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Time for a New Booking Engine
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Talking about Increasing Your Web Exposure for Online Bookings
When it comes to your accommodation & lodging business, having the right exposure is key. You want to maximize your potential for online bookings from multiple channels. But, you don’t want to have all the work of managing your information and updating your calendars on all those channels, right?
This is the type of discussion we have every day with hotels, bed & breakfasts, and hostels of all sizes every day. So, what if you called and asked how we could expand your exposure and increase your business. Here’s a hypothetical answer about how the discussion might go:
It was very nice speaking with you this afternoon. We discussed 2 optional services that, based on our discussion, will work very well for your business. These services are:
1) IWB Channel Manager
2) IWB Booking Engine for your website
CHANNEL MANAGER
First, regarding IWB Channel Manager, you mentioned that it was your goal to (a) increase exposure of your property for bookings, and (b) have just one interface to deal with for calendars, billings, commissions, etc. IWB Channel Manager can meet these goals.
Here is our proposal for how it works:
You pay a monthly cost of $14 for the basic IWB Channel Manager membership. This offers connections to a variety of booking channels, e.g., Expedia.com and others. This service enables you to manage your calendar just once on our website, and it simultaneously updates all your 3rd party booking channels. This eliminates any time and effort having to maintain multiple calendars on multiple systems.
For a channel that you are already signed up with, e.g., Expedia, we offer an Expedia connection. And, within 24 hours you can begin using IWB Channel Manager, and updating your Expedia calendar from IWB. There are no other costs. Whatever you Expedia commission and arrangements are would continue as before.
We discussed connecting you to our excellent Reconline channel. This channel offers a simultaneous connection to about 120 IDS booking sites, plus the GDS. Premium IDS sites include premium channels such as Hotels.com, Hotwire, Orbitz, Travelocity, and many other similar sites. The GDS are the reservation systems used by over 300,000 travel agents to book their air, hotel and car reservations.
To get set up with Reconline, with simultaneous connections to all 120 IDS sites, plus the GDS, we will facilitate the application process for you. There is no cost for setup. There is a 17% commission for any bookings that originate from any of these sources. The billing and commission process is handled all centrally.
So, to summarize, IWB Channel Manager will connect your IWB calendar to your external channels, so you only have to maintain one calendar. The Reconline channel will publish your property on about 120 sites plus the GDS. The total cost will be only $14 per month for the membership, and 17% commission on any bookings from any Reconline channel. There are no other costs.
BOOKING ENGINE
The second service that we discussed is a new Booking Engine for your website. This service will enable customers to book reservations instantly on your website. And, it’s a natural complement to the Channel Manager, since bookings will be confirmed from the same calendar you’re already maintaining on our website. So, one source for all bookings and channels. And, our pricing options are very flexible.
We discussed a setup in which customers would pay a standard flat $25 deposit on each booking. Our cost for this booking engine would be $5 per reservation. There are no setup fees or other costs.
We offer alternative pricing methods, including a 35% deposit option, which would have a 5% commission cost. Or an 8% deposit option, which would have a 1.9% commission cost.
Alternatively, you can select a no-deposit option which would have a monthly fixed price of $28 (pricing available through November 2012).
GETTING STARTED
1) To get started with IWB Channel Manager, please log in to your profile at our website. Once logged in, proceed to the CHANNEL MANAGER page. Purchase your membership to get started.
2) Once you have purchased the membership, proceed to the Setup Interface. There you will select CHANNELS, and then the “Reconline” channel. Follow the instructions on your screen to request Reconline setup.
3) We will then send you the necessary Reconline application materials, and initiate the set up process.
4) For any other channels you want to setup, follow the instructions on the Setup Interface.
5) Before setting up and connecting any channels you will need to add your calendar of availability on IWB’s Calendar interface. Proceed to the CALENDAR page to do this. This will also need to be done before we can setup your Booking Engine for your website.
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BedandBreakfast.com, Rezovation, and Webervations Raise Prices
BedandBreakfast.com, Rezovation, and Webervations have raised prices again. Upon recently visiting their websites to update our analysis of comparative pricing, we discovered that another wave of price increases have been rolled out in the last 6 months. But don’t take our word for it, visit their websites for yourself.
BedandBreakfast.com for example now charges about $433 per year for a “Silver” membership. This is up about 8.5% from last year’s price. Apparently BedandBreakfast.com, which was bought up by a vacation site holding company called Homeaway in 2010, believes that their hold on the North American B&B industry demands more value. Their increase in pricing seems to ignore the fact that many specialty bed and breakfast directories (BedBreakfastTraveler.com included) still offer B&B memberships for free.
