Online reservation systems (“Booking engines”) have existed since the first hotel websites existed. At first, these systems were reserved exclusively for larger hotels and chains with larger budgets for IT services. Today, when we look at the first booking engines, they look funny in design and concept – of course, just like Windows 3.1 looks funny compared to Windows 11 or the first smartphone interfaces compared to today. Looking at the prices, options and types of licenses (subscription or buying software in the old days) everything looks ridiculous.
Today, reservation systems are affordable, there are a large number of them on the market, but some are still in trend today in terms of design and capabilities, and some unfortunately still remain at the level of Windows 95.
Certainly the prices are more affordable today, but what can encourage people to make a decision is how oriented the reservation system is to conversions, modern design, ease of use, functionalities that the user is looking for.
They all brag about design, functionality, and possibilities. Of course it is important, but what is even more important?
Achieving reservations (conversions) is the ultimate goal, and to achieve this the guest must be motivated by the “experience” of the hotel sold by the booking engine – which is influenced by the hotel offer, prices, included services, website/booking engine design and many other factors.
But it also has to create “trust”. Trust that he will not be cheated, that his credit card will be charged safely and that what he is booking has a clear policy on what he gets, what are the terms of guarantee, cancellation and similar.
This trust should be built with a good presentation on booking enginue, an attractive offer and transparent information.
But one seemingly small thing can be crucial. Almost all reservation systems function on separate domains (domain owned by the owner of the booking engine). They eventually allow subdomains like booking.myhotel.com to redirect to their booking interface page.
Just leaving the hotel’s main website is already a small loss of trust despite clearly stating that it is the official booking channel.
Do you think that a guest will see that booking engine by searching on Google for the term “Book Now Hotel Name” (try it)? Most likely not, but yes, do you think that such a link is attractive for a potential guest to visit it? There are hundreds of websites that offer to book your hotel, and they basically work as intermediaries for Booking.com and other systems.
Furthermore, if the hotel’s website is attractive, why can’t the reservation system be part of that page – the guest stays on it, has complete brand awareness of the main page and feels the greatest trust there?
This is possible only with reservation systems that follow technologies and create a booking experience ahead of time. That’s why we consider that all reservation systems on other people’s domains or subdomains are outdated.
One of such reservation systems is the WebBookingPro Booking Engine , which is integrated into any web page in a few lines (a few minutes) and dynamically loaded every time the booking engine page is opened (do not use IFRAME). With such an integration method, in addition to downloading the header, footer, background of the website, it is also possible to completely customize every detail of the font type, color and button design with simple CSS tricks.
And when that trust is at the top, when everything is beautifully and transparently presented, and when the reservation process is a maximum of 2 steps, the guest decides to complete the reservation.
How does it look in practice? Check out some of the following examples:
https://www.lyraplitvice.com/en/Book-now/
https://www.villa-magdalena.net/online-rezervacija/
https://mamica.com.hr/book-now/
https:// hotelpaxsplit.com/en/book-now/
https://www.hotelmarinus.com/hr/rezerviraj/
https://palacesuites-split.com/book-online/
https://www.hotel-calypso.hr/ index.php/book-now
WebBookingPro Booking Engine achieves more conversions compared to similar systems because, in addition to trust in the hotel brand, it also has certain tricks to encourage and motivate guests to hurry up with reservations at certain times. All this was created through years of working in hotels. Of course, the integrated Revenue Manager is also important for the overall result, which can dynamically correct daily prices in real time and according to certain criteria, as well as triggers. And of course every serious hotel today wants to be visible on Google with its direct price when searching for accommodation – this is provided by most serious booking engines today, but WebBookingPro includes it completely free of charge and without additional commissions per reservation.
If you are thinking about switching from another existing solution, contact us for a presentation – every transition is painless with our help.
