A property management system is at the core of your hotel tech stack and automates most administrative tasks within the hotel. It houses all of your reservations, guest profiles, billing information, room statuses, and more. Nearly all hotel departments use the PMS on a daily basis: front desk agents check in guests, housekeeping teams learn which rooms need to be cleaned, finance teams manage billing, leadership teams look at reporting and trends.  Booking is just the first element of a PMS but functionality should also include capabilities for hotel operations and guest experience management.

Without any booking engine or channel management capabilities, a PMS is only considered hotel booking software if we think about reservations booked manually by hotel staff. But most PMSs include modules for additional functions; some PMSs even include CRS, channel management, and booking engine functionality. If your hotel uses a PMS that connects directly to OTAs and has integrated an CRS, channel manager, and booking engine, that PMS might be the only system you need.  Sometimes when smaller properties like b&bs, inns, or hostels leverage an integrated PMS + Channel Manager + Booking Engine it's referred to as hotel management software (or hotel management system).

Want to learn more about Hotel PMS? Check out the Ultimate Guide to Property Management Systems

Here are the top 5 rated PMS vendors at the time of writing this article, but remember that there is no one-size fits all when it comes to buying hotel software and every hotel's needs are different.  Use our PMS finder quiz to get a personalized list of vendors best suited for your hotel's geography, property type and more based on data from more than 50,000 peer reviews.

It’s a good rule of thumb to diversify your mix of reservation channels, so most hotels don’t rely solely on OTA bookings. Large hotels and chain hotels often use central reservation systems (CRSs) to manage bookings made through their own reservations teams. CRSs allow various reservations agents to view real-time pricing (rates) and availability and create, edit, or cancel reservations in one centralized system.

A hotel wouldn’t use a central reservations system alone, though. The CRS would receive rates from a revenue management system, exchange availability data and reservation details with a property management system, and possibly also integrate with a channel manager to distribute inventory to third-party channels like OTAs or the GDS. CRSs deliver the most benefit to hotels with reservations teams or which are part of a brand or chain with off-site reservations offices.

Want to learn more about Hotel Central Reservations Systems? Check out the Ultimate Guide to Central Reservation Systems

Here are the top 3 rated CRS vendors at the time of writing this article, but remember that there is no one-size fits all when it comes to buying hotel software and every hotel's needs are different.  Use our CRS finder quiz to get a personalized list of vendors best suited for your hotel's geography, property type and more based on data from more than 50,000 peer reviews.

Besides booking through reservations staff, guests can also make reservations on hotels’ own websites - but in order for that to be possible, the hotel website needs a booking engine. Booking engines display real-time rates and availability, house the booking process and gathering of guest details, and integrate the confirmed reservations with the hotel’s property management system.

Some property management systems include integrated booking engines, and some hotel-specific website builders also come with booking engine capability. But even if your existing tech stack includes a built-in booking engine, it’s worth doing some extra research to find the most user-friendly booking engine. Glitches or slow loading speeds can make guests change their mind about booking at your hotel, and, on the flip side, a great booking engine with upselling and customization capabilities can increase your conversion rate and your RevPAR.

Want to learn more about Hotel Booking Engines? Check out the Ultimate Guide to Booking Engines

Here are the top 3 rated Booking Engine vendors at the time of writing this article, but remember that there is no one-size fits all when it comes to buying hotel software and every hotel's needs are different.  Use our Booking Engine finder quiz to get a personalized list of vendors best suited for your hotel's geography, property type and more based on data from more than 50,000 peer reviews.

Direct reservations - whether through a reservations agent or your hotel’s website - usually don’t lead to a full house every night. A savvy hotelier leverages third-party channels to maximize online exposure and develop varied segments of guests. In order to work with third-party channels most efficiently, hotels use channel management software.

Channel managers often support connections to hundreds of third-party sites that range from big OTAs (Booking.com and Expedia) to smaller niche sites (HostelWorld and Mr & Mrs Smith) and wholesalers (Hotelbeds). Manually updating rates and availability on hundreds of sites is impossible, so a channel manager makes it easy to keep all of your distribution channels accurate and up-to-date. Some property management systems include integrated channel management functionality; if not, be sure to choose a channel manager that supports integration with your PMS so reservations can sync seamlessly.

Want to learn more about Hotel Channel Managers? Check out the Ultimate Guide to Channel Managers

Here are the top 3 rated channel management vendors at the time of writing this article, but remember that there is no one-size fits all when it comes to buying hotel software and every hotel's needs are different.  Use our Channel manager finder quiz to get a personalized list of vendors best suited for your hotel's geography, property type and more based on data from more than 50,000 peer reviews.

Out of all those reservations booked online, many of them come through online travel agencies, or OTAs. You can think of these digital marketplaces as an Amazon for travel; travelers can use various criteria to search through available hotels, flights, rental cars, and more, then complete the booking process through that marketplace platform.

Popular OTAs include: Expedia, Booking.com, C-Trip, and TripAdvisor.

OTAs offer significant benefits to guests, such as loyalty programs, credibility, and the convenience of having all the available options at your fingertips. Guests complete their booking on the OTA and receive a confirmation from the OTA, at which point the OTA sends a notification to the hotel with the reservation details. Those reservation details integrate with the hotel’s property management system or travel to the property management system via a channel manager - more on that later!

For hoteliers, OTAs also deliver plenty of benefits. OTAs give hotels visibility among massive audiences (Booking.com receives well over 200 million monthly visits, for example) and access to marketing channels that would be cost-prohibitive if the hotel tried to get similar reach independently. Many hotels also experience the “billboard effect,” in which travelers find a hotel they like on an OTA, and then they search for that hotel’s direct website to complete their booking. However, all this marketing exposure comes at a cost; most OTAs charge commissions between 15% and 20% on each confirmed reservation.

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What else would you like to learn about hotel booking software? Let us know!