This is not to say that BedandBreakfast.com doesn’t offer value for their price. For example, the price you pay enables a B&B hotel to participate in BedandBreakfast.com’s online reservation system. This is a system that will charge a B&B an additional 25% commission (on top of the membership price) to publish their availability on the BedandBreakfast.com-owned sites, as well as Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, and a selection of others.
So, Bedandbreakfast.com does offer some value for B&B’s who absolutely want exposure to Expedia, Hotel.com, and other premium sites. But is 25% too high a price to pay (we didn’t mention that they charge 30% to some properties, depending on the specifics of their arrangement). Consider BedBreakfastTraveler.com’s new IWB Channel Manager service (presented by Instant World Booking). With a free membership at BedBreakfastTraveler.com, B&B’s have access to join IWB Channel Manager, which offers connections to Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Booking.com, Travelocity.com, and others for a total commission rate of only 18% (compare to BedandBreakfast.com’s 25% – 30% commission). Assuming an average reservation value of $200 and about 60 reservations per year (conservative assumptions), after considering all membership fees, commissions, etc., BedBreakfastTraveler.com comes in at savings of about 31% versus a BedandBreakfast.com Silver membership, or about $1,260 in the first year. Quite significant savings indeed.
What about Rezovation and Webervations? Well, Webervations have now increased their pricing for the smallest B&Bs by 11% – 18% over last year’s prices. This is really quite a substantial increase in a down economic cycle. But, let’s consider Rezovation, which now offers a more full service set of options. Prices for Rezovation GT Basic software increased between 20% – 33% in the range of property sizes between 1 and 19 rooms. A price increase of 33% represents an increase of a full third of last year’s cost. The Rezovation GT Online product, and online offering which starts at a higher price than Rezovation GT, now has prices between 13% – 20% higher than last year, also substantial increases.
Rezovation has a rather dominant market position, and perhaps their price increases reflect this. But, considering that a B&B with 5 rooms may now pay $90 per month for Rezovation GT Online (or a 15 room B&B $130 per month), is this still a positive value proposition. Sleek alternatives like IWBFrontDesk.com will cost only $16 per month for the same property ($28 for the 15 room property), a significant savings pocketed. But, what about Rezovation’s built in service suite, including a website Booking Engine. Well, BedBreakfastTraveler.com can bundle Booking Engine with IWBFrontDesk.com, essentially the same product set as Rezovation GT Online, and still save up to about 60% of the cost a user would pay for Rezovation GT Online (as much as $1,000 savings per year given the assumptions above, for a 15 room B&B).
When it comes to Channel Management, Rezovation offers connection to the GDS or BedandBreakfast.com’s third party website connections (like Expedia). The GDS connectivity will cost $649 just to get the process started, and then there are ongoing 15% commissions, $15.50 per reservation, and $250 per year after the first year. If this sounds expensive, it is. The connection to BedandBreakfast.com’s online reservations may be cheaper for some B&Bs. But, as mentioned above, with commissions of 25% – 30%, this is still quite an expensive undertaking. This is why BedBreakfastTraveler.com can bundle GDS connectivity, or connectivity to Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Booking.com, Travelocity.com (or about a hundred other choices), right into the IWBFrontDesk.com solution. So, an end to end solution including property management system, booking engine for your website, and channel management, can save you $1,000 or $2,000 every year versus Rezovation’s and BedandBreakfast.com’s new pricing.
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A Gift for New Year’s – IWB Channel Manager
We have a New Year’s gift for you. We now offer channel management to our members.
This means you only have to manage your calendar once, and you can update all your booking sites. The advantage is incredible time savings and convenience. Eliminate many hours of work each month in managing calendars on multiple websites.
Even more incredible are the savings. BedBreakfastTraveler.com (Instant World Booking) is well known for providing services at a cost much cheaper than the competition. For less than $ 14 per month, submit your calendar to dozens of booking sites. At a price this low, there’s nothing to lose. Try it today.
Want to learn more about getting started? It’s easy. Just log in to your profile at our website. Then proceed to the Channel Manager page.
Manage your calendar on B&B booking networks, and sites specializing in small hotels and inns. These sites are included in our base price. What about major sites like Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Priceline, and others? Yes, you can publish for bookings on these sites as well. In fact, Channel Manager enables you to submit your property and availability to more than 500 booking sites, including the Global Distribution System (GDS).
Don’t waste time with multiple calendars on multiple websites. Save money and get the exposure you really need. Log in at our website and sign up today.
To get started, simply log into your accommodation profile at our website. Then proceed to the Channel Manager page. If you’re not yet listed with HostelTraveler.com, list for free at:
Add your bed & breakfast for free
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