What is a channel manager, and does a small hotel need one?

You list a room on a travel website. A week later you list the same room on a second site, and a third. Then a guest books the last room on one site while another guest books it on a different site, at the same time. Two guests arrive for one room. This is the problem a channel manager is meant to solve.

A channel manager is a service that sits between your hotel and the travel websites you sell on. Each website is a "channel". The channel manager keeps them all in step with your real rooms, so that when a room is sold in one place it closes in the others.

What a channel manager does

• Sends your availability out. When your rooms change, whether because a guest booked at the desk, a room went out of service, or a guest left early, it updates every site.

• Sends your prices out. You set the rate once, and it goes to each site.

• Brings bookings back in. When a guest books on a travel site, the booking arrives in your reservations, so the front desk sees it with the rest.

• Handles changes and cancellations. When a guest changes dates or cancels, your room is freed.

What it does not do

• It does not get you more guests by itself. It sends your rooms to more places. You still need good pictures, good reviews and a fair price.

• It does not take away commission. The travel sites still charge you for their bookings. For ways to book more guests directly, read how to cut booking site commission without losing guests.

• It does not fix an overbooking that already happened. When two guests have booked the last room, someone has to find one of them another room.

Does a small hotel need one?

Ask yourself four questions:

1. How many places do you sell rooms? If you use one booking site and your own phone, a channel manager adds little. If you use three or more sites, the risk of a double booking grows quickly.

2. How many rooms do you have? With fewer than ten rooms, you can often close a room by hand on each site. With thirty, you cannot.

3. How many bookings come from travel sites? If a few come each week, doing it manually is possible. If it is most of your bookings, you will want automation.

4. How much does an overbooking cost you? A guest sent to another hotel costs you the room, the guest's goodwill and sometimes a bad review.

If you answered "many sites, many rooms, many bookings", you probably need one. If not, wait.

A simple example

You have 12 rooms and sell on two travel sites as well as by phone. On Friday afternoon your last double room is sold on the first site. Without a channel manager, the second site still shows it as free until someone remembers to close it by hand. If a guest books it there an hour later, you now have two guests and one room.

With a channel manager, the sale on the first site closes the room on the second within moments, and the booking lands in your reservations so the front desk sees it. The room is not offered twice, and nobody on your staff had to remember anything. That is all it is: a way of making one room stay one room, across many shop windows.

What to check before you buy

• Which sites does it connect to? Make sure it connects to the ones you actually use.

• Does it connect to your reservation system? A channel manager that does not talk to your front desk system leaves you typing bookings by hand.

• How fast does it update? Ask how long it takes for a closed room to close everywhere.

• What happens to a booking when the connection fails? A good one tries again and tells you.

• How is it priced? Some charge a monthly fee, some a share of each booking.

• Who do you call? You need support that answers during your busy hours.

Where Xenia stands

We prefer to be plain about this: Xenia does not connect to travel sites today. A hotel can take bookings on its own website with live availability and a deposit paid online, see how the front desk handles reservations. But it does not yet send rooms to, or take bookings from, other booking sites. If that changes, the changelog will say so.

Until then, if you sell on several travel sites, choose a channel manager that connects to the systems you use, and be sure your front desk records every reservation in one place. A booking that lives only on a travel site's screen is a booking you can lose.