9 key things to look for in your Booking Engine provider

The right partner will support your brand promotions, cost meaningfully less than third party online channels that most hotels wish to reduce dependence on, and help build the lifetime value and loyalty of guests who return to book with you directly.

With the market as crowded and feature-rich as it is, shortlisting providers can feel like a genuinely tedious task.

Here are nine things worth putting on your criteria when evaluating a digital and booking engine partner:

1. Mobile Friendliness

Most of your guests are booking from a phone now, and that share only keeps climbing. Your hotel booking engine needs to be just as easy to navigate on a handset as it is on a laptop or tablet, not a scaled-down afterthought, but a properly considered mobile experience in its own right.

2. Book Direct Benefits 

Does the booking engine on your hotel website actively promote exclusive book-direct benefits? These should sit below what online travel agents offer, giving visitors a clear, tangible reason to complete their booking with you rather than through a third party.

3. Gift Vouchers

Hotel gift vouchers have become a popular choice for friends and family alike. Your IBE should support them natively, with flexible delivery options that make gifting simple for the purchaser whether that's an instant email delivery or a physical voucher sent by post.

4. Open Booking Panel

An open booking panel consistently converts better than a closed one, with the difference running as high as 25 to 30%. The panel on your homepage should carry pre-filled dates and straightforward search options, so visitors can move from browsing to checking availability without an extra click. If you want a fuller breakdown of what separates a strong booking panel from a weak one, our guide to choosing a hotel booking engine is a good place to start.

5. Innovation

Technology never stands still, and your booking engine provider shouldn't either. You need a partner who is consistently pushing the platform forward by testing, iterating, and preparing both the product and you for where the market is heading next, rather than maintaining a static tool.

6. Reporting

Good decisions depend on good reporting. At Aró Digital Strategy, we build our clients' reporting to be genuinely forward-looking, not just a record of what happened, but a set of extensive suggestions and solutions aimed at driving higher direct revenue.

7. Guest Relationships

Capturing trends and data on your current guests should be a continuous, integrated part of your booking engine. With the Aró Booking Engine, for example, you can capture guest email data and use it to run pre-arrival and post-departure offers, building long-term relationships rather than one-off transactions.

8. A Complete Package

A provider that delivers strong direct revenue results is valuable. One who can also run your digital marketing and website design is worth even more. Consolidating these services with a single partner ensures your digital strategy stays properly aligned and you're working with a team that understands, and is responsible for, the full pictures.

9. A Partnership, Not a Contract

Your digital provider should behave like a partner invested in your growth, not a vendor working through a contract. They should be willing to push you toward higher direct revenue and offer genuine suggestions for improving performance, not simply maintain the status quo. At Aró Digital Strategy, we're committed to a '5-star by every measure' standard of service for every client we work with.

To learn more about how the Aró Booking Engine can support your direct booking strategy, please feel free to get in touch with our team.