Are you using a channel manager? An explanation and the advantages

All the different sales channels that exist today offer a solution for your B&B but are at the same time a curse. How do you still have time for guests after managing all these channels? A channel manager offers a solution. With a channel manager you can easily manage all your reservations from different platforms in 1 place. Meet the channel manager and the benefits!

Nowadays it is necessary to have your B&B on multiple channels such as Booking.com, Airbnb and Bedandbreakfast.eu because otherwise the rooms cannot be rented out enough. But where does every B&B owner get the time to keep all his calendars up-to-date everywhere? For most people, having a B&B sounds like music to the ears, but one often doesn't think about it is the administrative hassle that it can entail.

To start with which channels you don't have to keep track of as a B&B. At most B & B's we see that reservations for 60-80% come in through Booking.com. With smaller B & B's, Booking.com is simply an important platform to be found. In addition to having an account on Booking.com, people are increasingly expected to have an account on Airbnb. Don't forget your own B&B website. Guests are increasingly looking for a B&B' own website after they have found it on an online platform. Guests do this to find more information about the accommodation, but also to see if the price is perhaps lower on their own website so that they can book directly at the B&B. All these accounts ensure a greater online presence for your B&B, but as an owner you must also ensure that these accounts all contain the correct information. This can be about new photos, adjusted room information, or contact information, but the most important thing is to keep the availability calendar up-to-date. A channel manager offers a solution!

So what is a channel manager?

The term "channel manager" literally means that it is a system that manages your channels. A channel manager actually just stands for a system that ensures that all your different accounts are connected centrally so that these channels can also be managed centrally. Calendars are automatically synchronized by the system. For example, from now on Booking.com immediately knows that no room will be available for next weekend because a reservation has just arrived through Airbnb. And that without you noticing! The advantage of this is of course that you no longer have to manually block all accounts days in the availability calendar when a new reservation comes in, or vice versa if a reservation is canceled. This saves you time so that you can spend time on the really important things; your guests.

Different connections

There are different types of links in 'channel manager country'. There are XML connections, and iCal connections. With an XML connection (a direct or instant connection), the channel manager and the channel (for example, booking.com) communicate with each other constantly and thus, changes are synched instantly. This way the channel manager's system immediately knows when a new booking has arrived on the channel with that type of connection. There are also iCal connection. With an iCal connection, the channel manager and the channel do not constantly communicate with each other. Instead, they send an update every 6 hours. The disadvantage with an iCal connection is therefore that a double booking can take place within the 6 hours that no communication takes place. It is possible to manually synchronize the iCal connection, although that's usually not why people get a channel manager.

So what are the advantages?

I will tell you, below you will find a list of the 5 most important benefits of using a channel manager.

- It will save you loads of time

This is clear: You will never have to manually update the availability calendar on different accounts again. This is already the biggest advantage for most B&Bs. You can connect up to 94 channels with the Hotelrunner channel manager. You can find the full list in our article 'From which channels can I choose? The complete list'.

- It will increase your revenue

In addition to a considerable time saving and a headache reduction, a channel manager ensures that your B&B can generate much more revenue! Just think how many guests would rather look for another accommodation if they see that they have to submit a reservation request to you. Guests often consider whether they want to wait for an answer or whether they can make a reservation somewhere else immediately. It's not hard to guess what most guests choose ..

- It will boost your rank in search results

Channels such as Airbnb use a special algorithm that causes accommodations where guests can make direct reservations end up higher in the search results. Turning on this feature called 'direct reservations' on Airbnb also makes a difference in answering the reservation requests for example. You can stop worrying answering the reservation requests in time, because if you don't you pay Airbnb a fee, but that's all history with a channel manager.

- It makes it easier to automate

On your channel manager you can set that guests receive an instant confirmation email once they have booked. You can write this confirmation email in advance in a template, and then decide when the guests receive this email. The reservation is often called the 'trigger'. The time you choose is always for after the trigger. You can usually choose between; immediately, after 1 hour, after 1 day, etc. You can also set other trigger's. For example if someone cancels or if someone has checked out. For example, one day after the guest has checked out, you can automatically send an email with the request to write a review.

- It decreases your costs

If you have an account for your B&B on bedandbreakfast.eu then you can switch from a paid account to a free account. This saves you the subscription costs of € 175, - ex VAT per year. Instead, guests can book directly at your B&B on bedandbreakfast.eu for a 10% commission per booking.

And if you, as a B&B owner now starts thinking 'this makes no sense to me because I want to screen guests first' then I can tell you now that there are plenty of options for this too! For example, read our article 'Direct reservations without manual screening' to find out more about this.

After reading all of the above you should have only one important question remaining; HOW DO I PAIR MY CHANNELS TO A CHANNEL MANAGER?

In many cases this works as follows:

You first select a channel manager. Here's how to create an account with this channel manager, and you start linking your calendars on booking.com. For this you need to transfer the availability calendar from booking.com to your new channel manager. To do this you must first create all rooms on the channel manager. Then make sure you block all reserved days of the channel in the calendar of the relevant room in your channel manager. After this you check if all prices are correct in your channel manager. It is important that this information is correct because after the link you can no longer change things in booking.com! You do not want bank transfers, so take your time. Is everything okay? Now it's time to start the pairing. This is different for each channel manager, but you always activate the link in the channel manager itself AND in the channel you want to link. In the channel manager you select which rooms belong to which calendars of the relevant channel. Often the link is made in this way, but sometimes activation can take a few days, so keep this in mind. Activated? Check whether all your reservations are now visible in your channel manager. If so, then you did well!

Some links require that you enter a code, or "key" of the channel into the channel manager. You can often find this in your account under 'synchronization availability calendar' or 'channel manager'.

Do you want to know which channel managers there are? Then check out our article about 'The top 10 best and worst channel managers'. Or are you already using a channel manager such as Hotelrunner? Then check our 'Hotelrunner usersmanual'.

As mentioned, having a channel manager can be a solution. Decide for yourself and let us know what you think or what your experiences are with channel managers. Or do you have any questions? Send us a message at info@bedbug-it.nl. Are you interested in linking your channels via a channel manager? We have a lot of experience with this and we can completely take this out of your hands. Then please contact us via info@bedbug-it.nl or call 06-50743731