It's pretty tough for any hotel to succeed without a connection to third party distributors and we're not just talking about Booking and Expedia. There are literally thousands of distributors from major players like Hotels.com to niche local OTAs that your hotel has to connect to. A channel manager makes it easy to distribute rates and availability to these channels, avoid overbookings and secure critical business during need periods.
That's why we by surveyed 4248 hoteliers across 132 countries to create this in-depth guide and help you find the best fit channel manager for your business. Inside you’ll find everything you need to know including product rankings, feature comparisons, price benchmarking, integration interoperability and more.
Hotel Channel Manager Shortlist
Here are 10 of top Hotel Channel Manager that are covered in this in-depth guide:
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100 Ht Score
2023 WINNER
This product is trending
98 Ht Score
2023 FINALIST
This product is trending
92 Ht Score
This product is trending
91 Ht Score
2023 FINALIST
83 Ht Score
79 Ht Score
79 Ht Score
75 Ht Score
70 Ht Score
unranked
100 Ht Score
2023 WINNER
Cloudbeds’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
93 Ht Score
ThinkReservations’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
100 Ht Score
2023 WINNER
Cloudbeds’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
96 Ht Score
2023 FINALIST
RoomRaccoon’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
90 Ht Score
innRoad’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
vioma GmbH’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
BookLogic’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
Busy Rooms’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
83 Ht Score
eviivo’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
DIRS21 by Tour Online AG’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
HotelPartner Revenue Management’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
CodeBranch’s Channel Managers product suite also includes:
A hotel channel manager is a technology that allows hotels to expand reach and visibility online by listing across multiple hotel booking sites, as well as more easily manage its rates, availability, and reservations. With a channel manager, hotels can access hundreds of online distribution channels and connect to as many as they like at the same time. Hotels can list all of their rooms and availability on all online channels from OTAs (online travel agencies) like Expedia and Booking.com, GDS and even vacation rental booking channels like AirBnB and Homeaway. A channel manager will update these automatically and in real-time when a booking is made, thanks to a pooled inventory model. This allows the hotel to maximize occupancy and reservations with minimal risk of being overbooked. Channel managers have an indirect benefit of helping you improve metasearch ad performance (e.g. TripAdvisor) by ensuring that you can spend on advertising without double booking across channels.
A good hotel channel manager is one that helps hoteliers optimize their distribution strategy and maximize profitability. It should be user-friendly and have advanced functionality such as real-time inventory management, two-way integrations with online distribution channels like OTAs, GDS, and metasearch sites, as well as a CRS, PMS, and booking engine. A good hotel channel manager must have rate parity across all booking channels, ensure a pooled inventory model, and prevent double bookings and overbooking. It should support various room types and manage cancellations and check-ins. Additionally, it should have a strong support team to help with any issues or updates, and offer partnerships with providers like Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, and VRBO. A good hotel channel manager must also provide revenue management tools, help increase direct bookings, and offer a mobile app to update rates and check occupancy in real-time. Cloudbeds, Siteminder, and Rategain are some examples of hotel channel management software. The best channel manager for a hotel depends on its needs, but it should ultimately improve the guest experience, increase online sales, and connect to multiple sales channels.
For channel manager and property management system integration, a fee of $199 is incurred during setup. Monthly fees can be as low as $59 for small properties (1-5 rooms). Prices then rise as room numbers increase. The maximum price is $669 per month for a property of 751+ rooms. Popular channel managers like SiteMinder and myallocator (Cloudbeds) start around $75 per month and are extremely affordable. Channel management providers often bundle services like a booking engine or hotel website which can increase cost.
Most channel managers can be quickly integrated in 1-2 weeks. There are five key steps to run through on the path to beginning a channel manager demo account. These include an introduction, group training, setup, private follow-up, and set live. Demo account trials typically last about 2-weeks where the hotelier can test out the full feature set and upon completion can immediately activate their subscription or choose not to invest at no further cost.
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