This is a rather fundamental question for any hotel or chain. Have you ever truly asked the question? Do you even know the answer? I will make a general assumption here that most hotels chose the booking engine they use primarily on the fees charged by the booking engine provider. That certainly needs to be considered but there are so many other factors that go into that decision.

There is no shortage of booking engine providers available today. When we deployed our first engine back in 2000 I actually had hoteliers tell me, “The Internet is a fad” or “Our guest’s like to call. They won’t book a room online.” How times have changed. Having a booking engine on your hotel web site is SOP these days. Having the right one or using your current one to it’s fullest is more about proper execution than expectation.

First I would like to make a suggestion and offer up a more encompassing term to the online application so many call, a “booking engine”. I really see it as a conversion engine. A conversion engine should in theory do more than just put heads in ...