentioned my customer research involving fifty owners and GMs of small to medium sized hotels, motels and guest houses. Since I posted the article, a further ten people have come forward offering their thoughts and expertise, which has boosted the validity of my data immensely.

Thank you very much to those of you who took part; your participation was invaluable.

I am pleased to announce that the data has now been collected and analyzed and the results will be published here over the following days and weeks.

I will start today by offering you the top ten requirements of hotel, motel and guest house owners when looking for a hotel booking system:

1) Accessibility
2) Ease of use – Intuitive flow through
3) Customer support – 24 hours
4) Software customization and upgrades – Regular upgrades and ad-hoc customization upon demand
5) Required functionality
6) Value for money
7) Positive company reputation
8) Real time updates on internet availability searches
9) Recommendations from previous buyers – Reliable and trustworthy sources
10) Company longevity – One or two years just isn’t enough

As I predicted, ‘software customization and upgrades’ is close to the top of the list. However, I have rarely met a hotel owner that hasn’t wanted to customize their software in some way, shape, or form, so I am surprised that this was not in the top three.

I am positive that number eight, ‘real time updates on internet availability searches’ would not have appeared in the top ten a year a go, which proves that the need for software developers to be constantly evolving their hotel booking systems is vital.

I have A LOT more data and information to bombard you with over the coming months, and hope that it is useful for both developers and hotel owners searching for the perfect system.

Thanks again for reading,

Emma

I am still on a search for the best hotel booking system for small to medium sized hotels. If you know of hotel booking software that can beat HotelSystems.co.uk for ease of use and functionality then please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk

A New Dawn?

I’d like to start by acknowledging the increasing stream of emails I have received over the past two months requesting advice on ‘what clients want’ from their hotel booking systems. Thank you very much for your thoughts and comments; your emails have not gone unnoticed! As I type, a further wash of emails are flooding my inbox; emails from the exact clients you have spoken of; hotel, motel, and guest house owners.

I have contacted fifty previous customers, friends, peers, and acquaintances to gather the exact information software developers are looking for, and 75% have been returned already; within three days… I’m both amazed and grateful.

I am filled with a sense of optimism at the thought that system developers actually want to know what their buyers want and need. I have seen too many badly developed systems over the last three years and although I have seen a steady improvement (not usually from the industry leaders) I am ecstatic that this might be about to change.

If you are a hotel, motel, or guest house owner and would like to participate in this survey, please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk for further information. Thank you.

In my opinion, the option of customizing the system and upgrading regularly is of optimum importance. I’ll be interested to see whether the information I collect from these surveys will correlate with my beliefs.

I would also like to acknowledge the other end of the spectrum. A steady backlog of emails from hotel and motel owners / managers is building up. Emails requesting further information about what they should be looking for and where to find the best systems on the market. If I am yet to reply, please accept my apologies; I will be replying to everyone this week and plan to offer the same advice within this blog at a later date.

Thanks again for reading,

Emma

I am still on a search for the best hotel booking system for small to medium sized hotels. If you know of hotel booking software that can beat HotelSystems.co.uk for ease of use and functionality then please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk

Hotel Booking System Review

A few weeks a go I posted a shout out to Ed Sansbury who is in the process of developing a cutting edge hotel booking system. I have had the privilege of viewing his software during its infancy (I believe it to be less that fifty per cent complete) and am impressed with the options section, which has clearly marked tabs allowing users to customize the system for their own requirements.

At this early stage, my feedback to Ed included improvements in integration to enhance the logical system flow. These improvements included naming conventions, a call to action, booking reference customization, an enhanced pricing system, and free fields for tax.

I am very much looking forward to seeing the finished version of this hotel booking software and am confident that Ed is capable of developing this system to a highly competitive level.


Despite the fact that the system is less than fifty per cent complete, I would rate the software with a 4 out of 10, with a potential for 8 or more in the future.

Good luck with the continued development, Ed!

On a related topic, I spoke with Tristan from http://www.hotelsystems.co.uk/ today and was very excited by news of his latest booking software upgrades, due for release shortly. I'll be taking a look over the next couple of days and will post information about his updates here. So, watch this space!