Travelling has been made easier, making it a goal that anyone can achieve.
In today’s busy world, more people prefer to book tickets and shop for services and tours online. This is because it gives them time to read reviews, compare prices and browse overviews. The era we are living in allows people to finalize their plans immediately once a purchase decision has been made especially if they have access to an online payment option.
The Covid-19 vaccine rollout in different parts of the world has lead to an upward trend in travel activities. As a hotel, you need to tap into this trend to maximize your revenue. It is important for you to find booking and reservations software that works for your business and satisfies all your customers’ needs.
Pesapal has been working with hotels in East Africa for years to offer a comprehensive and customized booking and reservations tool for hotels. Here is what we advise for hotels eager to get more online bookings:
Most customers prefer surfing the internet for travel deals after working hours or during their lunch or tea breaks. Having a hotel booking engine that shows the availability and costs of rooms allows potential customers to make more concrete purchase considerations when they interact with your site. This allows you to by pass issues around time difference or after-hour/late browsers.
With the online payments service options, you a (enable your guests to pay quickly and conveniently). Online payment options in the tour sector include virtual card payments, card payments and mobile money(Mpesa, Airtel Money, Tigo Pesa & MTN). Ensuring that your booking portal offers all of these in a variety of currencies makes it easier for you to secure bookings. At Pesapal we provide over 6 payments option available in both local currencies and USD. We also settle all payments within 48 hours after the customer makes the booking allowing you to maintain cash flow.
The proper use of analytical findings is an essential part of any business strategy. With the help of these data, businesses can grow significantly. You will be able to clearly understand your market and various aspects of their personality. As a result you will custom make a clear marketing message that suits them in order to get the maximum conversion rates.
You give your customers all the information they need without having to make a call. This is mutually beneficial as the time that could have been spent in making and answering calls can now be used in something else to grow the business further.
Once you have been convinced that it is prudent to invest in one, below we discuss three important features it should possess.
You should aim to provide a platform that is user-friendly. Have in mind that your customer is not (always) tech-savvy. It should be straightforward such that they get exactly what they are looking for in the shortest time possible. A plus would be to make your app include a geolocation option to make bookings easy. At a glance, a client needs to be able to understand how the booking is done. A good example of a hotel that has a great booking platform is Enashipai, the flow is smooth and easy.
It should have few steps to select that are straightforward, these are the check-in and check-out dates, the section for the number of people planning to come and then finally the booking button.
This is a visual display of personal data associated with a specific user or a customized desktop environment. Individual account pages give access to the reservation history as well as enables customs settings, such as language and currency. You can gather statistics, offer a loyalty system, send the newsletter about the best deals or an upcoming event. It will also give you access to the social media logins that you could use to further your marketing campaign.
Nowadays online payments are considered the preferred method that is being used all over the globe. It is a convenient and safe way to book the rooms, services, tours and tickets directly through the website or application. Be sure to offer a secure payment service so as to help improve the business performance. Your website should enable payments of either the full amount or for the deposits. This will accommodate the people who really want to travel but have not managed to get the full amount of money required.
People are able to easily relate with things and places they can visualize. This is even more critical when it comes to the hospitality industry as someone will rarely spend money on something they have not looked at. The gallery should be used as an online portfolio where you store quality pictures of your hotel, rooms, restaurant and the various activities that one can take part in when they visit. Ensure that the pictures are professionally done so as to capture the target customer's eye.
A good reservation system should have a section where the reviews and testimonials of people who have used it are displayed. This is usually a way to convince other potential customers who might have been having doubts to join in as they get first-hand experiences from people who have already been there. Tripadvisor is an example of a reservation system that always provides room for reviews right down after the property has been listed.
It will pay to have a good booking system, in case you are looking for reliable software developers kindly contact [email protected] for more information on this.
